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After an illness lasting almost a quarter of a century, Father David died peacefully in his cell. A descendent of Catholic settlers in Kentucky who were forced to emigrate to Maryland because of their religion, Fr David never forgot his Kentucky roots and took a keen interest in horse racing. He was also an avid Red Sox fan, never losing hope that someday his team would win the pennant. For many years he taught Classics and Christian Doctrine in the school, serving also as a Housemaster and sailing coach. Former students often came to visit him and reminisce about their days under his tutelage. From 1969 to 1975 he taught at the Catholic Seminary Foundation in Indianapolis. In the monastery he held a variety of posts during his long life: librarian, organist, novice master.
But his most notable achievement was in the field of scholarship, which was a lifelong pursuit. In 1958 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for a study of the most reliable texts of St Bede, travelling extensively to monasteries and libraries in Europe, including Monte Cassino and the British Museum. For the Cistercian Studies Series Fr David translated Bede’s Excerpts from the Works of St Augustine on the Letters of Saint Paul, a book published in 1999, the last work he was able to pursue because of failing health. Previously he had translated Gregory the Great’s Forty Homilies and a number of St Bede’s homilies on Scripture, sometimes in collaboration with Professor Lawrence Martin, of the faculty of the University of Akron. In addition to many articles and reviews published in Catholic periodicals, Fr David was associated with the impressive study of the Rule, RB:1980, undertaken to mark the fifteenth centenary of St Benedict’s birth.
A funeral Mass was said on June 16, at the Abbey Church followed by interment in the monastery cemetery.
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