Fr. Patrick Moore OSB

We must believe that everyone has been called by God to do some work in this world – I believe that my calling to be a Benedictine monk-priest has a divine origin and I would like to tell the story of how it came to be in my case.

I came of age during those “peaceful” and so-called happy days following World War II and during the 1950’s.  I grew up in a Catholic family. My mother was a convert to the Church and quite devout and my father a cradle Catholic solid in his faith. It was a time when most Catholic families, which were usually quite large, thought it a great honor and privilege to have a member of the family be ordained a priest (similarly a daughter who became a nun.)  My father came from a large Catholic family whose mother was a strong-willed German woman who had six sons and five daughters – one of her sons did become a priest in the Fargo Diocese.  My father also had six sons and I believe he felt one of his sons also should be a priest.  Both my parents were, however, very careful to let all of their seven children choose freely what they wanted to do with their lives and put no pressure on any of us to live up to their expectations.  And so I do not recall my father every saying to me directly that he wanted me to be a priest but I recall very clearly quite often when relatives and friends who would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up that my father would interject: “Oh, Donny (as I was

called then) is going to be the priest in the family.”  

So the idea was in my head.  I resisted it during my teen/High School years imagining myself to be many other things – and radio announcer, an architect anything but a priest. However, by my Senior Year in High School, when it became necessary for me to decide, I realized that there was no sense in fighting the idea still running strongly in my head and in my heart that I should be a priest – like my uncle.  When I ran the idea by my family and even my friends no one was

surprised – they all seemed to assume that’s what I was going to be.

At this time I had not conceived of being a Benedictine monk-priest even though the priests of the parish in Devils Lake, I grew up in, were from Assumption Abbey and I admired them greatly and I had visited Assumption Abbey several times during those years.  However, I didn’t think I wanted to be a priest in the situation of my uncle who in his early years was a pastor in a small parish in the Fargo Diocese and I thought that was a lonely way to live. Being from a big family I liked a more communal life-style.  So when I went in to my pastor in Devils Lake and announced my decision he said without hesitation that he would call up the Abbey in Richardton and tell them I would be coming there for Seminary.  For some reason I didn’t say no to him but, I believe by the grace of God, I agreed and the Abbey graciously accepted my application.

I came to the Abbey’s two-year college in the fall of 1957 and fell in love with the place and the monks and quickly decided that this was where I wanted to become a priest (since in those days you had to declare from the outset that you wanted to be a clerical i.e. a priest monk rather than a lay-brother.  I never regretted that decision and have remained there since having joined the novitiate of Assumption Abbey the summer of 1959.

Thus my vocation as a monk and a priest came relatively easily for me, at least as I compare my journey with many other priests I have met and known since who have had to struggle and had many doubts. I had none and I consider that a great grace.