Cloistered Chronicles: Monkey Business

St Placid’s Benedictine monastery is a large Monastery of the Extraordinary Form with an equally extraordinary Horarium (hourly time table). It is headed by an elderly Abbot who has a singular form of Dyslexia which resulted in a number of monks having peculiar names.

Monks are there from every walk of life from professional men to labourers, from Medical Doctors to crane drivers, Veterinary Specialists to cow hands, saints and sinners, and…then there is …BROTHER APOCALYPTUS…

…who is highly intelligent, meticulous in observance, slightly erratic, who succeeds in driving nearly all the monks crazy! He is tried in one monastic duty after the other and seems to make a mess of all of them. He is the despair of the good old, hard-working monks, such as Brother Grim Reaper and Brother Rancid, but not only on this earth does he disturb his brothers but… also in… ‘somewhat unusual settings’.

Of the surprising ending of this little book, I’m sure St Teresa of Avila would have said: ‘Laugh a little.’

U.I.O.G.DUt in omnibus glorificetur Deus.(That in all things God may be glorified)