The Motley Monk is me, Richard M. Jacobs, an Augustinian priest assigned to Villanova University located 12 miles west of Philadelphia, where I have taught courses in Educational Leadership, Public Administration, Teacher Education, and Core Humanities for 20+ years. If you are interested in what I have been doing during those years, check out my University webpage by clicking on my picture. However, be sure to come back to The Motley Monk blog!
Why "Motley"? The term is generally understood to mean "multi-faceted" and, I would think, being a priest, a professor, and a wanna-be chef who assists at two parishes on weekends and holy days is pretty multi-faceted!
Why "Monk"? Well, monks traditionally live their lives in one monastery. It's called "stability." The religious order to which I belong, the Augustinians, technically are not "monks" but "friars." Like monks, Augustinians live in monasteries for the most part and, like friars but unlike monks, Augustinians are transferred from place to place. I guess that makes us "unstable." My province of origin, the Chicago Province (officially called the "Midwest Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel"), has monasteries and houses in Chicago, IL, Tulsa, OK, Detroit, MI, and other cities of the Midwest but none in the East. So, as a "friar" assigned to Villanova University (which is staffed by the Augustinians of the Eastern Province of St. Thomas of Villanova), I reside at HIH II.
Why at "HIH II" and not a house of the Eastern Province? Given my out-of-Province assignment and the limited space available both on-campus and near-campus for the Augustinians of the Eastern Province, I was allowed to move into HIH I where I lived for four years and subsequently have lived at HIH II for eight years. A hermitage is normally attached to or located near a religious institution where the hermits come to congregate periodically for prayer, fellowship, good, and adult beverages. In fact, the Augustinians originally were hermits living in the marshes of Icone, Italy, who were compelled to live together by Pope Innocent IV in 1256!
So, I'm not really a "monk" or a "friar," but live in a "hermitage," a term originally coined to poke fun at my good friend and fellow Augustinian, Fr. Jerry Nicholas, OSA. Jerry is a very prayerful and contemplative sort who has always longed for a his own hermitage or Russian poustinia. As life's twists and turns have twisted and turned, it ends up that I live in Jerry's hermitage! However, the longer I have lived at HIH II, people think I am becoming a hermit, as Fr. Harry Erdlen, OSA, once exclaimed in a fit of pique, "My God, Richard, you're becoming a hermit!"
