Fr. Michael Marks 70 Years as a Benedictine

Fr. Michael Custer, O.S.B., says he is the oldest monk the Saint Anselm Abbey has ever produced. On July 2, at age 94, he marked the 70th anniversary of his profession of vows to the Order of St. Benedict.

“No other monk has lived that long,” he says. “I’ll be 95 in October. I don’t have cancer. I don’t have heart trouble. I am six years away from being 100 and I think I should make it.”

Fr. Michael and his younger brother, Raymond, arrived at Saint Anselm College in 1932 to prepare for the seminary. While studying, they both were attracted to the Benedictine community and joined in 1934, under the first abbot, Abbot Bertrand Dolan. Raymond decided not to pursue a religious vocation after three years, says Fr. Michael, who stayed on and was ordained in 1941.

Fr. Michael taught chemistry at the college for 40 years, after completing his master’s degree at the Catholic University of America. He was chairman of the department from 1945 to 1982, and in 1983 was named Teacher of the Year by the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers.

Fr. Michael also served as subprior at the abbey for 10 years and worked on temporary assignment at parishes in Manchester and Nashua for more than three decades. He loves to tell stories—his eyes lock onto a listener’s as he tells them—and he gathered the tales he used in his homilies into a book entitled Stories Used in Homilies by a Priest Who has had Fifty-Five Years Experience. He also co-authored a chemistry text, Experiments in General Chemistry .

Fr. Michael grew up in Lowell, Mass., and studied chemistry at what was then the Lowell Textile Institute (today the Francis College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell). Before retiring from teaching in 1987, he taught hundreds of future nurses, physicians, dentists and pharmacists. Many of his former students still keep in touch with him.

“I loved teaching,” he says. “It broke my heart when that stopped. I still miss it.”

In fact, Fr. Michael is known as an inveterate communicator by e-mail. To keep his fingers in shape for typing, he plays piano. His talent caught the attention of the nurses at the Bishop Peterson Home, in Manchester, where he has lived since 2001. So the former trumpet player, who once performed in a dance band with his brothers, now plays, sings and tells stories during monthly concerts at the Mount Carmel Nursing Home, across the street from his residence.

He also performs for his confreres at the abbey, where he has dinner every Sunday.

“I don’t sing for them,” he says. “They can walk out.”