Fr. Florian Demmer (1897-1980)
Father Florian Demmer passed away July 12, 1980.
“Tally Ho!” “I don’t know?” “Captus est!” These expressions often escaped the lips of Father Florian. The latter saying he used when he had the good fortune to trump a bridge opponent’s attempt to finesse. Bridge was on the menu twice daily for his novices. Yet there were other words and largely deeds that formed novices of our community and many other communities in the American-Cassinese Congregation for some 23 years. His humor was sly, his approach indirect. When a novice came to him for an interview he might ask if said novice wanted the key to “the Iron Curtain.” That being the place in the attic where the luggage brought to the novitiate was kept if the novice decided to depart!
Father Florian had endless projects for his novices; like memorizing the Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict in Latin. Picking buck brush and Boston Ivy seed from the vines growing along the abbey walls for sale to seed dealers in New York to gain a little money for the construction of the yet-to-be built Abbey Church. There were stones left over from the construction of the Abbey in 1929, which novices moved to the north parts of the abbey property. Rattlesnakes and copperheads were a part of that operation. He was the first in the Choir Chapel each morning thereby setting an example for the novices. Some followed it.
Father Florian generously helped his friend, Monsignor Joseph Selfing, in Leavenworth, and served at St. John’s Burlington, Iowa, for seven years and with the Benedictine Sisters in Madison, Wisc., for four years. While he served at Burlington, Father Florian, true to his green thumb, had a garden near on the property of the Catholic Cemetery. He liked not only the onions, but also the location. He often said that no one there voiced any objection to his having a garden.
The twelfth Step of Humility in the Rule of St. Benedict states that a monk ought to be on the inside what he appears to be on the outside. It seems that Father Florian was just that: real, genuine and authentic.
