Prayers

I learned this morning that Brother Antonine DiSabella, who has been the cook at the friar's monastery in DC forever and a few years more, died yesterday, peacefully and in his sleep. He would have been 81 next Saturday.

Antonine was an amazing cook and one of the kindest men I have had the pleasure of knowing. About the worst he ever said about anyone was, "Oh, brother, he meant well."

He entered the Discalced Carmelites after working as a pastry chef, and he made his profession in May of 1949. As far as I know, he spent the rest of his life in the DC house. A few years back, the provincial wanted to transfer him to another monastery, but the friars in Washington rose in protest. Brother Antonine, they said, was the heart of the community and he could not go. So he stayed. His health had been declining for some time, but he continued to live, pray and work there where he had been for sixty years.

I am reminded of something a priest friend said when Fr. Gerard Taylor died: "Who would have thought that so great a heart could ever stop beating?"

May his soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

It is a sign of the times that I learned of Antonine's death in Washington by an email from Steve Payne in Nairobi.