J M J T
The
Carmelite Novitiate
OUTLOOK
Published
Monthly by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers, Our Lady’s Hill, Waverly, New York
Volume 1, No. 5 April 1962
Dear
Friends of Carmel,
Because our weather this past winter had not been as
severe as it had been in former years (so the natives tell us), we didn’t give
it a second thought when the month of March was gentle as a lamb instead of its
usual blowy, blustery self. But then
when the March issue of OUTLOOK came out, we couldn’t help thinking we knew the
reason why. It didn’t dare compete
against the prodigious windbag who wrote it (namely, me). Well, we’ll try to restrain ourselves this
month.
* * * * * *
We had a frightful experience here a
few weeks ago. One morning we got up to
discover we were without water. For
some reason the water storage tank on the roof had run dry. Since we managed to find enough water in the
teapot to be used at Mass, we went ahead with our morning schedule. All the while horrible thoughts of having to
go days “sans shave” and without washing and having to drink soda pop (or beer
– this is bad?) kept running through our minds. Happily, Brother Maurice discovered the reason. The automatic switch in the tank which turns
on the well pump when the water drops to a certain level, had failed to
function. So he activated the switch
manually and the water began to flow again in abundance. We know now, however, what a precious commodity
water is.
Later, when we were able to think
about the episode and smile, we thought it might be a good idea for Fr. Timothy
to tell of the incident in giving his vocation talks. If youngsters knew that living here might easily involve having
to go without washing and having to drink soda pop, who knows, large numbers of
them might be inspired to join the Order.
* * * * * *
Speaking of water, we just had cause
a few days ago to celebrate a truly joyous occasion. We had hot water again after being without it since early
January. Our water here is so hard
(although it is crystal-clear) that in about six weeks, enough lime had been
deposited on the inside of the coils in the hot water boiler to cut off the
flow of water through them altogether.
By the time we discovered that this was the reason for the failure, and
by the time we had gotten a new set of coils and put them in, it was the end of
March. All that time no one complained,
even though it meant taking baths or showers in cold water. How consoling to know our Novices are made
of stern stuff.
* * * * * *
Some times a slip of the pen, or a
typing mistake, turns out to be very instructive. In trying to get down a few thoughts for a Lenten talk, we were
saying that the good things of this world are a threat to our salvation and
sanctification. But by mistake, we
wrote, “treat” instead of “threat.”
Having missed the ‘h’ made a treat out of threat. How true it is, when we get the ‘h’ out of
the pleasures and comforts of this life by using them in accordance with God’s
Will, they are no longer threats but treats.
* * * * * *
Our morale was boosted considerably
one weekend in March when a group of my friends from Rochester came down to
donate a day’s work. With their help we
managed to finish painting our second floor corridor. Its beautiful appearance helps to refresh our weary souls.
Toward the end of the day, after
having worked long and hard, one of them said, “Please don’t tell my wife how
hard I worked. She’ll put me to work
redecorating the house.” So we very
calmly and cold-bloodedly seized the opportunity to blackmail them. They promised to come back again, and we
promised not to tell their wives how hard they worked.
* * * * * *
The other day a soil expert was
brought up to tell us what would be the best thing to plant on the grounds
surrounding the building. He said that
our soil is ideal for blue grass.
Having heard this the thought ran through my mind: “That’s nice, because the students have such
big appetites.” Flabbergasted, I tried
to reconstruct the thought process that led to this. Here is the chain of ideas:
Blue-grass made me think of Kentucky, then of the Derby, then of horses,
and then that our Novices eat like horses.
Isn’t it funny how the mind works?
* * * * * *
In the February issue of the OUTLOOK
we spoke of the Scapular Promise. At
that time we did not have room to speak of the Sabbatine Privilege, which is
also attached to the wearing of the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. (Sabbatine refers to the Sabbath. It means the Saturday Privilege.) Our Lady revealed this privilege to Pope
John XXII, way back in the 13th Century, when she appeared to him to
tell him to be sure to do justice to the Carmelite Order. At that time she told him that if a person
were to wear the scapular faithfully and fulfill two other conditions, that she
would descend personally into Purgatory the Saturday after his death to deliver
him and bring him to Heaven. The
conditions laid down are these: First,
faithful observance of Chastity according to one’s state in life, and second
EITHER the daily recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, OR
abstinence from flesh meat on Wednesday and Saturday (i.e. for those who could
not read.) Times have changed since the
13th Century and so subsequent Popes have given to certain
authorized priests the faculty of commuting the second condition into another
good work. Usually it is the daily
recitation of the Rosary. If any one of
the readers would like to apply for a commutation of the second condition, they
may write to us here. We enjoy the
faculty of granting it.
