He writes icons and paints religious art for the abbey, as well as for churches and individuals. Today, he’s the abbey’s junior iconographer. There’s a self-emptying that’s necessary, which is a great experience as well, because it crosses over into my formation as a monk,” he said. “I basically had to let go of everything I knew about drawing and painting. “He’s a good monk, very hardworking and very faithful,” Father Recker remarked.Įarly on in his monastic formation, Brother André began taking icon-writing courses at the Iconographic Arts Institute in Mount Angel, Ore., upon the abbot’s advice. Last September, when now-Brother André made his final vows, he knew he was where he was supposed to be: “There was a great sense of relief after I made my vows, just being able to relax and to try to be the best monk I can be each day.” Today, he’s as clean-cut as everybody else at the monastery, save for the tattoos that had to stay, mainly for practical reasons. His application to the monastery simply authenticated his desire for God and his ability to enter and live in a monastic context,” Father Recker said. “He was well on his way by the time he came here. Riding his BMW motorcycle, the leather-clad Love cut a novel figure in a community of clean-cut monks and seminarians with his pierced ears, dreadlocks and tattoos. “Hey, I’m just one of the monks here, nothing special,” he says in frustration over being singled out for something skin deep. He’s now Brother André Love, named after St. Love made his final profession as a Benedictine monk at Mount Angel Abbey in Saint Benedict, Ore., last September, after five years of monastic formation. “‘Who’s this monk that has the tattoos? What’s his story?’ people ask,” Benedictine Father Odo Recker, Mount Angel Abbey’s vocations director, remarked. Tattoo artist Bobby Love had no clue he would some day become a Benedictine monk and an iconographer.
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