The Monks

Abbot Luke Rigby

The life of this "ordinary fellow" (per his description) starts in London in 1923 in a Catholic family, through whom he is related to Saint John Rigby and other martyrs, priests, and religious of the Recusant period in England. He lived in suburban London in a Catholic environment until his father, a banker, was posted abroad. At this point Abbot Luke became a boarding student at Ampleforth College. He joined the monastery straight after high school.

When considering whom to send to the new foundation in Saint Louis, Abbot Byrne in his unique way suggested that Father Luke would be eligible as business manager for the group, because he knew nothing whatsoever of pounds and thus could start fresh with dollars. Hopefully he had sounder reasons than that for his choice! The founding team was thus endowed with its future 28-year superior and first Abbot in seedling form. Before becoming Prior, he served as business manager for twelve years, scrounging, especially at the army surplus center in Jefferson City for great buys. As the appointed Prior, he worked with Abbot Basil Hume (later Cardinal Hume) in forming the Priory as an independent house. He was the first elected superior (Prior) of the house and remained so through 1995 by which time the Priory had become an Abbey. His twenty-eight years as superior was marked most of all by an exceptional compassion for all and a fatherly care for his monks. Many stories of Abbot Luke's tenure as superior are recounted in Father Timothy’s book In Good Soil.

On the eve of the feast of Saint Benedict in 2001, Abbot Luke received a distinct call to withdraw from community life and concentrate on prayer, the Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church. (Read about his discernment process.) Shortly before he began, though, he was bitten by a tick and contracted Ehrlichiosis. His five-week recuperation from this disease was immediately followed by a mild heart attack. He was eventually healthy enough to try his eremitic call, but only to have to return into community nine months later by further health troubles --Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He notes now that the time in his hermitage was the perfect preparation for this illness and its resulting restrictions. He can no longer attend many functions or even the community offices, at which attendance was of primary importance to him throughout his monastic life. Fortunately he is still able to offer us his wise counsel. His hope is that his prayers and the restrictions that result from his disease are of some spiritual help to the Abbey family.

* Abbot Luke's article was originally published in C. S. Lewis and the Breakfast Table (pages 38-40), a book edited by James T. Como, copyright © 1979, MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York.