* * * * * *
It is with great pleasure and a
feeling of Carmelite-family pride that we call your attention to the enclosed
pamphlet on Mother Aloysius of the Blessed Sacrament. It appears that God has seen fit to glorify Carmel by bringing to
the attention of the public this precious soul of saintly memory as an example
of the flowers of rare beauty and fragrance that continue to blossom in His
enclosed garden of delights. Because of
the great number of extraordinary favors that have been granted, to all
indications, through her intercession, Bishop Ernest J. Primeau of the Diocese
of Manchester, N.H. has authorized the formal introduction of her cause. We recommend Mother Aloysius to you. We ourselves are convinced that she has
given us valuable assistance in these difficult beginnings. We also warmly recommend the booklet
“Fragrance.” It contains many consoling
and inspiring thoughts, insights and spiritual counsels culled from her
writings and conferences. For further
information concerning Mother Aloysius, write directly to the Carmel of
Concord, N.H.
* * * * * *
This month, the Carmelite on the
spot, rather, in the featured spot, is Father Redemptus of the Cross. (He is named after Blessed Redemptus,
Discalced Carmelite Martyr.) Father was
born John Robert Short in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 26, 1917. He was educated at St. Joseph’s Grammar School
in Boston’s West Side. And at Boston English High School; Having received the
call to the “Militia of Christ”, Father entered St. Philip’s Preparatory
School, where he remained for one year.
Then he entered the Seminary of the Holy Cross Fathers in North Easton,
Mass. After two years Father Redemptus
applied to and was accepted into the Order of Discalced Carmelites. He received the Habit on October 14, 1940,
and in the following year, on October 15, the Feast of Our Holy Mother St.
Teresa of Jesus, the great Reformatrix of Carmel, he made profession of Simple
vows.
Upon completion of studies in
Philosophy at Holy Hill, Wisconsin, where he had also received the habit and
made his Novitiate, Father went to continue studies in preparation for the
Priesthood at our College of Theology in Washington, D.C. There he made profession of Solemn Vows in
1944. One June 19, 1947, he was
ordained a Priest of God, another Christ.
Following his ordination, Father
Redemptus was appointed Master of Students, Rector of our Minor Seminary at
Holy Hill, (it has subsequently been moved to Peterborough, N.H.), Sub-prior of
our Monastery at Holy Hill, where our Fathers conduct the well-known shrine of
Mary, Help of Christians. After having
served in these various capacities Father Redemptus took up duties as assistant
Pastor of St. Florian’s, Milwaukee, a parish that was given over to the care of
the Bavarian Discalced Carmelites in 1911.
The Bavarian Province of Discalced Carmelites is one of the Mother
Provinces of our present Province.
At the present time, Father is doing
yeoman work as Procurator (Bursar) of this new foundation. This is no slight task, for it is only a
bulging burse that makes the duties of a procurator easy. It is a marvel to see how he can remain calm
– a proof of his trust in Divine Providence - as he watches our resources
dwindle rapidly down to the vanishing
point when writing out the checks to pay our monthly bills.
The only adequate tribute we can pay
to Father Redemptus is to say that he is loved by all who come in contact with
him. As assistant at St. Florian’s Parish,
he earned the loyal devotion of hundreds of the parishioners by his patience,
kindness and understanding. One
parishioner said he is the gentlest person she had ever met. We ourselves have to admit that we have yet
to meet anyone who surpasses him in thoughtfulness, consideration and in a
word, charitableness. He is always agreeable and cooperative, modest, and
unassuming to a fault. He is a real
‘he-man’, an excellent athlete. His
play around first base sparkles. We
rely upon him to bolster our courage and confidence at trying moments. He is a valuable asset to the
community. Viva, Father Redemptus!
* * * * * *
“I have risen and I am still with
you alleluja; You have placed your hand upon me, alleluja; knowledge of You has
been made marvelous, alleluja; Lord, You have tested me and you know me. You have known my sitting down and my rising
up” (Introit of the Mass of Easter Sunday). These words of triumph, taken from the Messianic Psalm 138, call
our attention to the great joy that Our Saviour experienced on this greatest of
all days in History, the “day which the Lord hath made” (Psalm 117), the
day of His victory over sin and death.
Jesus was able to rejoice because by His Resurrection he had attained
His full stature. He had accomplished
the task for which He had come into the world.
All that remained to Him was to ascend to the right hand of His Father,
whence He would send His Spirit, the Paraclete.
