He’s a recovering alcoholic.

He loves reading crime and cop fiction.

Brother Robert Hagler recently visited Lawrence to lead a Lenten retreat at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt. Hagler, of Santa Barbara, Calif., is an episcopal priest and a monk belonging to the Benedictine Order of the Holy Cross.

And his favorite way to spend a Sunday evening is watching a comedy or thriller at the movies with a big tub of popcorn.

Meet Brother Robert Hagler, an Episcopal priest and a monk belonging to the Benedictine Order of the Holy Cross.

Hagler, 56, leads a community of eight monks at the Mount Calvary Monastery and Retreat House in the foothills above Santa Barbara, Calif. He has been a monk in this order for 25 years, with the last 12 of them spent in Santa Barbara.

In some ways, the tall, slim brother is just what you would expect of a monk. In other ways, he subverts stereotypes of a man devoted to the contemplative, religious life.

Hagler, a Tennessee native, has a gentle voice with the slightest touch of a Southern accent. His presence creates an air of familiarity.

Yet as special as he is, Hagler is really an ordinary man a person who has suffered, felt regret, experienced depression and even had a brief stab of wanting to end his life.

“About five years ago, I woke up and I said, ‘I think I’m happy.’ I said, ‘Why did it take me 20 years (in the religious order) to get to the point where I’m happy?’ That’s a mystery. It’s one of many mysteries,” Hagler said.

The monk visited Lawrence last week to lead a Lenten retreat at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt. Trinity’s interim pastor, the Rev. Peter Oesterlin, is a longtime acquaintance of Hagler’s and has visited the Benedictine brother’s Santa Barbara spiritual retreat many times in the last 25 years.

Committing to vows

Hagler took time during his visit to talk about his faith and the experience of a monastic life.

He became a monk, when he was 31, for two reasons.

“I’m intrigued by the whole notion of ultimate questions and concerns, and I felt I needed a community to help me do that, and to help me just find out who I am,” he said.

Members of Hagler’s order follow certain guidelines. Each monk commits his life to seeking God with the support of others in a community based on a balanced life of prayer, work, study and relaxation.

The monks take vows of poverty, obedience to God and chastity.

And a vow of silence, too.

Every day, monks at Mount Calvary go without speaking from 8 p.m. until after their breakfast at 9 a.m. It’s called the “great silence,” and it’s part of the Benedictine tradition.

Hagler described how he and the other monks spend those hours, which are considered their own time to pass as they wish.

“I read a lot of crime fiction,” he said. “I like murder mysteries, police procedurals, courtroom dramas. Some of the brothers will watch television. They usually watch the sports events. Another brother loves ‘Law & Order.’

“Then there are other brothers who check their e-mail or cruise the Internet. Three of our brothers are in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I give them a dispensation to talk.”

Challenges of community

It isn’t easy being a monk.

“The first 20 years are bad,” he said. “In the monastic life, you commit to live with people that you don’t choose. It’s difficult to live in a healthy community. It takes a lot of maintenance.

“And you put the onus that you are to be a community of love on top of the challenge of having to live together for a lifetime.”

Like anyone else, Hagler has felt pain in his life. Being a monk doesn’t protect him from that. His parents have died, as have close friends and fellow monks.

And he’s a recovering alcoholic, sober for 19 years. He was seven years into the monastic life when he joined AA.

Brothers are allowed to drink alcohol, but Hagler knew he had developed a problem. He began drinking heavily; he was going to bed drunk and waking up in the morning with a hangover. By the time he realized his drinking was out of control, he had reached the disease stage of alcoholism.

One day he looked into the mirror and, for the first time, had thoughts about ending his life. That’s when he sought help.

Does he have any regrets, such as choosing to forgo experiences like marriage, children and fatherhood?

“I’m very glad I chose this life. I don’t regret anything,” Hagler said. “I’m further along spiritually than when I started. I’m a saner person, a better person, a lot more alive than when I started.”

Does he ever feel transcendence?

“I have moments like that. I wish they would last longer,” he said. “What the monastic life teaches is not to wait for those moments, but to enjoy every moment, even the most mundane to distill something of God in every moment of life.”