![](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/SvxbIu2W56I\/AAAAAAAAAeY\/EB9jFIdydIE\/s320\/MartinofTours\")
<\/a>I\u2019m sure I will write again before the weekend is up about my experience of Trappist life, viewed from the outside as a visitor to Spencer. But what is burning to be written right now is why I came home 24 hours ahead of schedule. <\/p>\nIf I had been blogging Wednesday, instead of under enforced lockdown (no internet service in guest quarters at the abbey), I might have written about St. Martin of Tours. That\u2019s him on the horse in an El Greco painting of his\u2014legendary?\u2014meeting with a beggar. He gave the beggar half of his cloak. Wednesday, November 11, is Martin\u2019s feast day.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s enough written about St. Martin elsewhere that I can focus on the things Martin and I have in common. He was the son of a Roman military officer (check, Dad was a WWII veteran) who moved west into Gaul, or present-day France, to follow his father\u2019s career (check, we moved from Minnesota to Connecticut when I was 10 and Dad took a new position). Martin was a convert (check) who favored the life of a hermit (check, or at least Katie thinks sometimes that I want to be a hermit, and perhaps I give her reason). But here\u2019s the thing: Continually through his career as a hermit, then as a bishop, then as what amounted to an international statesman, Martin found himself pulled into the public arena, into engagement with his fellow men, while all the time feeling drawn to a quiet life of contemplation. It is in this tension between retirement and engagement, between the hermit and the man of action, that I recognize Martin of Tours as my brother.<\/p>\n
Already by Wednesday, St. Martin\u2019s feast day and only my second full day in Spencer, I was thinking much and fondly of my engaged life in Beverly, my vowed <\/i>life as husband, father, bread-winner, and lay Catholic.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/SvxiRIa4G5I\/AAAAAAAAAeg\/RRONeykJjqw\/s320\/IMG_0159.JPG\")
<\/a><\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/SvxkkIODOEI\/AAAAAAAAAew\/0DNTxGiB_lA\/s200\/IMG_0162_2.JPG\")
<\/a>Father Matthew (right) led three conferences, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning\u2014after serving us breakfast in a true gesture of Trappist hospitality. He proposed to teach us a few things about Pope Benedict\u2019s theology, and each morning offered both nuggets of general interest and (for me) personal insights. This is not the place to get overly personal, and some of the insights were deeply so. The upshot of Thursday morning\u2019s conference was that I went afterward to Father Matthew for confession. Again, let\u2019s not get personal; it\u2019s enough to say that for my penance, Father Matthew asked me to sit before the Blessed Sacrament in the small Adoration chapel in the Spencer guest quarters and meditate on a particular matter.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6738513599344023043-4447344348349491468?l=yimcatholic.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"