It was the ecstatic delights of this
triumph, the foreseen glory of the risen life, that gave Jesus the courage,
indeed, the ardent thirst to endure His cruel and ignominious Passion. (I have a Baptism with which I am to be
baptized, and how anxious I am that it be accomplished.) He had drunk to the dregs a cup of sorrow,
bitterness, disillusionment, frustration, but now they seemed a cheap price to
pay for the spoils of victory:
Reparation of the injury done to God by original sin, the Redemption of
Mankind, the establishment of an inexhaustible treasury of grace and His
personal exaltation as Head of the New Creation, the Mystical Body of
Christ. “Did it not behoove the
Christ to suffer and so enter into His glory?” This was the question He Himself had posed to the two disciples
as He walked with them, disguised along the road to Emmaus.
Jesus Christ is the exemplar of all
creation. Nature is patterned after
Him. And so in the lower orders of
Being, examples of the relationship between suffering and glory abound. That is, examples of the truth that the
heights of true greatness is attained by descending to the depths of total
effacement. Consider the
butterfly. Most of its life span is
spent as a crawling worm. But after it
builds itself a tomb, its cocoon, and buries itself for a time therein, it
emerges transformed into a beautiful winged creature.
“You have tested me and You know
me; knowledge of You has been made wonderful (in me).” Isn’t it true, that to find out the strength
of materials it is necessary to destroy a sample? A force of one kind or another is applied to the sample until it
breaks down and is destroyed. The
magnitude of the force is recorded and serves as an indication of the virtue of
that material.
The Passion of Jesus, culminating in
His death constituted the ‘test’ of His virtue, and the magnitude of His
greatness was thereby revealed. At the
same time there was revealed the magnitude of the Divine Goodness as exercised
in God’s dealing with human beings, His creatures. In the drama of the Crucifixion Jesus represents the Most Holy
Trinity; the other human beings who were there either as protagonists or as
spectators, represent us and the rest of the human race. Jesus’ conduct in that particular
confrontation with His contemporaries bares to the eye of the understanding a
glimpse of God’s exalted perfection, especially His Love, the compendium of all
goodness. It is a graphic enactment of
God’s response in the face of sin. Sin
does not destroy God, of course, (sin does violence to God because it does
violence to truth, and God is truth), but it proves that God would prefer to go
out of existence, if that were possible, rather than to take back the
inestimable gift of Free Will with which He has enriched human nature. It is the attribute of God, above all
others, that blinds our inner eye that stuns our understanding. But if the first telling of the events of
that drama does not make us cognizant of this, then it is because we need the
help of our senses, the avenues through which truth gains an entrance to our
souls. It needed the sight of Jesus,
risen in His glorified Body, to reveal the sublime beauty of a soul replete
with virtue and moral perfection, with Divine Life. In the risen state, these spiritual entities overflow into the
body and “spiritualize” it.
The sufferings of Jesus, however,
revealed not only the Divine Perfections, they also revealed the extraordinary
heroism of which restored human nature is capable. Because from His conception Jesus possessed an integral nature,
He was able to endure that frightful ordeal.
But at the same time it made possible the restoration and reintegration
of the human nature of each and every one of us. The human nature we bring with us when we are born into this
world is dis-wrought by Original Sin, which we inherit. The violence done to the human nature
(provided we accept it in the right spirit) is able to force it back into the
state of original justice, just as a piece of twisted steel is made straight
again in virtue of the blacksmith’s forge and anvil and hammer.
It behooves us, then, to rejoice
with Jesus on the day of His triumph over death. We do so for several reasons.
First, because we love Him and are happy to see Him happy in His newly
won glory. Secondly, we rejoice because
His resurrection is a pledge and an example of the kind of life that will be
ours in Heaven. But we rejoice also to
see that earthly suffering is no longer to be feared. Just when it seems as if it will undo us, tear us asunder, it
really renews and heals. The man who
accepts suffering, as did Jesus, is also glorified in the eyes of faithful
Christians because it is the proof beyond question of his inner resemblance to
Him.
Happy Easter. God bless you all.
Cordially yours in Our Lady,
Father Bruno, OCD, Prior
[With permission of Religious]
[And Ecclesiastical Superiors
* * * * * *
Note
to the reader: This newsletter was written in the 60’s and
Waverly Novitiate no longer exists, however, the Carmelites are always in
need of funds to carry out their work. If
anyone wishes to contribute to the cause of the Discalced Carmelite Friars,
please send your donations to: In appreciation
for Fr. Bruno's Works, Mission Procurator, P.O. Box 270136, Hartford, WI
53027.