Benedictine Rule drew young lawyer to hilltop monastery

By LAUREEN McMAHON

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Benedictine Abbot Maurus Macrae, who died suddenly at the age of 78 on the morning of June 24, oversaw the running of Westminster Abbey and the Seminary of Christ the King during a particularly peaceful period. While he was abbot, remarkably, no deaths occurred in the community.

The abbot’s fatal heart attack, which stunned his monastic family as well as others who have been welcomed and nurtured so well within the community’s walls over past decades, struck him down while he was hard at work pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand during a vital project to repair the abbey church’s faulty heating system.

Benedictine Abbot   Maurus Macrae   1926 - 2005

Repeated resuscitation efforts failed to save his life and Father Abbot died in the church, with members of the Benedictine community he had led for the past 13 years kneeling over his body and commending his soul to God.

Abbot Macrae was only the second abbot to serve the Benedictines since their arrival in the Vancouver archdiocese in 1933. He was elected in 1992 to succeed Abbot Eugene Medved, one of the original Benedictine monks who came from Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon to establish the local community. Abbot Medved was superior of the community for 48 years and became its first abbot in 1953. He served for the next 39 years.

Abbot Macrae was born Hector Macrae in 1926 in Winnipeg to John M. Macrae and Christine Carmichael and was the youngest of six children. He was predeceased by his eldest sister Kay, his brother Roderick, and his sister Christine. Two of the abbot’s siblings survive him; Patricia (Mrs. E. Davie Fulton) of Vancouver, and John Alexander (Alex) Macrae of Guelph, Ont.

The abbot is also mourned by numerous nieces and nephews and their families living in different parts of Canada.

Abbot Macrae’s father John M. Macrae was a Scottish Presbyterian who served in an administrative position with the Canadian National Railway. The family often relocated to different cities in the early years, said Patricia Fulton.

Under their Irish Catholic mother’s influence, the children received a Catholic education, and when the family transferred to Vancouver, Hector Macrae entered Little Flower Academy for Grades 1 to 3. He later attended Vancouver College, which was run by the Irish Christian Brothers.

When CN Rail moved his father back to Winnipeg at the beginning of World War II, Hector Macrae entered the Jesuit St. Paul’s High School. He later attended Loyola University in Montreal when the family settled in Quebec.

He returned to Vancouver after the war to attend the University of B.C., where he received a BA in 1949 and a law degree in 1950. After practising law in the city for about seven years, he closed his practice because he was determined to begin studies to enter the Benedictine Order.

Patricia Fulton recalled being somewhat surprised when her brother acknowledged that he wanted to be a priest, but she said the Rule of St. Benedict which emphasizes the importance of work and prayer, “ora et labora,” definitely appealed to his sense of being ready always to do what was necessary.

“This is what we were raised with,” Fulton told The B.C. Catholic. “The ideal of service was deeply ingrained in our family ethic so, in the end, it was really not so unusual that Hector would have chosen to become a priest and to follow the Benedictine Rule. We were convinced by our parents that you have certain things to do in life, and this attitude of service was built into us early on.”

Hector Macrae entered the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission in 1957 and Westminster Abbey in 1958. He took the religious name of Maurus at his profession of vows.

It was a prescient choice for someone constantly referred to during the Funeral Mass as a man of peace. St. Maurus was a sixth century abbot and deacon who came under the care of St. Benedict when he was just 12 years of age. He is considered to be a model of perfection to all, but especially in the virtue of obedience.

Abbot Macrae was ordained a priest in 1963 and obtained a degree in Canon Law from St. Paul’s University in Ottawa in 1965. He was named rector of Westminster Abbey’s Minor Seminary the same year and continued in that position for three more years.

He was chaplain for the Poor Clare Nuns at their Mission monastery and for the Matsqui prison at Abbotsford for many years. Besides teaching Canon Law, French, and Latin in the seminary, he succeeded Father Benedict Keber as monastery guestmaster in 1988.

After Abbot Medved died in 1992, Father Macrae was elected the community’s new leader and installed in the abbey church amid great rejoicing on June 6, 1992.

Although news of her brother’s sudden passing was a great shock, said Patricia Fulton, coming as it did while he was busily engaged in manual labour on behalf of the community seemed to be exactly the kind of death he might have chosen. While he had suffered heart trouble in the past, he had seemed in good shape in recent years.

Patricia Fulton, a trained Social Worker who was Executive Director of the Vancouver Catholic Children’s Aid Society from 1939 to 1946, said, “Hector always was the first to help out. He was also very firm on the fact that he had a new family when he joined the Benedictines, although he continued to remain in close contact with us.

“Over the years,” added Fulton, the widow of well-known Canadian politician the Honourable Davie Fulton, “he encouraged our visiting him frequently and he came in to Vancouver to see us.”

“Father Abbot Maurus,” said Benedictine monk Father Mark Dumont, “was a wonderful leader, with the patience of Job and a good sense of humour. When someone asked him what an abbot does, he answered, ‘I plug leaks.’

“He led by example, not command. Whenever volunteers were asked for manual work, he was always there, whether to pitch bales of hay, fork silage, hoe the garden or, as we have seen, carry sand to help repair the abbey church.”