At the Monastery of the Holy Spirit the Rev. Luke Kot was fairly well known.
Not only was he the oldest monk there, but he was the last surviving member of the group of 21 Trappist monks who established the Conyers monastery. But Kot did not seek fame, his goal was fellowship.
“Father Luke was very approachable,” said the Rev. Francis Michael Stiteler, abbot of the Monastery. “He was the epitome of giving and receiving. He let people love him, hug him and touch him.”
For the last couple of years, Kot worked in the monastery’s welcome center when his health allowed, and there he made a number of friends, Stiteler said.
“There were people who would come to see him,” the abbot said. “And he knew how to receive them and let them know how important they were, because they were important to him. That is a large piece of what is missing in society, and Father Luke understood how to do that.”
Luke Marion Kot died Thursday after a period of declining health. He was 102. A funeral Mass and burial were held Monday at the Conyers monastery. Scot Ward Funeral Services was in charge of arrangements.
Kot was born in Montana but his family moved to Niagara Falls, N.Y., to escape the harsh winters, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2011. The son of Polish immigrants, he grew up in a devout Catholic household, the only son among three daughters. When he was 14 Kot decided to spend his life with a religious order, a decision not everyone understood, he said.
“Some people think when you go to a monastery, you’re wasting your time,” he said in 2011. “I say, ‘I’m wasting it on God.’ Then they shut up. They can’t say a word because God is love. When God calls you to the religious life, you give your life for others. Monks pray for people, and they help the poor. We pray for the world — no exceptions.”
As a young man, Kot joined the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, commonly known as the Trappists, and lived at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He stayed there until the order decided to start a monastery in Georgia.
Kot never had aspirations for leadership at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, he was perfectly happy in relative anonymity, Stiteler said.
“He wanted to stay small, he wanted to stay hidden,” the abbot said. “He just wanted to do the work.”
Kot’s life at the monastery has been filled with work and prayer. And he didn’t shy away from interacting with people, said the Rev. Methodius Telnack.
“He did love to talk,” he said. “And he was quite pleasant to be with.”
Though he’d been in the infirmary for some time, he did not let his illnesses dampen his spirit, Telnack said.
“Whenever I went to see him in the infirmary, he never talked about himself,” he said. “He just thought of other people rather than himself. It was actually quite beautiful.”
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