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Crosier making reflects the monastic way
by Jarrod Thome
I built a bridge out of toothpicks once during my senior year of high school for a physics project. Everyone in the class received 750 square toothpicks and one 4 oz bottle of Elmer’s glue to use as the only medium for the project. It had to cover a 27” span and weigh less than 120 grams, with a 4” square platform in the middle of it on which the weight would be placed.
I don’t know how many hours I spent sawing off the rounded tips of the toothpicks with a Dremel tool, dabbing the perfect amount of glue on the results, and meticulously placing them in a jig made out of Legos where they would dry into the sturdy beams that would soon (or not so soon) make up the bridge’s exoskeleton; but add to that the time it took to drill the precise and miniscule holes which would receive the intricate toothpick truss-work I conceived, and I probably could’ve read a civil engineering textbook from cover to cover.
Any mother knowing the extent of this process going on in a walk-in attic above her may have—peering through a puff of toothpick sawdust—asked me if I was okay, wondering if she should have me checked for OCD. My mom, though, having been married to my dad for 30 years now, would have just smiled and said, “Well, you’re definitely your father’s son” before inquiring how things were going.
A look at the family tree would indeed show that I inherited a bloodline with a strong legacy of craftsmen, particularly carpenters, as well as the work ethic and attention to detail that they embodied. In that regard though, I wouldn’t consider myself half the kind of men (and women) that they were—I mean, my most intimate experience with wood to date has been the aforementioned toothpick bridge and a bike crash with a tree branch. What I am willing to glean from all of this, though, is that there is something about our human nature that inclines us to “create” and experience a positive result of our work as intrinsically rewarding. Further, there is something special about giving our work away—be it in a singular gift to someone else, or in the teaching of a craft itself to a learner. Over the past 30 years here at Conception, a practice has developed that has embraced this spirit of creating and giving—the art of crosier making.
Meet the Monks
In conducting interviews for this article, it quickly became apparent to me that this work had a far deeper beauty to it than I originally anticipated. In all three of the monks I talked to, you could tell that the work they did meant something more to them than your average job.
The crosier that sits in the Abbot's choir stall was made by Br. Jude Person. The node is a replica of Conception's basilica and was hand carved by Fr. Benedict Neenan. Photo by Jarrod Thome
The whole thing started back in 1975 when Fr. Samuel Russell, now rector of the seminary, was a novice. At that time, Abbot Kevin was head of the monastery and he happened to mention how he’d like to have a wooden crosier. So, being the young novice that he was, and eager to contribute to the community, Fr. Samuel set out to craft a gift for his abbot. Growing up in the city of Chicago didn’t particularly offer Fr. Samuel much exposure to woodworking, but with a patience urged on by his nascent monastic vocation and the piecemeal tutelage of Conception carpenter Cletus Sullivan, Novice Nicholas picked things up little by little and learned the rest as he went until there emerged the first in a long line of crosiers. After Fr. Samuel finished that first crosier and proved that he could stick with the project, he said Cletus was much more generous with his instruction.
The original crosier made by Fr. Samuel for Abbot Kevin.
The next year, Fr. Eugene Gerber of the Wichita diocese was named bishop to Dodge City. Because Bishop Gerber is an alumnus of Conception’s high school and college seminaries, Fr. Samuel thought it would be nice to present him with a crosier during a visit to Conception for a Board of Regents meeting. Shortly thereafter, he made one for now Archbishop Jerome Hanus, O.S.B. who at that time had just been elected abbot of Conception. More bishops were elected and more crosiers were made until the baton passed to Brother Jude Person in the mid 80s.
Brother Jude holding Bishop Charron's newly completed crosier.
By this time, the practice of giving crosiers to newly elected abbots and bishops of dioceses served by Conception’s seminary apostolate was already well established. Through Fr. Samuel’s suggestions, Br. Jude was assigned to spend a summer making crosiers for new bishops. Since he was already interested in working in the shop, this was a welcome assignment for him and it showed in the prolific 10-15 crosiers he produced in that short time.
