Testimonies - Fr. Graham Touchie, OCSO

I am a Cistercian monk and priest. Each day I am conscious of a gift received. To find oneself in a monastery each day is one of the most ordinary experiences imaginable, but also a mystery. Monastic life reflects a truth which is there in all lives: every person is an ordinary person in the midst of something extraordinary. Each life flows with mystery. Monks are ordinary people who spend their lives together turning back to the source of this mystery, this beauty, who is God.

The need for such a simple life is something I think was in me long before I entered. Being drawn in a certain direction shapes everyone's life. It is what is left inside when all that touches us comes and goes. As a boy, the influences apt to bring me to life were abundant: a loving and stable home; simple and inspiring Church life; schoolmates and teachers whose presence, whose stories touched me; laughter; solitude; contact with nature; music lessons with a master, and more. The consciousness of something immense but simple before me delighted me as a boy, haunted me as a teen, and hurt by times later on when, left to my own devices, I could find nothing remotely similar to whatever it was I wanted. The sense of wonder which had made me treasure life also seemed to set me apart. To say I did not always handle this well would be an understatement. Paths other than the one I could not find (even the arts, which I loved) were not really for me, somehow. In this, even after attaining a certain peace, I felt alone. Some people who knew me came to think of me me as a writer who could not write. Was that who I was? I thought, maybe. In my depths, I longed to know but could not find out. As my twenties ended, and I finished a B.A. in English, it began to seem that I would not be finding my path, because there was no path for me. Accepting that however would have meant giving up on life, something I was not ready for. So I continued as I could, softly searching, and quietly hoping for more as life went on and me with it.

Then one day the relationship with God I had gradually found, the life of prayer, brought Christ to me in a new way. Aware that Christ wanted me with him, I chose to follow him, embracing life in the Church in which I had been raised. I was overjoyed. At that moment, I felt so complete that concern for the specific path was eclipsed: I would teach, or become a psychologist; whatever - it no longer mattered. And it was then, when I let go of the question, that I found an answer. The person who had helped me step onto the path behind Christ also sent me to this monastery for my first retreat - not to become a monk, just to see how monks live: learn a thing or two, so to speak, and with no more than that in mind I gladly came. What I saw and what I learned was that this, God's house, the monks' home, was also home for me.

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