Men in Sandals

Fr. Richard Madden

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781787207578
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This, to put it bluntly, is a book about Discalced Carmelites. I write about them because, although people are interesting, Discalced Carmelites are more interesting than people. I write about them, too, because I know more about this subject than I know about any other.
This book is not an analysis of their sanctity. It is not an insight into the deep recesses of their spiritual life. Nor can it, in any way, be classified as Carmelite literature because it falls far short of the high standards set by our holy parents, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. This book is simply an effort to convey the fact that, although religious life may not always be easy, there is nothing quite so satisfying. It is not a dreary thing. It is not a world wherein somber, brown-robed men straggle through dingy vaulted corridors. It is not a life of long faces and sad hearts. Rather, it is a kingdom that rarely feels the draughts of true sorrow. Lived with, and in imitation of Christ, it could only be, even in its essence, a life of honest joy.

STUDENT DAYS

X—THE HILL

ONE beautiful morning with novitiate an accomplished fact, we prepared to head west for the house of studies. And we were happy about it. Not that we did not like the novitiate but, secretly, we were thrilled at the prospect of the trip. Between the novitiate and the house of studies there was a big world, filled with people (which we had so rarely seen for a year), overflowing with lights (other than the dim little things in our cells and our choir), and streaked with high activity (something that was still not killed within us). We looked forward to the trip because we thought it would work a few spiritual kinks out of our souls by bringing us to see and rub shoulders with the people to whose salvation we had dedicated our lives. Perhaps, in the intensive work of self-perfection we had forgotten that there is no such thing as a selfish pursuit of holiness, that we could never say, Tm going to save my own soul and let the rest of the world go jump in the lake.” (This is an attitude of which any contemplative must beware.) The trip would force us to cross the paths of many people who needed God and who needed our prayers. It would be a fine reminder.

So we lined up to say good-by to the Master. And I still hate myself for what happened then. I moved forward to say good-by and literally stepped on his toes. And I thought in disgust, “What a mess, all year he nurses me through the spiritual life and now I have to go and smash his foot on the day I leave.” He jumped a little, shook his head dolefully, smiled in a way that easily conveyed his thoughts, “Thank God, I’m getting rid of you.” And just like that, we were off and running.

One thing about our house of studies, a friar just doesn’t walk into it. He approaches it with reverence and this is no problem because the place is visible from ten miles out. With the old red truck humping wildly along the highway, with our trunks shaking precariously under us, we looked in wonder at its beauty. There it was. Holy Hill. The only place of its kind in the world, great and red and magnificent even from miles away. Greater yet, as we swung into Carmel road and up to the front door of the monastery.

We considered it no small privilege to hang our hats there. For this place was indeed Mary’s. Thousands of Americans have never heard of it, let alone climbed it; but it has drawn countless numbers of Mary’s friends from all over the country. Every year pilgrims come on trains and buses, cars, trucks, bicycles; they even walk—but they come. Thirty miles west of Milwaukee, off U.S. Highway 41, Holy Hill throws itself high into the Wisconsin skies. In fact, the crosses on the tops of the towers are just about as close to heaven as anything else in the entire state. The Air Force has stamped its location upon navigation maps as a guide for its pilots. The Chamber of Commerce has listed it upon its tourists guides as a “must” for travelers. It has been for years a mecca of artists and photographers. Writers have lauded it with scratching pens and rattling typewriters Families have made it the goal of their Sunday rides in the country.

It was good to be a part of all this. It was good to be able to kneel down and pray not only for these people but with them. But things were not always like this. Fifty years ago the first Carmelites climbed the Hill. What they found there, and then what they made of it would be a great story. But it would have to be written in the hard language of hunger, cold, and poverty. It could not be told without such words as, “disappointments, setbacks, fear, and shattered hopes,” But it grew. Every yard of lumber, every brick and bag of cement that went into the construction of the magnificent church on the top of the Hill was shipped from distant cities, loaded upon grinding old trucks that climbed until they could climb no more, then transferred to a cable elevator that crawled its way up into the sky. Yet, the job was done. A gem in brick and mortar, visible for miles around, a truly holy spot in a very godless world.

