| <<<home
page |
J M J T
The Carmelite Novitiate
OUTLOOK
Published Monthly by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers, Our Lady’s Hill, Waverly, New York
Volume II, No. 12 November 1963
Dear Friends of Carmel,
It doesn’t seem possible, but with this month of November drawing to a close, we are rounding out our second full year on Our Lady’s Hill. They have been not only full; they have been crammed with unexpected and interesting occurrences. Fortunately for us, too, for even though this is the 23rd issue of this newsletter, there never seems to be a dearth of things to talk about. So those of you who read this only because you are wondering when the supply of ‘ham’ will be depleted, are going to be disappointed. Oh, oh! I wonder whether I should use that expression, ‘ham’. This document is sent each month to our general headquarters in Rome, and the General, who presumably does not understand American colloquialisms, may think we are violating our rule of perpetual abstinence from meat. It’s a good thing we have our Father Albert, the 4th General Definitor, there to explain. It was Father Albert, by the way, who suggested that we send an extra copy of OUTLOOK to the Generalate each month so that it could be preserved in the archives for future ages. Think of it, the 'ham’ in OUTLOOK is being ‘cured’ for future consumption!
* * * * * * *
This year, our second anniversary falls on Thanksgiving Day, a fact which makes us all the more conscious of how much we have to be grateful for. In the two years that have elapsed, the Monastery has become quite livable. In fact, compared to what it was opening day, it seems almost luxurious.
We are especially grateful to you, our loyal devoted friends. Your sincere interest in us and in all that transpires here has been gratifying and encouraging. This is especially true also of your generous response to our infrequent and low pressure (we hope) appeals for assistance in carrying on the work of training future Discalced Carmelites. Without it, we would never have been able to subsist. And may I add a special note of thanks to those of you who regularly send offerings to have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass said for your intentions. It is the revenue derived in this way that makes it possible to carry on without having to make frequent appeals to charity.
We will be particularly mindful of you all, therefore, when we offer our Masses and recite the Divine Office on Thanksgiving Day, and also when we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinner of ‘deep-sea turkey’. Our gratitude goes to God first and foremost, naturally, though I must say it makes us very, very happy, too, that He allows us to be grateful to you, the instruments by means of which he bestows His largesse upon us. May He reward you all.
* * * * * * *
Ever since moving here we have frequently seen deer grazing on the meadows lining the road up to the monastery. During this November, however, about in the middle of the month, we were able to observe them right up close to the monastery. For several days running two does would venture out of the woods back of us and graze on some clover that grows here and there in clumps on our back ‘lawn’ (excuse me for disheveling the truth a little). We were able to observe them without being detected, for from where the deer stood, our window acted as mirrors that reflected the bright sky and they could not see us. We had Brother Boniface, our photographer take a few snapshots of them. We hope they turn out well enough to publish them in a subsequent OUTLOOK.
Then on November 18 we were treated also to a close look at a big buck. At first he was hanging back at the edge of the woods but when he saw that the doe was able to graze unmolested, he came out into the clearing and clunked himself down under a tree that stands out about twenty-five feet from the edge of the woods. Apparently he was all tuckered out from running, for the hunting season had opened just three days before, and earlier that morning some of the Fathers and Brothers had heard shooting.
We haven’t seen our deer friends since, and we may not see them again. A couple of days later the local newspaper carried a picture of an 18-point buck, which was shot, near the monastery. It wasn’t the buck we saw that morning, and so we hope he I still safe. We are also hopeful that the two does will escape and return to inhabit the woods surrounding us. It is not so much because we got to like those beautiful, graceful and gentle creatures, but because we want the consolation of knowing that when we don’t have any dough in the till, we at least will have ‘doe’ in the woods outside. But isn’t it a coincidence; it’s difficult to get one’s hands on the one kind as it is on the other!
* * * * * * *
Before it escapes my memory, I would like to tell you about our Halloween celebration. As far back as I can remember, i.e., to my Novitiate days, it has been customary to allow the Students to decorate the Refectory for supper on that evening, and to give them an hour of recreation. This year, some of the more enterprising Novices treated the others to the recitation of some ghost stories, complete with weird sound and lighting effects. It seems that the Novices try to make things as spooky as possible, if not during the hour of recreation following supper, at least in the decorations. Last year, for example, they had hung some fine black thread from the ceiling just inside the refectory door down to about shoulder level. When the brethren would enter and encounter them, they thought they were cobwebs brushing against the face. A very successful way to make cold shivers run down the spine, if you are the nervous type, that is.
