Born in 1929 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he grew up in Pittsburgh and New York City. He attended Saint Mary of the Mount Grammar School and Brentwood High School in Pittsburgh and studied at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He entered the order of St. Benedict at St. Vincent Archabbey in 1951. In 1955, Fr. Isaac was sent to Rome to study theology at the International Collegio di Sant’Anselmo of the Benedictine Order, where he received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. His thesis was “Israel, the Sacrament of History” (chapters 9-11 of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans).