WELCOME
Welcome Back,
Father Matthew!
Fifty-one years ago, Kenny Leavy, a first-year student fresh from St. John’s University, solemnly knelt on the tile floor of Priory’s original, and much smaller, chapel. There, entered the order, left “Kenny” behind and became Brother Matthew.
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Father Matthew as he appeared in a 1970 Priory yearbook.
by Amy Payne his January, he shared the story of that sacred moment in Tuesday chapel. How a young student monk, Father Maurus, had met him at St. John’s in Minnesota and “stole” him away to visit Priory, aware that Kenny had decided early into his freshman year to join the Benedictine community. How, at the figurative end of both that drive to Portola Valley and the aisle of the chapel, he learned that his new name would be Matthew, a name he loves for it’s Biblical connection to the act of leaving all behind to follow Jesus for a discipled future of evangelism. And how, as part of the ceremony, the Prior took a large pair of scissors and clipped away five dramatic chunks of his hair, one for each wound of Jesus, which Father Matthew explained could also represent the five Benedictine Values that forevermore have guided his life. What makes this story especially meaningful is that this year, after 42 years away, Father Matthew returned to Priory to reside with Father Maurus and Father Martin in the monastery. Traveling in such fine company, he has climbed into the community’s heart as beloved monk and general doer of good. Father Matthew is a constant and varied presence around campus. He can be found delivering a homily in Tuesday Chapel, assisting an after-school woodworking class, delivering home-baked bread to the faculty lounge, teaching what it means to be human in an English class, participating in the “Focus of Care” cancer program in Biology, delivering
wine to benefactors, running the Hungarian community’s confirmation program, overseeing occasional middle-schoolers restore themselves through detention, joining Priory retreats, helping spruce up the monastery with his own personal eye for detail (see the new overhead lighting!), and serving in whatever capacity supports the dynamic team of Fathers Maurus and Martin. If one were to follow him up and down the hills and stairs of campus, it would become wonderfully clear that Father Matthew is already firmly in step with the entire Priory community. His Roots Kenny Leavy was born in the Bronx, a place of hot summer nights spent on the stoop, fire escape, or rooftop, walks taken in the middle of the street for safety after dark, love of the Yankees and a cold Pepsi. As a child, he lost his father at age eight to cancer, and later his mother to the same illness. Perhaps his strong family ties with his extended family, many living on Long Island, are part of what makes it so easy to be in community with Father Matthew. They played a role in raising him, and in a 2011 interview at St. Anselm, he said, “Along with my parents, they taught me the values of hard work, family connections, fidelity and perseverance in times of hardship, and being there for others in times of need.” They also showed him what faith was; it was his aunt who gave him his first missal. “Little did she know,” he said, “where that purchase was to lead.”
