His Embrace

Being Embraced by His love

THE FIRST PROFESSION OF 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.

Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is the advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. - rule of st. benedict, prologue:1

What are some of your hopes or aspirations for your future as a monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey?

Before I began the journey which led me here I would have had a long list of hopes and aspirations – careers and plans, etc. Every now and then they might pop up but they don’t have the same urgency and seem much less interesting than what is becoming for me something more and more simple. My only hope is to be embraced by his love tomorrow as I have been today, and to be faithful to his presence, through whatever circumstances he gives to us. Perhaps that will involve this or that project but what is important for me is recognizing Who gives this to me and then simply responding. To put it another way, I want to give myself for the human glory of Jesus of Nazareth in this place. I heard of a monk who said on the day of his solemn profession: “I want to give myself as fertilizer for this community.” I hope Christ grows in me a heart that can say this every day.

Could you offer some advice or lessons that you have learned during your monastic formation?

What made a crucial shift in my own prayer life before coming to the Abbey was living a simple rule of life which included doing at least ten minutes of silence every day. This was proposed to me not as a program of self-perfection or self-improvement but as a way of being in front of God, of begging. Five of those ten minutes are spent on the knees. Since coming here the beauty and necessity of living a rule of life as a constant asking for His presence has only grown.

A lesson that Fr. Jay, my Novice Master, really helped us experience is that it’s important to accept the difficulties that surface in silence. They are given to help us recognize one thing: our need. So even these become a moment to beg, to recognize Who gives me life, to ask for his life today, for the help to be true today. I think one of the most noble figures in the scriptures is the blind man Bartimeus because he has no pretensions but simply knows the truth of his own humanity (being a beggar) and what he desires (“Lord, that I may see.”). Prayer is desire. Augustine tells us, that when Paul tells us to “Pray without ceasing” he means “Desire unceasingly that life of happiness which is nothing if not eternal, and ask it of him who alone is able to give it.” We can can never separate prayer and silence from life. Rather it is a moment of greater awareness of the truth of all of our day, all of our life.

BR. ANGELUS ATKINSON, OSB

Parents: Joseph and Nancy Atkinson Hometown: Rockville, Maryland College Major: English Literature, with a minor in Latin Favorite Saint: Mary Favorite Devotion: the Angelus Favorite Book: The Religious Sense by Fr.

Luigi Giussani Reading Now: Czeslaw Milosz’s Collected

Poems Favorite Movie: Tree of Life - Terrence Malick Favorite Food: What’s for lunch Favorite Childhood Toy: Legos Favorite Place: Here Favorite Cereal: Mum’s homemade granola (AKA “Mummy Cereal”) Best job I ever had: Teaching middle and high school Latin Worst job I ever had: Not “worst” but most difficult- first year of teaching You didn’t know: My first visit to the Abbey was a stop on a 4,125 mile motorcycle trip around the eastern half of the U.S.A. Best advice I’ve ever received: Never stop verifying.