Unlike Fr. Samuel, Br. Jude was not altogether unfamiliar with woodworking—his father introduced him to it. As Br. Jude puts it, “Woodworking reminds me of my father. He was a carpenter, and more than that, a skilled craftsman, whose woodwork creations won prizes. (Gunstocks were his specialty. We're from Wyoming.) He taught me the rudiments of woodworking as I was growing up, and working in the shop always reminds me of him. He died in 2003. Like him, I have left bits and pieces of my digital extremities in the sawdust on the floor of the carpenter’s shop.”
One of the crosiers Abbot Gregory regularly uses, made by Br. Jude.
So, crosier making was enjoyable for Br. Jude and you could say he had a hand (sorry, I couldn’t resist) in making the crosiers for a number of bishops and abbots, including Bishop Joseph Charron, C.PP.S. Before he was a bishop, Bishop Charron happened to be Br. Jude’s moral theology teacher at St. John’s University in 1989 when his elevation to the episcopacy was announced. He had seen newly ordained Bishop Jerome Hanus’ crosier and liked it very much, but he didn’t know from where or how he received it. Since he knew Br. Jude and Bishop Jerome were from the same monastery, he asked Br. Jude if he had any idea. Indeed he did since he was the one who made it for his previous abbot on the occasion of his appointment as bishop. Br. Jude recounts, “Over that Christmas break, I made one more crosier for Bishop-elect Joseph Charron, who would eventually become Bishop of Des Moines, and chairman of Conception Seminary’s Board of Regents. His gracious and effusive thanks upon receiving this gift from Conception Abbey and Seminary College was more than ample reward for the time and care I spent in the shop. After all, I was doing something I loved. The rest was frosting on the cake.”
Next in the crosier-making line was Br. Paul Sheller. Br. Paul, just now beginning his third year as a member of Conception Abbey, is the most recent addition to the crosier makers. Apart from a pig shaped wooden cutting board he made his mom in seventh grade, Br. Paul’s wood working career, like Fr. Samuel’s, began as a monk. He started to learn woodcarving techniques from fellow monk Fr. Benedict Neenan, who actually studied the craft in Oberammergau, Germany before entering the monastery. From there he started refinishing chairs and taking on other smaller projects before he was approached by Fr. Samuel and encouraged to make a crosier.
Fr. Samuel stands with Bishop Coakley after receiving the crosier crafted by Br. Paul at this year's Board of Regents meeting.
Fr. Samuel, in one of his routine visits to constituent dioceses as the new rector of Conception Seminary College, learned that the newly ordained bishop of the Salina diocese, Paul Coakley, wanted a wooden crosier that could break down for easy travel. And so it went, Br. Paul now had his first commission. Br. Jude got him started, helping him pick out the right wood and giving him a few pointers. Br. Paul described it as a slow process though, saying, “At first you kind of learn as you go…and much of it was done by hand because I’m not that proficient with the machines yet.” Slow and steady, Br. Paul finished the crosier for Bishop Coakley, and it was presented to him at the Board of Regents meeting in October. I know that Br. Paul, like his predecessors, was happy to have finished it, but what he (as well as the other two monks) had the most to say about was the nature and meaning of the work itself.
The Monastic Way
Bishops and abbots are often very fond of the wooden crosiers crafted by these men because they are beautiful in their simplicity. The product and the process are both deeply monastic in that regard and these three monks each sang their own versions of the same tune.
Monastic life is not stereotypically fast-paced and neither is crosier making. As such, both require a healthy dose of patience and perseverance. In an allegorically inclined statement Fr. Samuel said, “It requires a great deal of patience, especially in shaping the crook, but sometimes you just have to stick with it and keep going.” Br. Paul echoed, “It’s often slow and tedious work which bespeaks many aspects of the monastic life.”
Br. Paul sands the crook of a crosier in the works.
