Father Matthew Leavy O.S.B

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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Tby 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 Father Matthew as he appeared in Maurus and Father Martin in the monastery. a 1970 Priory yearbook. 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.”

In 1973 Father Matthew took his solemn vows in the original Priory chapel.

Father Matthew is surrounded by Senior students during their Spirit Day.

Though he grew up thinking he’d follow his father’s career as an auto mechanic or work for New York Bell Telephone, where he worked at 16, he learned tuition was affordable at St. John’s, and with that decision and a rejection reversed by a monk who read his appeal letter, Father Matthew’s road to becoming a Benedictine was fi rmly in place.

First Time In Portola Valley

He arrived in California during a tumultuous time for both the country and the church. It was a time of restlessness and Vatican II, but he decided his best path was to assimilate into Priory’s Hungarian world by studying the language, going to Rome, and from there, with a Italian Visa, into Hungary where he met and developed deep ties with his fellow Benedictines and Father Maurus’ family. Father Matthew fell in love with the people he met there and the Hungarian part of Priory. Over time, he felt he became a “Hungarian Benedictine located in California.” During the nine years he spent at Priory, he also furthered his education, at St. Mary’s, Santa Clara, and St. Alberts Dominican College in Oakland. He earned his Masters in Divinity and then a PhD that combined spirituality, psychology, theology and philosophy. This degree “opened me up” he says, and brought him to St. Anselm where he taught, among other things, psychology. When he became the Abbot at St. Anselm, serving in that capacity for 26 years, he still visited Priory for trustee meetings, to negotiate land sales, etc. His link, though infrequent, remained intact.

Now

In August, St. Anselm sent Father Matthew to live at Priory and participate in the life of the school once again. He fi nds it a blessed gift to be among the Priory students, faculty, and staff, and seeks to further cultivate the Benedictine culture that exists at the Priory. It has made these past six months a rich experience. In his fi rst Mass of the school year, he shared that he has recently taken the journey of cancer, a sharing that opened others up to him in unexpected and lovely ways. It’s a “different kind of ministry,” he says, that has drawn him further into both spiritual counseling and research on nutrition for treatment and prevention. In addition to his happiness at reconnecting so closely with the Priory community, Father Matthew is quick to comment on the environment. It’s clear, he says, “we’re all working for the same goal” and points to the Christmas faculty/staff lunch as an example. As he walked around the dining hall, he recalls how the “harmony, love, and respect everyone had for one another” was palpable. “It’s unusual,” he says, and that meal, though “a simple celebration,” was “an icon of how we operate here.” Father Matthew, it’s clear, operates exactly the same way.

The current monastic community at Priory consisting of Father Maurus, Father Martin and the newest (returning) member, Father Matthew.