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    The Meditation of My Heart
    The Meditation of My Heart
    The Meditation of My Heart
    Ebook157 pages2 hours

    The Meditation of My Heart

    By Donald J. Richardson

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    The impetus for The Meditation of My Heart came fifty years ago when I was awarded a scholarship to Creighton Preparatory School in Omaha, Nebraska which I attended for just over a week. For it was with some dismay that I discovered the life of the contemplative was not for me. Although Sister Mary Teracita had tried to communicate to me that a call to serve was not to be taken lightly, that it demanded rigor both intellectually and spiritually, I really didnt know what a call meant. However, my time as an altar boy and lay reader has served me over these intervening years so that today, perhaps, I do appreciate more fully the demands of a life of service in the interest of religion. While such a life is extremely personal, the contemplative also lives a life on public display, an apparent contradiction one is forced to accept. I admire anyone who can do this successfully.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateJul 3, 2008
    ISBN9781468521450
    The Meditation of My Heart
    Author

    Donald J. Richardson

    Although he has long been eligible to retire, Donald J. Richardson continues to (try to) teach English Composition at Phoenix College in Arizona. He defines his life through his teaching, his singing, his volunteering, and his grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      The Meditation of My Heart - Donald J. Richardson

      CHAPTER ONE

      The road to agonosticism for me began when I entered the seminary. I was a recent college graduate from the state university where I had learned to be an active questioner. From my instructors, teachers, and professors I had learned the art of asking telling questions. They had taught me not to simply accept what was offered but to ask Why? How? For what reason? These questions had served me well heretofore. I had been regarded as an aspiring intellectual, one who might make his way in the world untrammeled by unreasoning faith which apparently did not admit such questions.

      As Thomas, my namesake, I had tried to live up to my name, causing discomfort, chagrin, and embarrassment whenever I opened my mouth. I had found it quite simple to make most of my teachers look like fools, not because they were but because they weren’t equipped to deal with my probing or my seeking, and my unwillingness to accept what they said, simply on their merit or character or because they said so.

      I knew that there was a higher truth, and I wanted it. Perhaps religion could offer me that truth. Maybe in the church lay the answers. Maybe, like Father Mahoney, I, too, could resolve all of my doubts and, like Thomas, put my hand into the wound of Christ’s side. This, I told myself, is what I want. I want to know the how and why, the essence of everything. And if, like Santayana, the truth left me silent, so be it. I would be silenced in a good cause.

      I had been a dutiful Roman Catholic youth. At my mother’s behest I had learned from older boys the process of serving Mass. After my initiation, every Sunday was a repetition of the celebration of the faith in Jesus Christ and in God the Father. For some reason, unknown to me at the time, I reveled in this celebration, and–like Joyce–saw myself carrying the salver on high, perhaps like the Crusaders, questioning the one true way which the Church offered and promised. I would know that truth; I would become that truth.

      From such practice and inchoate belief came the desire to become a man of the cloth, to follow in St. Peter’s footsteps, and to become a man of God. It was hard for me even to say the word priest in this context, but that was the intended culmination of such a religious quest. I didn’t envision how I could ever call myself a priest, but wasn’t that the natural end of such a search? Wasn’t that the reward which awaited a servant of God, for this is how I saw myself. I would study to become a priest.

      But this resolve was slow in coming. Surely, my path would have been less treacherous, less dangerous, had I entered the seminary immediately following high school. But, unsure of myself, unsure of my motives, unsure of my faith, I dithered. A liberal arts education would surely serve my purpose, I said to myself, and Father Mahoney, my confessor, agreed.

      Thus, four year later I found myself the somewhat proud possessor of a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, knowing the questions that had been asked by Gerard Manley Hopkins, by James Joyce, by Thomas Merton, but knowing none of the answers. The answers must lie in the seminary, surely.

      In August, 1965 I enrolled at St. Michael’s Seminary. There I was to be instructed in the ways of God in order to prepare myself to become a minister of the true faith, the Roman Catholic church. The seminary itself lay in a slight valley amid hills of green. There were outcroppings of trees here and there, but the plain and the view were constant, relatively unchanging, and intellectually reassuring. As I gazed out the dormitory window, I fantasized that here I would become a true Christian and that all my doubts would be resolved.

      CHAPTER TWO

      The priests and brothers at St. Michael’s were generally impressive. Headed by the Abbot, Father Lewkowitz, they included Father Andre, Father Delgado, Father Klein, Father Murphy, and Brothers Lawrence and Anthony. The Brothers could not say Mass, of course, but they were useful and reverent in their service. Brother Lawrence seemed to me to be an avatar of St. Francis, treating all of God’s creations–man and animal alike–with equanimity and love. He served as the general factotum for St. Michael’s, dealing with all of the problems outdoors and many of them indoors.

      Brother Anthony, although he wasn’t a priest, possessed the best intellect of all of the staff, I felt. His classes in theology challenged every one of the seminarians, but he did it in a Christ-like spirit, not denigrating students but showing them errors or gaps in their thinking and promising a future of benevolence seasoned with grace. I wondered occasionally what had kept him from becoming a priest.

