At Last, We’ve Had an Election
The election of an abbot should be prime grist for the mill of any monastic chronicler. That certainly was the case for medieval chroniclers, but not so for me. In fact, in the nearly eleven years of this blog the subject of an abbatial election has never come up, and that’s easy to explain. Our last abbatial election at Saint John’s Abbey took place twenty-three years ago, and I’ve had to rely on all sorts of filler as I’ve waited patiently for an election to come along. Finally it has happened.
On January 9th we monks elected our confrere Father Douglas to be the 11th abbot of Saint John’s Abbey. Without going into the confidential details, the election was noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, when we filed into the chapter house on January 8th we didn’t have a clue as to whom we might elect. Many of my confreres thought it might take three ballots just to sort out the field of viable candidates. Then, perhaps on the fourth ballot, we might make our move. But you have to imagine the stunned surprise when we made up our collective mind in the course of the first ballot. Absolutely none of us thought any monk could possibly amass the necessary notes on the first ballot. But for this we gave credit to the Holy Spirit. Left to our own cautious devices, of course, we could have gone on for days.
After the votes were counted we slipped into the prescribed ritual that we had not expected until much later. First of all, Abbot Augustine of Newark Abbey in New Jersey declared that we had had a valid election. Then he asked Father Douglas if he was willing to accept his election. By statute he could have taken several days to think about it. But possessed of good sense, he realized that the rest of us weren’t about to sit around for that kind of time while he leisurely mused about the pros and cons. After a few seconds, which seemed more than enough time to me, he said “yes.”
From there we proceeded to a series of oaths and declarations, and we concluded with the presentation of one symbol of the abbot’s office — the pectoral cross. On a table nearby was a tray of crosses that had been worn by previous abbots. From them Abbot Augustine picked one and presented it to Abbot Douglas. “Today I bestow this cross which I’ve chosen, because seldom in life do you get to choose your own cross. Tomorrow you can choose whatever you want, but not today.” These words were not in the rubrics, but they seemed both wonderfully appropriate and wonderfully light-hearted. If it were up to me — which it is not — they should be added to the permanent wording of the ritual.
Eventually we lined up by seniority and we processed into the abbey church as the bells pealed and the organ played. In the church was the student body of the prep school as well as many faculty and staff from the University. All craned their necks to see who was last in the procession, and of course it was Father and now Abbot Douglas. The cat was out of the bag.
Abbots at Saint John’s serve until age seventy-five, or eight years, whichever is longer. Abbot Douglas will serve for eight years and not the twenty-three that had been Abbot John’s portion. That’s fine by me, because I’m more than willing to hang around for eight years to chronicle the next election at Saint John’s Abbey. I’m not so sure about twenty-three.
NOTES
+On January 8th we began what was planned to be a three-day process for the election of an abbot. As noted above, we finished on the morning of the 9th, leaving us a day and a half of unexpected but welcome leisure. To learn more about Abbot Douglas please visit the web page of Saint John’s Abbey.
+By week’s end we shared in the cold weather that besieged the Midwest, though we did not get much more than a dusting of snow. On the rare occasions when the temperatures get down to zero we turn off the abbey bells, to avoid the possibility of cracking them. It was good that the abbatial election took place earlier in the week, when the bells could proclaim the news. Had we elected Abbot Douglas on the 13th or 14th, the bells would have remained mute.
+Today, January 15th, happens to be the feast of Saints Maur and Placid, two early disciples of Saint Benedict. The Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great recount the story of Benedict’s vision of Placid, floundering in the lake. He ordered Maur to rescue him, and Maur walked out on the water to reach him. The first three photos are a panel painted by Fra Filippo Lippi (ca. 1445-1450), housed in the National Gallery in Washington. At bottom is another version of the event. It is a medieval fresco at the abbey of Subiaco, outside of Rome.