My memories of Saint Anselm College will always be tied up with memories of the monk and priest, Fr. Cecil John Donahue, O.S.B., who went home to the Lord on Nov. 19, just days before his 95th birthday.
During my four years at St. A’s, I knew Fr. Cecil first in his role as adviser to Campus Ministry’s pro-life group. Every year, Fr. Cecil led a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., so that we could attend the National March for Life. We would stay in the home of his sister, who lived in Northern Virginia, making use not only of her basement but that of her next-door neighbor. These trips were filled with joy, despite their penitential aspects (long hours in a van, sleeping on the floor, marching in the inevitable cold rain). This is a feature I attribute largely to the spirit in which Fr. Cecil undertook them. He was full of energy and joy in all circumstances, and we simply tried to keep up with him – a man at least three times our age.
I knew that Fr. Cecil had served in a number of roles in the monastery and at the college, though I had only a vague notion of what that meant. I knew he loved history and politics, because he lost no opportunity to reference relevant historical or current events (on which he had strong opinions), and that he had taught Latin at one point, had studied in Rome, and had been in charge of the campus grounds. This last role he never seemed to have relinquished, and it was not an unusual thing to see this almost 70-year-old monk hauling wood or shoveling dirt. I know more now about how many and how varied were the roles that Fr. Cecil filled during his 75 years as a Benedictine monk. Others can recount those facts better than I. What impressed me most about Fr. Cecil, however, both then and in the past few years in which I had the privilege of visiting him several times a year at Mount Carmel Nursing Center, was his fatherly care for everyone in his orbit, but especially for the students with whom he loved to spend time.
When I try to capture what Fr. Cecil meant to me in those years and later, I find myself thinking of this quality of fatherliness. Here I have to say that I have an excellent father, now in his late 70s, for whom I am immensely grateful. But when I arrived at SAC in 1995 (with no mobile phone, of course), he was far away in Wisconsin, and I was starting off on this adventure alone. The friendships I began to form with peers were wonderful, and there was a sense of autonomy in forming our own community.
But although I could not have expressed it at the time, I see now that a community without a father is radically incomplete. Father Cecil became that spiritual father to me and to many of my friends. We were drawn to him, even as we were drawn to each other. When he was present, our conversation was just a little more elevated, we were just a little kinder and more respectful of others, we were that much more conscious of spiritual realities. And by the way, we also had more fun, giving the lie to those who paint the dedicated Christian life as a sad and colorless affair. No one who knew Fr. Cecil could make that mistake. I never saw Fr. Cecil without receiving the impression that he was glad to see me, that he wanted to talk with me (for as long as I wanted to talk!), and that he accepted me and loved me, no matter what.
In other words, Fr. Cecil was a spiritual father. Having given up the prospect of fathering children of his own, Fr. Cecil spiritually fathered countless students (and others) who passed through his life. He communicated to them, through his fatherly presence, that they were worthwhile, that they were loved, that their existence was good. At the same time, he helped direct them toward higher things, ultimately toward God, and this he did mainly by the power of his own witness to joyful fidelity in the monastic vocation to which God had called him.
I don’t know if Fr. Cecil would have described it this way, but I think he would be happy that this is the message God was able to communicate through him to generations of Saint Anselm students. I should say, he is happy, for unlike the power of natural fatherhood, that of spiritual fatherhood does not cease at death, and we have good reason to hope that Fr. Cecil continues to exercise his spiritual fatherhood even more faithfully now, in the presence of the Heavenly Father, whose loving care Fr. Cecil reflected.
Requiescat in pace.
Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is a 1999 graduate of Saint Anselm College, now serving as a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia. She received her Ph.D. degree in philosophy from Boston College in 2009 and teaches philosophy at the University of Dallas. Sister Elinor served on the Board of Trustees of Saint Anselm from 2021 to 2024.
