Above the entrance to the monastery at Conception Abbey is an image in stone of the Jubilee Medal of St. Benedict. At the top center of the stone is the single Latin word pax, peace. The same word, in stained glass, is seen above the center doors of the abbey church as one leaves. In the first instance, the word welcomes all guests with a pledge of what is to be found within and in the second speaks a blessing to be taken to the world beyond.
A deep personal sense of the promise and of the reality of peace drew me to become a member of Conception Abbey during the early 1960s. It was that peace, shared by so many over the years, that was terribly shaken by gunshots and injury and death on June 10, and it is the Conception community’s embrace of peace that has even now begun to heal the pain of that event and to bring the community to new life.
I knew three of the four monks shot on that Monday morning. Two of them–Father Philip Schuster, who was killed, and Father Norbert Schappler, who was seriously injured–I knew well. So the shootings at Conception have touched me on the two levels of persons and place, calling up memories of a past still profoundly present.
My junior year in high school at Conception in 1955 was my first time away from home, my first time among a community more diverse than the one in which I had grown up, and the first time that I remember clearly being introduced to ideas and ideals that have since grounded my spirituality and my life. When I subsequently returned to enter the monastery in 1959, those initial encounters were deepened by the personal friendships and examples among the monks who were scholars, artists, musicians, liturgists and craftsmen committed to monastic life within the 1,500-year tradition of Benedictines in the church. The mingling of my life with theirs during those years made for me what Conception has remained–a sacred place, a center of grace and peace at the very core of my own life.
Father Philip was cleric master during my years at Conception, responsible for the formation and, for all practical purposes, the daily life of those in his care. It was a relationship that, in my case, was not always easy for either of us. We had many discussions about the meaning of obedience and the requirements of monastic life, matters that he, characteristically, saw with great clarity.
During my year as a novice, I was called into his office one day after the monastery’s barber had decided to leave. Father Philip asked, “Frater John, do you know how to cut hair?” I answered that I didn’t, and he responded, “Well, you’re the new barber.” He was, I believe, absolutely convinced, where I was not, that this was a responsibility I could carry out with sufficient success. As it happened, I did become a passable barber, thanks in large part to the selfless tolerance of my confreres, particularly Father Patrick Cummins, a Dante scholar of such sanctity that he, my first victim, thanked me for a haircut that might rather have been thought the work of a butcher than of a barber. Father Philip, too, submitted to my shears with no visible sign of anxiety.
On another occasion, Father Philip expressed to me his belief that, were he to ask me to plant a dead stick, I should do so obediently in full confidence that it would not be a waste of time. The implication was that it should be no surprise were it to take root and grow; at the very least, it would be a good exercise in humility. Graciously, he never asked me to do that but not, I think, because he thought it an unreasonable command. More likely, he realized I had not reached that level of understanding and humility. His own dedication to obedience, and the fruit that it bore in his own life, was shown over the years as he undertook the many assignments given him, to the benefit and admiration of all those whose lives he touched with his kindness and insight, his hospitality and grace.
He was a man of profound simplicity and directness. During a class on the Rule of St. Benedict, my classmates and I, impressed with our own investigation of possible sources of the rule, asked whether one could truly be certain that St. Benedict had actually written it. Without a moment’s hesitation, Father Philip settled the question for us, as I am sure he had long ago settled it for himself: “By dammit to hell, fraters, if St. Benedict did not write the rule, it was written by somebody else named Benedict.”
Through all our differences, Father Philip was always encouraging and firm and never harsh. I can’t say, even now, that in our disagreements, I was right; only that his integrity and love of monastic life and concern both for me and for his community brought clarity to the inadvisability of my continuing as a monk. Over the years, the respect and love in which I held him have continued.
During the last visit my family and I made to Conception, Father Philip, who then, as on the day he was killed, was the first to welcome all monastery visitors, greeted us with such openness and kindness that I realized anew that having known him early in my life was a gift of utmost importance.
Father Norbert who, along with Father Kenneth Reichert, was seriously injured by the gunshots of June 10, first came into my life during his days of duty in our high school study hall. Later, he was librarian at Conception and cared for the books, especially the abbey’s rare book collection, with obvious affection. Eventually, I came to know him as a fellow calligrapher. He was one of a very small group of Midwestern calligraphers whose work in the 1960s nourished the calligraphy revival that is so strong today.
In contrast to the “vertical” relationship in which Father Philip and I found ourselves, my connection with Father Norbert has been one of shared interest. He has been for me a living sign of the regard for artistic beauty and liturgical expression for which Conception has long been known. Father Norbert has continued to visit our family at Christmas and probably doesn’t realize how important his visits have been for me in maintaining ties with Conception and sharing news of the community.
Conception Abbey, in its spacious setting among the rolling hills of northwest Missouri, presents a tranquil scene of strength, stability and welcome, a scene of stark contrast to the violence and vulnerability that visited on June 10. That image, embodied for me over the years in the members of the Conception community and my brief journey among them, has remained one of the strongest in my memory. It was, therefore, a time of grace for me to be present with my wife and a thousand others at the funerals this month of Father Philip and Brother Damian Larson.
The abbot, Rev. Gregory Polan, spoke in his homily of the monastery’s undiminished, indeed deepened, commitment to “prayer, faith, hospitality and peace” and asked not only for prayers for those killed and injured but forgiveness and prayers for the one who brought such suffering into their midst.
Many things that we do merely maintain what we have been; other acts re-create the very roots of our identity. Conception Abbey, in its response to this recent violence, is not simply putting its life back together; it is being transformed into new life. In a way that I had not expected, all those present saw the Conception community shedding the shrouds of death, passing through sadness and loss into the mystery of resurrection, newly aware of the cost and the gift of peace.