This time, however, the decorations were done up with a great deal of reserve. The jack-o-lanterns were particularly good. The ‘artists’ displayed some very original talent, both for excellence of taste and for variety and realism of expression. It made one’s own face ‘light up’ with admiration just to look at them. I find I am obliged to take back what I said about their not being talented. To make the evening complete we also had the traditional cider and donuts, which were donated by some of our friends in the valley.
The thought occurs to me that it is easy to explain why the Halloween decorations in the refectory were not as spooky as they were last year. At the present time we have a large number of Novices and Postulants, whereas a year go we had so few, a mere SKELETON crew. (Take note of those last ten words, those of you who think there is no RYHME or reason to this publication).
* * * * * * *
This month of November saw another traditional practice, that of celebrating the Novice Master’s Name day as a major feast, with no classes, and a holiday from work. On the day before the feast, after Vespers, it is customary for all the Novices and Postulants to crowd into his room in order to express their gratitude and appreciation for his paternal concern for them during the course of the year. The senior Novice makes a little speech expressing these sentiments and saying other well-deserved nice things about him, and then asks a blessing upon them all. Father Master retaliates by making a little speech of acceptance, and thanks them for their cooperation and good will, etc. Before blessing them, and dismissing them, he also gives them a little gift. Being of an extremely practical bent, Father Master ordinarily gives them something useful. This year he gave them each a laundry bag. Now they have a decent receptacle in which to save up their week’s laundry, and on Monday morning, they can carry it down to the laundry room in those nice neat bags instead of having to use pillowcases, as they were obliged to do heretofore. The Novices were mildly amused at the choice of the gift, in spite of the fact that THEY were the ones left holding the bag.
* * * * * * *
But November was not without its complications. First of all, there was the Canonical Visitation. This is so called because of a prescription in Canon Law to the effect that Major Superiors visit the monasteries under their jurisdiction at regular intervals in order to inquire into the way of life as it is conducted there. This is contrasted to the paternal visitation, in which he does not come with the express intention of uncovering and correcting any abuses of the Spirit of the Order or the Religious Observance that may have crept in. In virtue of these Canonical Visitations, the Order is able to maintain its high ideals and to remain true to its purpose in the Church and in the world. They are of a serious nature, and the Visitator puts the entire community under obedience to reveal, when asked, any infractions against the Laws of God and the Order that he may have observed in the monastery. All these investigations and corrections take place in the spirit of fraternal charity and of sincere concern for the good of the Order and of the members, something we don’t find in investigations that take place on the political level. Though we welcome these visitations, we who are local superiors view them with a touch of apprehension.
Thank God, our visitation went off quite well. The only one who seems to have suffered from it was Father Provincial, who is, by Canon Law, the Ordinary Visitator. And then it was not because of anything connected with the visitation, but because when he arrived at the airport, his bag did not. Neither did he get it during his brief stay here. The day after his arrival, at dinner, the lector happened upon that passage of the Gospels in which Our Lord tells His apostles to go on their missionary journeys “carrying neither staff, nor pocket money, nor traveling bag, etc. etc.” I’m sure Father Provincial was happy to know that, willy-nilly, Divine Providence had seen to it that he would come to us in a truly apostolic frame of mind.
* * * * * * *
This month of November also saw the end of our prolonged drought. We were very happy to receive such plentiful rainfall, but our joy began to wear thin after about 12 hours. The rain was accompanied by winds of gale force, which succeeded in driving a great quantity of water into the cement blocks that are exposed on the inner side of the parapet walls on the roof. The water then worked its way through the walls and ceiling in several places throughout the monastery. Most of the leaks were in and around my ‘suite’ (office and bedroom) of cells, so instead of the one drip who inhabits these environs, there were a half a dozen or so. It was then that I felt that the brief length of time I spent in the Navy 18 years ago were not wasted after all, for I was obliged to wield a swab (a wet mop to you land-lubbers) at frequent intervals over the course of an entire day. I was delighted to find that I hadn’t lost my technique. Fortunately for us, the monastery is constructed of masonry, and so no damage was done. We were lucky, too, that no leaks had developed where we had put in our drop ceilings.
