Brother Alfred was born Joseph Nasticky on July 13, 1920 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. His parents, Joseph and Alberta (Hallo) Nasticky were immigrants from Slovakia. He had five sisters and a brother. Brother Alfred attended Sacred Heart Elementary School and graduated from Phoenixville High School in 1938.
After high school he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. During World War II he served as a Chief Petty Officer. He was in the Coast Guard for three years and spent 18 months overseas during which time he visited North Africa, England and France. From his time at sea he developed a love for the water and enjoyed summer visits to the beach and boat rides on Lake Erie.
Several years after leaving the military, Brother Alfred felt called to study for the priesthood. In 1946 he began studies at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary of the archdiocese of Philadelphia. Earning a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1951, he then began to seriously consider a second call to religious life.
He heard about the Slovak Benedictine community in Cleveland, Ohio and entered the novitiate as a brotherhood candidate in 1952 and received the religious name of Brother Alfred. After professing first vows as a Benedictine monk the following year, he was named secretary to Abbot Theodore Kojis. Fr. Benedict Dobrancin, O.S.B., principal of Benedictine High School at the time also asked Brother Alfred to take over the typing classes in the school so that one teacher would be responsible for the upkeep of the machines.
Brother Alfred holds the distinction of being the brother with the longest continual tenure on the Benedictine High School faculty. From 1953 until his retirement from the classroom 40 years later in 1993, Brother Alfred taught the skills of the typewriter keyboard to countless Benedictine students, some of whom continued for many years to stop by and thank him for his diligent and comprehensive instruction.
Along with his teaching assignment, Brother Alfred began a second, 35-year behind-the-scenes career in 1959 as circulation manager of the monastery’s Slovak language AVE MARIA magazine. He maintained correspondence with subscribers who wrote to the abbey for prayer requests and to purchase Slovak maps and Christmas cards. The abbey received many donations through Brother Alfred’s subscribers and many requests for Masses for deceased relatives and friends.
Brother Alfred had a lot of "nervous energy" and enjoyed taking daily walks for many years through the business district in the local neighborhood. He was a familiar visitor to local merchants as the monastery’s "goodwill ambassador." Yet, he always looked down as he walked and his Depression-era sense of frugality helped him to recover many lost coins from the pavement.
For a number of years he also managed the abbey Procurator’s Shop and was able to help a monk maintain the integrity of his vow of poverty by questioning monastic customers as to the genuineness of their needs. In recent years he gave a good example to the community of his commitment to communal prayer and the Eucharist attending Divine Office and Mass daily in his wheelchair even when his eyesight began to fail. Before moving to Holy Family Cancer Home, he participated in his last conventual Mass in the abbey with his confreres on Sunday, July 28.
Brother Alfred’s Funeral Mass was held on Wednesday, September 4, 2002 at 4:00 pm in the abbey church. Abbot Clement Zeleznik, O.S.B. was the presider and homilist. Burial was in Calvary Cemetery. Brother Alfred is survived by sisters Mary Horenci (Phoenixville, PA) and Josephine Wallner (Baltimore, MD) and a brother Stephen (Phoenixville, PA). One of his grandnephews is all-star catcher Mike Piazza of the New York Mets.
As Brother Alfred prepared so intensely for nearly eight years for his journey to the heavenly mansions promised by Jesus, may he now experience the refreshment of Divine Mercy and be counted among the elect in the Kingdom. Please remember him in the customary Masses and prayers.
Transcript of Abbot Clement's Homily at Bro. Alfred's Funeral