From Tower Topics

For former monk, altar is a gift of friendship, gratitiude

by Dan Madden

The tang of freshly sawed wood is his incense, the still-moist sawdust clinging to flannel and denim his chrism, the faded carpenter’s apron a vestment.

Cassian Heath’s handsome bearded face flushes bright red as he describes the solitary days and deep nights spent in his woodshop in Wichita, Kan., racing against a rapidly approaching deadline. Like a pilgrim at the end of a sacred journey, the Conception Seminary College alumnus and former Benedictine monk is mildly embarrassed by the feverish mix of pride and joy so evident on his face.

“This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” he declares absolutely, as if eager to finally say it aloud. “This is a gift for the community. It is part of me.”

Heath finds it hard to articulate how he felt when he watched the table he had built become an altar during the dedication Mass of the Holy Cross Oratory in Conception Seminary College’s newly renovated St. Maur Hall.

“There is so much in my life that I attribute to my time at Conception and the people there,” he explains. “Those friendships are still very significant in my life.”

Father Benedict Neenan, president-rector of Conception Seminary College, had asked last May if Heath could build an altar and all of the sanctuary furniture for the new oratory by the beginning of the school year in late August. He said he wanted something simple that would create an atmosphere where seminarians “would gladly spend a lot of time, both in community prayer and Eucharist, but especially in private prayer.”

“I knew that Cassian was a very meticulous craftsman and that anything he would do would be well done and would last,” Father Benedict says. “He is a man who doesn’t take shortcuts.”

Heath says he strives in his work for “simplicity and honesty, without a lot of unnecessary decoration.” His primary influence is the Arts and Crafts style that originated in England at the turn of the 20th century and was favored by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Heath also blends into his work Shaker, Prairie and Mission styles of woodwork, as well as the Asian motifs present in Arts and Crafts.

“The whole concept is that it isn’t just a piece of furniture,” he notes. “There’s a relationship between architecture and nature. Integrity of work and the enhancement of natural materials and forms are emphasized, and the worker is an important part of the process.”

Although it would normally take at least six months to complete such a project, Heath accepted the four-month challenge and even offered to donate his labor on the project.

“I just took a deep breath and said I’d have it done on time,” Heath recalls. “It took a lot of discipline, using every moment I had.”

Despite working all but seven of the days in June and July and often not leaving his shop before 11 p.m., Heath said the project was anything but a burden.

“I was so excited to do it,” he says. “I couldn’t wait to get to the shop to work on it.”

Any pressure Heath felt resulted from his desire to please the monks of Conception, especially Father Benedict, whom he calls a “very significant influence” in his career as a woodworker.

He needn’t have worried.

“I like it very much,” Father Benedict said of the finished furniture. “I find it very calming. The fact that the bases of the legs are bigger than the tops gives it a stability. Even though a wooden altar by definition is light and movable, the design makes it solid and permanent, which an altar should convey.”

Father Xavier Nacke, CSC spiritual director, told Heath, “I love to sit in the front row and look at the altar.”

Father Benedict says the work reflects the labor of a man who approached his project with love, care and confidence. “There is nothing uncertain about it,” he said. “It’s very clean how everything comes together.”

High – and important – praise, Heath admits.

In the early 1970s, then-Brother Cassian, who had transferred from Conception Abbey to Mount Savior Monastery in New York, was reunited with his old seminary classmate, Thomas – the future Benedict – Neenan, who after three years of study in the Bavarian national woodworking school in southern Germany had entered Mount Savior as a postulant.

Heath, who had dabbled in woodworking since his childhood, would find the inspiration in Neenan’s encouragement and passion that would eventually transform a hobby into a vocation.

“We did a few projects together, and just talking with him broadened my view of art,” Heath remembers. “He told me how in Germany they had taught him the importance of drawing every day.” With Neenan’s encouragement, Heath was soon building simple but beautiful furniture.

Heath later transferred to Christ in the Desert monastery, Mount Savior’s foundation deep in the Chama Canyon of Northern New Mexico. Neenan offered to drive him across the country. The two camped out along the way, and Heath remembers many long talks. Neenan was pondering whether to enter the novitiate at Conception Abbey near his hometown of Kansas City.

“What have you got to lose,” Heath told him. “Give it a try.” Neenan would later offer similar advice to Heath.

The monks of Christ in the Desert support their community largely through arts and crafts, and their rustic monastery, isolated even from the luxury of electricity, proved fertile ground for Heath’s creativity. Initially he served as garden master. But when the community decided to open a furniture-making shop, the prior asked Heath to head the operation. The thought of building hand-made furniture to help support his community thrilled Heath – and terrified him.

But after sharing his fears with Neenan, by then a monk of Conception Abbey, Heath decided that, like his friend, he had little to lose by trying.

Heath is no longer a monk, having left the cloister nearly two decades ago, but his life remains deeply influenced by monasticism. He has kept his monastic name and his days are centered on the Eucharist and paced by the Liturgy of the Hours. His apartment is spare in furnishing and design. And a Japanese garden transforms his back yard into a peaceful oasis, conducive to the reflection and meditation that drew him to monastic life in the first place. While the pull of monasticism probably won’t draw him back into the monastery, he freely admits that if any place could do it, it would be Conception.

“I still have a great love for monastic life,” he says. “There isn’t a day that goes by I don’t think about it.”

Unlike Father Xavier, Heath hasn’t yet had the chance to simply sit alone in silence and look at the altar he built, but he hopes to on his next visit to Conception. For now he is comforted and pleased by the words of others.

One friend told him the altar “felt peaceful.”

Alone one August night in his workshop, Heath recalls the bittersweet moment when it came time to assemble the various pieces into a whole. While there was joy and anticipation, he knew he would miss having the project to work on.

As he put the finishing touches on an elegant, solid table, he gasped.

“Oh my God,” he said. “This is the altar. The Eucharist is going to be celebrated from this table.”

Then there was peace.

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