The following is taken from the great book on our founder: An American Abbot (Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809-1887) by Jerome Oetgen. The book can be purchased by clicking here, it is a great gift or read for anyone interested in Monasticism, American History, or just in inspirational stories of people who overcame human limitations and worldly hardships by putting their total trust in Jesus our Lord. For part one of these series click here. Hopefully, after reading this short selection, one can see why the monastic beard has been embraced American Benedictines from the very beginning:
Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. (as a young abbot and probably close to what he what have looked like when he met with Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1865)
The prior watched the emaciated face with its long white beard and perhaps recalled the sensation the flowing whiskers had caused among the clean-shaven cardinals of Rome when the abbot visited the Vatican in 1865. He had been reluctant to arrive in Rome with a full beard and even wrote to the abbot of Metten asking what he thought of the idea. Not much, it seems. The Bavarian prelate recommended prudence. Things were done differently in Rome, the officials there didn't always understand, or appreciate, innovation. That abbot of Metten told him to keep in mind that when in Rome he should do as the Romans, but Abbot Boniface decided to take a chance. He arrived unshaven. People gawked at him in the streets. The nuns of a convent he visited were frightened by his "shaggy appearance." The Italian cardinals raised their bushy eyebrows. But in the end the abbot's audacity was vindicated. He was received in audience by the Holy Father, and after hearing of his success in spreading the Benedictine Order throughout North America and bringing the Gospel to the immigrants who were daily arriving on the shores of the new land, Pope Pius IX gave his blessing to the work and dismissed him with the words "Long live Abbot Wimmer and his magnificent beard." From that day on he never shaved, and he urged his monks to follow his example.
Blessed Pope Pius IX
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As a follow up to the last article which mentioned some of our bearded brethren occasionally being confused for grey robed Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (a group founded in the South Bronx in 1987 by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and 6 other Capuchin friars as a renewal of the Capuchin way of life. I though this history about where the Capuchin beard and their order was interesting due to their roots to the Benedictine Camaldolese monks which we discussed a few days ago on the Feast of St. Romuald...click here for that article.
The order arose in 1520 when Matteo da Bascio, an "Observant" Franciscan friar native to the Italian region of Marche, became inspired by God with the idea that the manner of life led by the Franciscans of his day was not the one which St. Francis had envisaged. He sought to return to the primitive way of life in solitude and penance as practiced by the founder of his order.
His superiors tried to suppress these innovations, and Friar Matteo and his first companions were forced into hiding from Church authorities, who sought to arrest them for having abandoned their religious duties. They were given refuge by the Camaldolese monks, in gratitude for which they later adopted the hood or capuccio worn by that order--which was the mark of a hermit in that region of Italy--and the practice of wearing a beard. The popular name of their order originates from this feature of their religious habit, and after this the Capuchin monkey and the cappuccino coffee are also named by visual analogy. In 1528, Friar Matteo obtained the approval of Pope Clement VII and was given permission to live as a hermit and to go about everywhere preaching to the poor. These permissions were not only for himself, but for all such as might join him in the attempt to restore the most literal observance possible of the Rule of St. Francis. Matteo and the original band were soon joined by others. Matteo and his companions were formed into a congregation, called the Hermit Friars Minor, as a branch of the Conventual Franciscans, but with a vicar of their own, subject to the jurisdiction of the general of the Conventuals. The Observants continued to oppose the movement.
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