* * * * * * *
At this writing I can say that the garden is just on the verge of being completed. The difficulty I mentioned above had to do with a drainage problem. In certain places they discovered solid bedrock, which held the water and would not allow it to run off properly after the heavy rains. The landscape expert said that if water were allowed to collect in this way it would cause the roots of our shrubs to rot. So we had to get in a jackhammer to dig trenches in the rock in order to lay in drainage tile pipes to carry off the excess to deep wells dug in areas where there was sufficient drainage. Everyone is happy with the prospect of its imminent completion, for having seen the garden torn up so long has had a depressing effect upon everyone.
* * * * * * *
A few months after we took up residence here, some men from the Chemung County Civil Defense Office came out to make a survey of the building to see whether our monastery would qualify as a fall-out shelter, which it did. Finally, after all these months, they came to lay in some emergency supplies. Among other things are some very large canisters bearing the label “Survivor Rations”. It occurs to me that we had better see to it that the Novices are well fed; we wouldn’t want any of them to sneak down to the basement to supplement their diet on our emergency rations.
That a monastery should qualify as a fall-out shelter should not be considered incongruous. Why, back in the middle ages, whenever someone would have a “falling out” with the authorities, he would seek refuge in a church or a monastery. That’s the Church for you, ever old, yet ever new.
* * * * * * *
For the sake of ending on a sweet note, let me say that the cake you see pictured on the photo flyer is the handiwork of Brother Denis. It turns out that he is an expert pastry cook, having helped his Dad in that capacity for several years. He baked it for the feast of Our Holy Mother, St. Teresa of Avila, and it tasted even more delicious than it looks. So here is another reason why I have to take back what I said about the Novices’ not being talented.
* * * * * * *
It is my great pleasure to be able to continue introducing you to the more important members of Our Province. As you recall, we spoke in the September issue about Father Peter Dugan, O.C.D., the second Provincial Definitor. Since then, the third Provincial Definitor, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., has graciously consented to be featured in these pages.
Father Kieran of the Cross was born Thomas Kavanaugh in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 19, 1928. His primary and secondary education was acquired at St. Robert Grade School, Shorewood, Wisconsin, and at Archbishop Messmer High in Milwaukee, respectively. In the summer following his graduation from High School, Father Kieran entered the Discalced Carmelite Order at Brookline, MA, where he took the habit on August 26, 1946, and began his Novitiate. A year later, on August 27, he made his profession of simple vows. However, he continued in residence at Brookline for one year following the completion of his Novitiate, during which time he matriculated at Boston College. Thence he went to our College of Philosophy at Holy Hill, Wisconsin, and from there to the Order’s International College of Theology, the Teresianum, in Rome. Father spent five years as a student in the Capital City of Christendom, earning the degree of Licentiate in Sacred Theology. He was ordained in Rome on March 26, 1955.
Following his course of studies and before returning to the States, Father Kieran spent a full year in the Carmelite Desert of Southern France. A Carmelite Desert is a foundation in which the members of the community return to the way of life of the desert Fathers from whom our Order takes its origin. They live in almost complete solitude, inhabiting isolated hermitages on hillsides overlooking the Mediterranean Coast. The Carmelites living in the desert very rarely take recreation in common, and see each other only at meals and at recitation of the divine office, which are community acts. Being able to endure such prolonged solitude and silence speaks very highly of Father Kieran’s psychic and spiritual equilibrium and stability. It is an established fact that the majority of men and women are not able to live contentedly and fruitfully for long under such circumstances.
Since his return from Europe, Father Kieran has served the Province in the following capacities: In 1957 he was appointed Professor of Spiritual theology at our College of Theology in Washington, D.C., and at the same time was named the Subprior, that is, the Master of Students. He has continued in his Professorship all the while since, but after a lapse of three years, was again returned as Master of students following the Chapter last May. It was at the elections of that Chapter that Father Kieran was made the Third Provincial Definitor.
In recent years, Father Kieran has been deeply engaged in perhaps the most important and most effective form of Carmelite Apostolate, that of disseminating the spiritual doctrines and treasures of Carmel by means of the printed word. His outstanding work thus far has been a wholly new translation of the complete works of Our Holy Father, St. John of the Cross, Mystical Doctor of the church. This translation he made in collaboration with a Spanish Carmelite, Father Otilio, O.C.D., many times provincial of the Discalced Carmelite Province of Burgos, Spain, and one of the most learned contemporary historians of Carmel. Their joint work will appear in 1964 under the title COLLECTED WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, and will be published by Doubleday.