      The priests, too, served well. Father Lewkowitz, in addition to serving as the Abbot, taught the History of Religion which was actually the History of Roman Catholicism. He had the reputation of being strict, but I found him to be fair and open.

      Father Delgado was favored by many of the seminarians, and they chose him as their Confessor. He was younger than the other priests and perhaps as a result was more sympathetic to the seminarians’ problems. He was a handsome man, and I suspected that if he ever led a congregation he would have a substantial group of women admirers. Father Delgado taught the courses in orientation to the priesthood and Latin.

      Father Murphy was from the auld sod as he called it, and he bragged about being from County Cork. He and Father Mahoney were good friends, Father Mahoney had told me, and he had told me to take my problems to Father Murphy any time I couldn’t reach him at home. Father Murphy taught the advanced logic and epistemology courses.

      Father Klein was somewhat rotund, filling his cassock nearly to bursting with his stomach projecting out ahead of him. He was good-natured and gave the least exacting penances at confession. Anybody who was concerned about the gravity of his sins confessed to Father Klein. Father Klein’s classes in Church Law and the Sacraments were known to be less exacting than some others.

      Father Andre was the priest I gravitated toward. He was serious about his religion, but in his world religion classes he often joked about the discrepancies between what men strove for and what they could actually achieve, granting that everyone is human and subject to the foibles of humanity. If I needed a counselor, in the absence of Father Mahoney–despite his recommendation of Father Murphy–I went to Father Andre. I thought his Masses were offered with a greater reverence and respect than one or two of the other priests; even a Low Mass he didn’t seem to rush through.

      The Bishop, Ian Blessing, we rarely saw. He came to St. Michael’s occasionally to confer with Father Lewkowitz or to conduct a ceremony such as ordainment. We didn’t see him with any regularity.

      Generally, the priests and the brothers impressed me with their reverence. They gave the impression of being committed to a life of religion which they actually wanted to do. They seemed contented to be where they were and to be doing what they liked doing. This was especially true of Brother Lawrence, but I think it held true for all of the staff. Most of them smoked and drank coffee with little restraint, but beyond that I thought they had been relatively successful at removing themselves from society and removing society from their lives.

      Nevertheless, each of them had his quirks. Father Delgado, for example, loved the music of the Mass. He had an extensive record collection featuring Masses by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and others, and sometimes he played it at a volume which most of us got to enjoy, desired or not.

      Father Klein had actually emigrated from Germany, and it was obvious that he loved food. It was clear what the major temptation in his life was. He regularly exhorted Mrs. Herrmann and Angie to prepare some authentic German food. But he wasn’t overly particular, I noticed, for he seemed to be satisfied with an occasional wurst or German potato salad.

      Father Andre loved the music of the Mass, too, and occasionally he sang the phrases of the Mass. This added a special level to the celebration, I felt, a level that perhaps transcended our mortal state, reaching to another height.

      All of the priests and brothers were poor. Of course, they had accepted their priestly vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience at their investiture, but to the world at large I’m certain they would have been regarded as poverty-stricken. None of them owned an automobile. There were some bicycles at St. Michael’s, and there was the seminary vehicle–a type of van or carry-all–but beyond that the priests and brothers were consigned to the seminary. However, I never sensed any discontent about this.

      Several of the priests had extensive collections of books, so perhaps this is the area that they allowed themselves indulgence. Their rooms were bare of decorations, generally, with none of the homey touches that a woman would have provided. There was actually very little of material possessions which separated the priests from the seminarians.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Brother Anthony opened the first day of our Theology class by welcoming us all to St. Michael’s. I’m sure you are all excited to be here, and I hope all of you will be successful in becoming priests. However, I know that some of you will not. I have been here over eighteen years myself, and I’ve seen many seminarians come and go. So take a look around you, gentlemen; not everyone you see now will be back next August.

      He paused a moment to allow this to sink in. I’m certain that none of you has come here for a trivial reason. The decision to become a priest requires soul-searching and honesty. You have to be completely honest with yourself, or you may make the wrong decision. What I’d like to do today is to have each of you introduce yourself so that others can begin to know you. And I want you to tell what it is that caused you to come to St. Michael’s. What I’m referring to is the ‘Call,’ that personal impetus or drive that made you decide to become a priest. Who is willing to begin?

      After a few moments of silence, Brother Anthony nodded to a dark-complexioned seminarian in the second row. Yes?

      I’ll start. My name is Gino Scolutti. I come from a big Italian family, and I’m the first one to set out to become a priest.

      Was there any one factor that made you decide that, Gino? Brother Anthony asked.

      Yes, there was. It was my mother.

      This caused everyone to relax, to smile, and some even to laugh.

      Well, you wouldn’t laugh if you saw my mother. She can be very persuasive. You see, in an Italian family–I’m Italian, in case you couldn’t tell–it’s a great honor to have a son become a priest. And since none of my three older brothers chose to attend the seminary, I guess it’s up to me.

      But isn’t there some spiritual reason, too, Gino? Brother Anthony asked.

      "Oh, well, of course.

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