During our first winter there (and every winter thereafter) we knew what it felt like to be cut off from everything. The world left us alone. But with the coming of spring we saw things that we could never forget. Pilgrims came to pay homage to the Mother of God, the Lady Help of Christians. Young and old, they labored with their priests up the steep, winding way of the cross, sometimes with their feet bared to the cutting stones; climbed the hundreds of steps on their knees, atoning for their own sins, but more often for the sins of the world. Then on the summit they moved into the church and made their way to the shrine. There in the midst of a burning furnace of vigil lights they knelt to pray. No, we could never forget this. This and everything like it would convince us that the crazy old world wasn’t so bad after all.

And then when the crowds were gone, we would go to make our own private pilgrimage to the shrine. We would kneel before that statue that was fashioned in Germany, displayed for a time at the Philadelphia World’s Fair, then carried by eighteen young girls over the seven hard miles from the nearest railroad depot. We would look with wonder at the crutches and braces, these badges of helplessness stacked up against the side walls of the chapel, and visualize those who left them there to walk away, sound of limb, with singing hearts and with their eyes blinded by tears. But all the while we would know that the crutches told only half the story, failed to bear witness to all the miracles of mind and soul that Mary has worked in our own country and for our own people. And with all this we knew that our lives could never be the same again.

Small wonder then that we were so happy to be a part of all this. Even in the medieval atmosphere of our refectory, the food seemed better tasting. And the view from our cells is worth a million dollars. We were able to stand there and let our vision shoot straight out for thirty miles and maybe scan from left to right double that. We were able to see the smoke of trains but never hear them; to watch men, untouched by the high speed of a new civilization, tilling their fields by day. We drank water that was as cool and as fresh as the air; we watched birds and tiny beasts scurry through every tree. For up here man and nature mingled without conflict; sky and woods were common property.

The hard days of novitiate were over. Now we had all this. We were students all ready to tackle the books, enthusiastic over our new home. So we all shared a common belief, “We’re students now. Life is going to be great. Yes, sir, great!” But oh how young and innocent we were. And how blind.

XI—RAW MATERIAL

THE sun kept shining; the wind kept blowing. We couldn’t change that; in fact, we couldn’t change anything. We were only students. Like all creatures of the same ilk, something went wrong within the empty cavern of our minds. We thought that our vows had made something of us, and this is where we made our mistake. As far as the Order was concerned, we were still nothing. We were still down in some kind of a hole and it was entirely up to us to get ourselves out of it. We were only students.

Certainly it is a lot easier to write about a student than it is to be one. But if a man doesn’t go through it himself, he cannot write about it. He wouldn’t dare. For students are like candy canes, never true until they are twisted. So like all students, we were twisted. And although it never did us any harm, it was never easy to take.

First of all, we had to get an education. Not that an education is necessary for salvation, not that an education is necessary to make a man out of a child; but in our specific case, we had to learn something. It is true that men and women have become saints even though they did graduate out the window of sixth grade. But for our purposes, we had to face up to some very tough studies.

As long as the priesthood would be in question, it would be impossible to conceive of any man taking upon himself such a highly responsible dignity without acquiring a good, first-rate education. We wanted to be Carmelite priests. O.K., then we first had to be Carmelite students. There was no short cut, no flitting around the books, nothing but hitting them head on and licking them.

Being priests now, we know what it is to be a student. We’ve had it. So if at times, bent almost double beneath the yoke of our responsibilities, we sigh, “Oh, to be a student again,” do not believe us. We are dreamers. It would be far more honest of us to admit that we feel sorry for our boys as we watch them lugging their ponderous philosophy books into the classrooms. And secretly, if we are willing to admit it, every time we see them, we are glad studying is behind us. We will never be in that spot again.

But we had to run the gauntlet. Many were the nights when we sat bleary eyed in our cells trying to memorize (for nothing else is possible) a Hebrew assignment for the next day. Or Greek. Or Latin. We never had enough time for it all. Then there were the dark days when we slunk into the chapel at votation time to sweat out a possible black ball for having faltered a little on the way. And more often than we like to think about, we blinked through our dry tears at the distant goal of priesthood and wondered if, through all the grind and the worry, we would ever reach it.