Father Kieran also is serving as director of a new book series called THE CARMEL SERIES ON CHRISTIAN LIFE. The first book of this series has already appeared, entitled THE SIMPLE STEPS TO GOD, and the author is Father Francois of St. Mary, who gained fame as the editor of the manuscripts and the photo album of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Father Francois was the outstanding authority on her life and doctrine until his untimely death several summers ago. Finally, Father Kieran has contributed several articles to SPIRTUAL LIFE, the Catholic Quarterly that is published by our Province of the Order.
In spite of his youth, it is unquestionable that Father Kieran is the Province’s expert, and very probably the best authority in the United States, on the doctrine of St. John of the Cross. His are characteristically Carmelite traits: love of solitude, silence, and contemplative oriented studies. Those whose privilege it has been to live in community with Father Kieran quite spontaneously affirm that he is an exemplary Carmelite and very well liked by all. Being a very humble person, he dislikes publicity and the limelight, but in spite of this, or better, because of this, because of his love for the hidden and silent life, it seems certain that he is one member of our Province who will make a great and a lasting contribution to the cause of Carmel and Carmelite Spirituality in this present generation.
* * * * * * *
Of all the Feasts in the Calendar year, perhaps none is so consoling to the ordinary faithful as the Feast of all Saints. The other Feasts are consoling, too, particularly those, which commemorate the principal events and mysteries of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin. The latter provide unassailable assurance that, on the part of God, nothing has been omitted to render our final perseverance and eternal happiness a certainty. From these Feasts we draw the inescapable conclusion that God is infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, and that He loves us to the point of folly. Now these three things are sufficient in themselves to give us the sure conviction that we will reach Heaven; they make our Hope invincible. Because God is infinitely wise He is able to figure out ways and means that will overcome all the obstacles to our salvation. Because He is infinitely powerful He is able to implement and carry out those plans. Because He loves us with a limitless love, we KNOW FOR SURE that He WILL put them into effect.
It is consoling, too, that we have the Feasts of the Saints. They are like big brothers and sisters, who are intensely interested in us and desirous of making us as happy as can be. Knowing that God ‘does not hear sinners’, we are not able to rely completely upon our own prayers; we are obliged to seek patronage and the intercession of the Saints who are very dear friends of God and who had loved Him with a surpassing love while they were on earth. The wonderful thing about the Saints is that their enjoyment of the Beatific Vision gives them an insatiable thirst to see God loved as He deserves. Seeing God as He is in Himself and seeing that He is worthy of infinite love, they are eager to bring all creatures capable of loving into their company so that they might see that gap narrowed, which exists between the love that God is receiving from His creatures, and the love that He deserves from them. So it is that they not only want us to join them as Saints in Heaven, they even want us to surpass them in the degree of holiness they have achieved. So without our even asking them, they think of us and are concerned about us, and use all their influence to bring about our sanctification. They understand well, too, that it is only while we are living on earth that our ‘capacity’ for loving God is able to be enlarged, for at our death, our state of soul will be fixed for eternity, and we can no longer hope to grow in love of God or to acquire merit.
It is consoling, too, to know that we don’t have to have explicit devotion to the Saints to experience their patronage and protection. To be convinced of this, we have only to consider a little incident revealed to us by St. Therese of the Child Jesus. She relates the story of a dream she had a little over a year before her death. In this dream three Carmelite Nuns came to visit her, and she knew they were from heaven. One of them drew Therese close to herself in a tender maternal embrace and spoke lovingly to her. St. Therese was given to understand that this was Venerable Anne of St. Bartholomew (subsequently made a blessed by Benedict XV) one of the closest friends and companions of St. Teresa, Our Holy Mother. Venerable Anne was the one who had brought the reform of Carmel into France. Venerable Anne answered several questions of Therese, and among other things, promised to bring her into heaven soon. The Little Flower couldn’t help being impressed by the fact that up to that time she had never given much thought to the then venerable Anne, and certainly had not practiced any devotion to her, and yet, she was favored with the assurance that Venerable Anne was exercising a most maternal concern for her.
