Being Embraced by His love THE FIR S T P R O F E S S I O N O F BR. ANGELUS ATKINSON, OSB What first attracted you to monastic life? I grew up on a 20 mile long island in Canada, a hundred yards from a small harbor. My brothers and sister and I would run out there practically every day to climb on rotted out docks and boats, collect shells, or just watch the tide. I remember being fascinated by the horizon where the ocean and the sky met and wanting, somehow, to belong to this endless blue expanse. At some point someone told me about these people called monks whose entire life was taken up by God. This was before I ever visited a monastery but I was immediately attracted because I recognized that their lives were determined by the same desire I experienced looking out onto the ocean horizon: to go out into and belong entirely to the Infinite. This has never left me.
What, in your past, prepared you for the monastic life? I met a group of friends in college who lived Christianity differently from me. The difference I saw was their freedom in front of the same problems and circumstances I had. They were not afraid to take seriously all the questions and desires that life provoked in them, and to live these things together. So I began following this friendship in and beyond college and began seeing over the course of years that the more I follow what changes me the more I became free. Now I would describe this experience as stability, obedience, and conversatio morum.
What has surprised you since you entered the postulancy? The faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Every day without exception. No matter what is happening, no matter how many times I betray myself and forget what I really desire, he invites me to turn to him and beg, incline the ear of my heart, and ask again to see his face. It has been as simple as a line of the psalms in the Hours, a conversation with my superior, seeing the face of a brother in the hallway in silence on his way to prayers, remembering the gaze of a friend, or a Scripture passage during lectio divina. Whatever the means he uses (and this is a constant surprise too, God’s creativity – he can use the most humble and surprising means) my heart is reawakened and I am returned to myself. 14
Kansas Monks