Br. Jude offers his own insight: “Working with wood—with something so naturally, inherently beautiful; seeking to appreciate that beauty ever more fully by working with it; and seeking to make that beauty more apparent to others—this process, this crafting, has helped to make me aware, in some sense, of the presence of the Creator himself in the beauty of what he has created, and by extension, in what he allows me to ‘create’ with his creation. I engage in it, and doing so brings an almost spontaneous joy, and with that joy comes gratitude—for the wood, for the work, for the product—and for the One who made the wood and has allowed me to see Him in it and in the process and in the product—that is, in the beauty of all three.”
When you work very intently and deliberately on something, you’re also bound to be keenly sensitive to any flaws that may arise. I remember watching my toothpick bridge undergo the stress test from which it would never recover. The spot where it finally broke was right at the foot where it butted up against the edge of one of the two lab tables that it connected. My smile, when watching my work crash to the floor under 165 lbs of weight room equipment, dissimulated my overwhelming desire to step back in time and bolster my bridge’s Achilles’ heel. Thirty-some-odd years ago, Cletus Sullivan told Fr. Samuel, “You’ll always notice what’s wrong with it, but other people don’t.” “And it’s true,” Fr. Samuel said. Br. Paul was worried about a particular part of the crosier he made, but when Fr. Samuel pointed out to Bishop Coakley what it actually was, the bishop just smiled, and said, “But that’s what makes it hand made.” People come to the monastery to seek perfection in an imperfect world. When we notice our own faults before the faults of others, we are not only heeding Jesus’ advice to “…first take the plank out of your own eye…(Mt. 7:5)” but we are also able to humbly accept ourselves for who we are—sinners striving for heaven.
The Gift
While my smile during the crushing of my bridge may have dissembled a desire to step back in time, it nonetheless indicated satisfaction. I was able to relate to Br. Paul, then, when he expressed to me, “God is our Creator and we are creative beings—there’s a certain satisfaction we get in making something.” But this “making” is more of a “giving” properly understood, because we are just imprinting ourselves (through our time and ability) upon that which God has already created.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the traditional explanation for the crosier's form, beyond the obvious reference to the bishop as shepherd, is this: the pointed ferrule at the base symbolizes the obligation of the prelate to goad the spiritually lazy; the crook at the top, his obligation to draw back those who stray from the faith; and the staff itself his obligations to stand as a firm support for the faithful. It is considered to be both a rod and a staff (Psalm 23:4): a rod for punishing the recalcitrant, and a staff for leading the faithful. Pictured above: "crooks in formation."
One of my favorite quotes comes from the Church document, Gaudium et Spes. It reads, “[Man] cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself (GS 24).” It reminds us that we find our fulfillment in mirroring the actions of a God in whose image and likeness we were created. Out of love, he has willed us into being for our own sake. By nature, God is infinitely outpoured in the dynamic exchange of the Blessed Trinity. He has made the ultimate sacrifice for us on the Cross in order to reconcile our broken nature to himself. He is love and he shows us how to love, “live and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28).”
This means that when we give of ourselves through our work, vocation, our “creativity”, or the making of a crosier, we are really finding ourselves by drawing closer to a divine mirror. This is one of the fruits of the Benedictine ethos Ora et labora.
“It is salutary to make something beautiful—and yes, serviceable—and then let it go. Building a coffin, and seeing it used to convey the mortal remains of a brother monk into his earthly resting place, where it and he will return to the stuff of earth itself, until the Resurrection—this teaches me a lesson in humility about my own craftsmanship. A crosier’s function bears a certain symbolic weight: it is a sign of pastoral authority, a shepherd’s responsibility to take care of his flock. The less time I have to admire my handiwork before it is sent off to a far-away bishop or abbot, the better it is for me. But I still like to think that I have made even this small contribution to the symbolic structure of the Church’s day-to-day operation. The contribution I make as a teacher in the seminary may be more important, but it is also more esoteric, more abstract. But contributing to the academic formation of a seminarian is perhaps not really so different from contributing to the material symbolism of office of bishop. Both teaching and crosier-making are a part of a larger whole; single threads, perhaps, in the vast tapestry that is the Church.” –Br. Jude Person
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