So much then for the Feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady, and for the Feasts of the other great Saints which give luster to the Church. But the fact remains, for all the assurance of the assistance coming from us from without, both from the foolproof means to obtain heaven provided by God through His church, and from the saints our most devoted older and eminently successful brothers and sisters in the Faith, we cannot afford to set aside all fear. We need to have that species of fear we call ‘salutary’. We need it because we are not foolproof. As long as we remain on earth we are subject to ignorance, weakness, fickleness, cowardliness, love of ease, distaste for the struggle, etc. As long as these things remain to us, we must have a healthy fear of them and guard against them least they precipitate us into offending God.
Now the Feast of all saints is consoling and encouraging because it tells us that there are numberless and nameless Saints in Heaven who were no different upon earth than we are now. They had to suffer from the same hindrances and handicaps that beset us on our journey to eternity, the same congenital ignorance, weakness and caprice. But they made it, and so too, we can rightly hope to make it to Heaven also.
In the Carmelite Calendar there is also the Feast of ALL Saints of the Order. It is the second lessons of the Divine Office of this Feast that enables us to say with the unknown and unnumbered Carmelites who preceded us in the Order and are now in Heaven, they were no different on earth than we are now. Although the readings apply particularly to members of the First, Second and Third Orders of Carmel, they also apply with due reservations, to all the Faithful. I would like to quote those lessons here:
“Blessed
are they, thrice blest, who were aflame with love for God, and who for love of
Him esteemed all else as nothing. For
indeed, they shed tears and lived in the midst of sorrows, that they might
obtain everlasting consolation.
Willingly they humbled themselves, that they might thereby be
exalted. They wore out their bodies
with hunger and thirst and loss of sleep, so that out of those same bodies they
might be received and find a welcome among the delights and exultations of
heaven. In virtue of their purity of
heart and became tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, as it is written, ‘I will
dwell with them and walk with them’.
They crucified themselves to the world that they might stand at the
right hand of Christ, the immortal Spouse.
For being equipped with eyes of the mind, they ever kept the image of
the dread day (of judgment) before them; and they preserved the thought both of
the blessings and the torments of the world to come so deeply fixed in their
hearts that nothing could distract them from it. And they desired to labor here that they might one day possess
glory. They were free of disorderly
tendencies as are the angels, and now are able to chant praises with the very ones
they imitated.”
“Blessed
are they, thrice blest, because with the eyes of a stead mind they kept in view
the emptiness of present things and the uncertainty of the fickleness of human
prosperity. And having rejected them,
they laid away for themselves everlasting goods, and bore off that life which
does not fail nor is interrupted by death.
These admirable and holy men and women we, though miserable and
despicable, try to imitate. We do not
attain to the heights of their heavenly lives, but in the measure that our
weakness and poor power allows, we show forth their lives; and we wear their
habit, even though we do not achieve their accomplishments. For we see clearly that this profession
casts out sin and is the ally and the assistant of the wholeness of spirit
given us at Baptism.”
These are beautiful and inspiring words, reassuring, too. Like the faithful who have gone before us, and whom we commemorate in the Feast of all saints, we face life sparked by the fire of love of God. We value all things as nothing when we compare them to the goodness that is God. Suffering and sorrow, unlooked for humiliation and mortification are ours’ they surround us on every side: and if we do not think these sufficient, voluntary ones are easy at hand. In our prayers and meditations we often think of the happiness of heaven, and by way of contrast, remember the torments of hell. We know by experience how empty of promise earthly creatures are. Even our dearest and closest often fail us just when we need them most. We try to control our feelings and emotions, and establish our lives on reason and Faith (i.e., we have our loins girded with truth), and we make sincere efforts to practice virtue (i.e., we hold burning lamps in our hands), so as to be ready when Jesus the Immortal Spouse of souls comes to take us with Himself into the Nuptial Banquet of Heaven. It stands to reason then, that if we fulfill our obligations as Christians with fidelity, enthusiasm, and exactness, we will not only be saved, we will also be sanctified.
* * * * * * *
Hoping your Thanksgiving Day was as happy as our own, and with assurance of a remembrance in our prayers, masses and spiritual exercises, I am
Cordially yours in Our Lady,
Father Bruno, OCD, Prior
[With permission of Religious]
[and Ecclesiastical Superiors ]
-----
Note to the Readers: 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
of Fr. Bruno's Works”, Mission Procurator, P.O. Box 270136, Hartford, WI 53027.