A
Short Biographical Note
from
Father
Gregory M. Schweers, O. Cist.
Father Gregory Schweers is a Catholic priest and a solemnly professed monk of Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey in Irving, Texas. Father Gregory was born the 29th of December in 1953 in Kingsville, Texas, the third of five children. Both his mother and father were officers in Navy during W.W. II and currently live near Lake Travis, Austin, Texas. He spent his formative years growing up in south Texas, especially around Corpus Christi.
After attending public schools, he matriculated at the University of Dallas as an academic scholarship student studying philosophy. His junior thesis was on the “Philosophy of History in the Writings of Jose Ortega Y Gassett” while his senior thesis was “The Concept of Time in Henri Bergson’s “Essai sur les Donnees Immediates de Conscience”. He received his B.A. summa cum laude in philosophy. His two elder sisters are school teachers; his brother is a medical doctor; and his younger sister is a doctor of veterinary medicine.
He entered the Cistercian Order in 1975 and made his final profession of monastic vows in 1980. He completed his theological studies at the University of Dallas, at Holy Trinity Seminary, and at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, Italy. While studying in Rome, he did coursework at both the Liturgical Institute and the Monastic Institute. After returning to the USA, he received his M.A. in theology from the University of Dallas, writing his thesis on the theological methodology of Bernard Lonergan, S.J. Later, he did graduate study at the University of Texas and received his M.A. in English, writing a thesis on the religious poetry of Saint Robert Southwell, S.J. Father Gregory was ordained to the priesthood in 1981 by Bishop Thomas Tschoepe, D.D., and has served as pastoral assistant at St. Maria Goretti Church in Arlington, Texas, and at Christ the King Church in Dallas, Texas. In 1996, the Bishop's Committee on Pro-Life Activities recognized his years of service in the struggle against abortion by honoring Fr. Gregory with a special award of recognition.
Currently, Father Gregory is a teacher in the Department of English at the Cistercian Preparatory School in Irving, Texas and has taught there for 27 years. His primary area of interest has been in comparative and world literature. Over the years, he has taught an eclectic set of elective courses including Autobiographical Writing, Humanities Research, Literary Criticism, the history of Science Fiction, the sonnets of Shakespeare, and a music appreciation class in Opera. As an administrator in the Prep School he’s served as chairman of the English Department from 1992 – 1998. He has been the Form Master for two groups of students, the Class of 1990 and the Class of 1998; he also assists the needs of the Class of 1995. In 1999, he became Form Master of the Class of 2007. In the 2004-2005 academic year, he was appointed by the Headmaster as the first Coordinator of Senior Projects, and continues in that post.
In his scholarly pursuits, Father Gregory has written on the theology of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the poetry of Robert Southwell, S.J., and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Over the years, he has gained a facility in four foreign languages and has enjoyed opportunities to travel to Australia, Peru, Costa Rica, and the countries of Western Europe. In 1999, he was awarded a summer fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities for study in Siena, Italy, relating to the Divine Comedy. In June of 2000, he led a small group of pilgrims to Rome for the Jubilee Year of Grace. Father Gregory enjoys Italian opera, swimming, snow skiing, cycling, and anything related to good food!