Monastic Tradition: St. Benedict entrusts the Rule to his disciple, Maurus.
The Congregation of Solesmes is a direct descendant of the celebrated Maurist Congregation (1618-1818) of ascetics and scholars at St-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, where the Benedictine historian and inventor of paleography, Dom Jean Mabillon OSB (1632-1707) lies buried. “Mabillon” is the nearby Parisian Metro station that bears his name.
I grew up in Philadelphia where I graduated from La Salle University in 1968, the "Year of Revolting Students." I had changed my major from Philosophy to German to, finally, English (special interest: 1870-1914).
Having made solemn monastic vows as a Benedictine monk at Saint John's Abbey, I earned in Iowa City a masters of arts degree in Library and Information Science, 1974. A few years later I served as an intern in Special Collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK, 1979-80.
For almost five years I oversaw the microfilming of medieval manuscripts in Durham, UK, and several sites in Germany for the abbey's Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (www.hmml.org).
In August 2016 I completed seven years with the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, Silver Spring, MD. I returned to the monastery in central Minnesota in a red 2007 Toyota Corolla from the abbey fleet.
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