Echoes from the Bell Tower

Read the full transcript of this episode

In this week's podcast, we return to the topic of monastic names. Our third episode, which aired in 2016, was on how monks choose their religious names when they join the monastery.

This time, we hear from the newest monk to receive his monastic name - Fr. Mateo - as well as from Archabbot Kurt Stasiak, Fr. Denis Robinson, Fr. Harry Hagan and Fr. Christian Raab.

Monks choose their names for different reasons. At Saint Meinrad, the tradition of selecting a name follows a few rules: the name must come from a saint in Church history, monastic tradition or an Old Testament figure. And you can't choose a name that someone else in the monastery already has.

Before a novice makes his temporary vows, he picks three names and gives them to the abbot to make the final choice. The new name is kept secret until the monk stands before the community to make his vows.  

Below, you can see photos of some of our monks with an item that symbolizes their name or patron saint.

To read more about monastic names, see the latest issue of our newsletter On the Hill.

As always, you can listen to this episode at the top of this page or go to iTunes or Stitcher and download "Echoes from the Bell Tower." Thanks for listening!

Coming up: We couldn't fit all of our great stories about names into this episode, so next week we're posting one more episode about monastic names.