Nobody seemed to care about us. Or so we thought. We imagined that we stood all alone grappling with our common enemies—doubt and borderline despondency. But the superiors were watching. They saw us pass our changeless days, saddened perhaps at the things that saddened us, and pleased at the things that pleased us. They heard us in our classrooms stuttering to expound, with our yet untrained minds, the thought and history of centuries. They heard us in our recreation room, laughing at ourselves and at one another (because in religious life, with all its complex rituals, it is relatively easy to make a fool of oneself). And they saw us kneeling in the darkened choir at prayer time, and undoubtedly felt our bewilderment at the illusive, intangible beauty of this thing called contemplation. They saw all this. They knew it. But on many occasions they could not help us. Our struggle had to be for the most part a solitary one, waged in the solitude of our individual souls. Most of the time it is the only way to learn.

How we must have inadvertently galled our superiors by our inadequacies. How we must have ruffled the raw edge of their patience by our missteps and misquotes. But then, could our stupidity not be attributed to our inexperience?

After all, we still labored beneath a handicap. We still had not established that perfect conformity of self with monasticism. As we worked at the composite business of religious life, it had to be clear to them that we were still new—and even after a year, still foreign. We had not changed ourselves yet. There was the student with magic in his veins who had forever to stifle the yen to snatch a rabbit from the Prior’s ample pockets. There was the one who was forced to practically sit on his feet every time he caught the rare sound of popular music. And there was the boy who loved the lights of the city but never saw them anymore. Beyond these, there were others who still thought much about the boat they’d never sail any more, or the motorcycle they’d never straddle again, or the horse they’d ride no more across the far expanse of a farm. And the brother who as he sat on his straight backed chair thought of his lifeguard’s throne on an American beach. It was not easy to shake off the old loves. All we could do was try. All we could do was to bend all our efforts in forgetting the past so that we might ultimately assume a new identity, one that would make us all the same, with a common burden in a common life, sharing the common hope of someday standing in a sanctuary and praying, “I will go unto the altar of God.”

So what were we? Nothing really. Just a pile of raw material at the end of the line. A gang of kids who were just a little too cocksure, a little too proud. So we had to take the treatment as it was dished out to us. Before we could hope to be of any good to anybody we had to undergo a great change, emotionally as well as intellectually and spiritually. But until that happened we would still have to look on helplessly as our superiors shook their heads saying, “These are impossible. These will never do.” All we could do was hang on to our ideals. And hope.

In our own minds there was no group of young men anywhere who were as conscious of their calling as we. None were as intent upon the future as we. We were sure of what we wanted. We saw glimmering in every cloud, be it pink or black, the chalice and the stole. We had a true bearing. And if we could not walk, we would crawl. We would even grovel upon the road until the day when we would be able to throw ourselves down before the outstretched hands of Christ to receive upon our heads the anointing oils of priesthood. That was where we were going. And we knew it.

We wondered if such a day would ever come. But it would. Like all those before us, we would get through it and we would find ourselves without the slightest regret over the hard things with which we had to cope during the years of training. Like all those before us, we would find our student days small payment indeed for the deathless satisfaction of becoming a priest. For such a life there is no substitute.

XII—OUR SCANTY THANKS

IT TOOK a few months for us to adapt ourselves to life within the house of studies which, although much the same as novitiate, did have something new to offer. Now we had to learn to live with the sort of genius who affixed philosophical theses to the bathroom mirrors in order to study while shaving. We had to learn how to look interested while older students hotly debated over obscure terms like “essence” and “existence.” These, and the problem of acquiring the hauteur and poise of an intellectual giant, for the purpose of impressing our professors, so occupied us that by the time Thanksgiving came around we had decided that rather than being a place of mental anguish, the house of studies was going to be, with God’s help, decidedly easy to take. Having found ourselves at last, we were able to enter into the holiday with a proper and well-balanced frame of mind.

At that time fat butchers had been pushing equally fat turkeys across meat counters in stores all over the cou...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• NOVITIATE DAYS
• STUDENT DAYS
• PRIESTHOOD
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER