One of our monks, let’s call him Fr. Stan, wasn’t an eloquent preacher at the best of times. He had been married—he returned home one day to find his wife had taken the kids and left without warning or explanation—and came to the monastery later in life. As he developed Alzheimer’s disease, his homilies became even more rambling and disconnected. Once, after an especially disjointed homily that ran on and on, some of the brothers complained to the abbot, who thought that perhaps he ought to intervene. The next day, he received a letter from a visitor: “Yesterday I came to the abbey in great distress. I haven’t been to a church in thirty years. That homily spoke straight to my heart—it’s as if every word were destined for me in my unique situation. Thank you for such excellent preaching.” The abbot tacked the note on the board and let Fr. Stan preach.

Another time, Fr. Stan was sitting in the guest area. A friend of the abbey approached and, not realizing Fr. Stan’s condition, asked if he would hear his confession. He’d recently had a big argument with his teenage daughter and, as he tells the story, most of his confession was related to this. As he went on, however, he picked up that the priest was somewhat confused. After hearing him out, Fr. Stan suggested, “For your penance, buy her a sports car. Something bright, a flashy color, red or yellow.” The confused penitent said he’d do his best and received absolution. Later, he told his daughter the story. They laughed, it broke the ice, and they reconciled.

Grace works through vulnerability; “Power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In twenty-five years as a caregiver for elderly Trappist monks, I’ve experienced this deeply, over and over. In those suffering with dementia, the “executive I,” the autonomous ego, has been eclipsed, and while this involves suffering, it also provides an occasion for growth and transformation that wouldn’t otherwise occur in the patient, his caregivers, and the community. When we step out of the way, grace streams through. Caring for those with dementia involves a challenging but also deeply rewarding relational asceticism. Dementia has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people; the usual filters are gone. Faced with this sort of naked vulnerability, caregivers and surrounding community alike may react with fear, condescension, impatience, or even aggression. The other’s weakness makes us face our own. But most of the men with dementia that I’ve cared for have retained their sense of humor to a remarkable degree, and can draw forth tenderness, affection, playfulness, and care from those around them.

A Trappist monastery, it turns out, is a good place to lose your mind. As a stable, structured, and basically compassionate environment, it’s possible for people to stay oriented and retain a modicum of independence longer. Structure in the monastic life is meant to serve as a kind of trellis that allows a plant to climb and spread, to reach a wider and fuller articulation than it could have if left as a clump on the ground. It’s an occupational hazard for monks that adherence to the norm can take the place of responsiveness to life. Those with dementia teach us to hold our rules and patterns lightly, and remind us the structure is only a means to an end.

Once, our Fr. Roman went missing. It was 4:00 a.m. We looked everywhere we could think of until at last someone found him…in the darkened church, sitting in the presider’s chair, drinking root beer and eating chocolate-chip cookies. Another time, just as compline was about to start with a large group of college students in attendance, Fr. Roman came shuffling toward the church wearing a T-shirt—and nothing else. I dashed over and intercepted him just as he was about to round the corner into view and guided him back to his room. As I was helping him get ready for bed, I said, “Fr. Roman, that would have made quite an impression on the guests if you had come to church like that.” Without missing a beat, he replied, “That’s their problem!”

Our culture prizes independence and individual autonomy, things that tend to decline as we get older. We can be tempted to reject lives that are dependent and limited in some way. The February signing of the Medical Aid in Dying (MAID)Act by Gov. Kathy Hochul in New York is just the latest sign of our cultural addiction to the idol of “autonomy.” Critics of the bill have pointed out that MAID poses a risk to those, like the elderly with dementia, who are vulnerable and may face pressure to prematurely end their lives—seen through the skewed lens of the executive “I” as burdensome and meaningless. We imagine our human dignity and “quality of life” depends on our rational ego, but this is only the merest crust of the deep self, the true person we are. Our typical sense of a self—separate and independent from limitation, meaningful because of the ability to make rational choices—does not align with the Christian understanding of the human person as part of a greater whole: branches on a vine, members of a single body. And where “the world” operates by excluding the vulnerable, Christian community places them at the center, surrounded with care, so that “the least honorable members are given the highest place” (1 Corinthians 12:23). As rational egos, we want to control the hour and conditions of our death, and even imagine we have a “right” to do so. But if I’ve learned anything in twenty-five years of caring for elderly monks, it’s that dying happens in its own time, and we must surrender to that reality.

It seems to me that those with dementia, even when they’ve lost the usual markers of identity—when they’ve forgotten how old they are or what they did for a living—have the same spontaneous sense of being themselves in the world they’ve had since childhood. Instead of treating them with patronizing condescension or worse, perhaps we ought to honor them as enlightened beings and conduits of grace, free of the constraints that accompany a constricted sense of self. This is not to romanticize a painful and difficult illness. I’ve witnessed monks with dementia slip away bathed in profound gentleness, and I’ve also watched them die in anguish, suffused with dread and confusion. But I also know that caring for and living with the elderly can bring the very gifts we most need to our frantic and self-centered lives.

I mentioned the abrupt and painful breakup of Fr. Stan’s family. After the family broke up, his children became estranged from their parents and from one another. This pained Stan, and I’m sure he prayed throughout his monastic life for their healing and reconciliation. Near the very end, he was in a coma at a nursing home. His family, many of whom had not been in the same room in decades, began to trickle in. The atmosphere around the bed was quite tense at first. But as the hours and days wore on—Stan in bed, helpless and calm—they began to speak to one another. Slowly the walls came down. In a way, this was the culmination of his contemplative monastic life. His heart’s desire was being realized all around him as he lay there, powerless, but somehow flowing over with grace and peace. Power is indeed made perfect in weakness.