14: In The Beginning

This blog has been on hiatus since March, but I'm delighted to relaunch it here with the below reflections from my first year as Brother Sean. One quick clarification before I go on. Because I only lived in a monastery for four years, and because I am no longer a practicing Catholic, it's entirely possible there are people out there who see me as using the church to boost my résumé and my ego.

This is a completely fair but untrue assertion. I celebrate my four years as a monk because my time and experience there hurt me so very deeply. While this may sound like a completely illogical and contradictory statement, the truth is simply this: I learned and grew as both a human and a soul more in those four years than in any other four years before or since, and though some of it was quite painful--unnecessarily so--I am extremely grateful for all the good that came of it, and the good people I got to know and live with as well!

If anyone out there thinks I'm just puffing myself up to prove something, that is your choice and your opinion. I'm a profoundly flawed child of God with a long list of known vices, so as you continue to read through the many blog entries to follow, I hope you will come to understand me more as a person, and see why I started this literary journey to begin with.

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I took a wonderful class on John Milton my senior year of college in which we spent most of the semester studying just one poem by the great English writer. Of course that one poem was Paradise Lost, and it's approximately 11,000 lines long. Not for the faint of heart, I assure you, but a truly enjoyable read nonetheless, especially as taught by the brilliant, celebrated, and ferociously funny Shakespearean scholar, Mark Taylor.

Milton launched his epic poem in medias res, which means, 'in the middle of things', and that is also where we find ourselves in my journey since I last updated this blog back in March. My beginning, you see, came before everything I've told you so far, so I'm going to spend this entry catching you up on some of the things I'd left off until this point. Without further adieu, here is how my vocation as a Marianist Brother really began.

In my sophomore year of high school at Kellenberg, I signed up for a Bible Study class after school with my religion teacher, Mrs. Anne Pardee. As I recall, only five or six of us showed up for the first meeting, and that number only dwindled from there. It dwindled so much, in fact, that Mrs. Pardee and I were the only ones still meeting after a while! She apparently then recommended me for my high school's Parish Religious Education Program, or PREP, where I later taught religion to 4th graders for two years.

This was to be the first of three times in succession that I was handed off like a baton to someone else.

Brother Robert Fachet sent me an invitation to his office one day, and I can totally remember thinking, who the heck is this guy?!, only to learn that he was one of the moderators of the aforementioned PREP. While inviting me to teach in the program my junior and senior years, he also asked me if I'd ever considered a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.

While most who read these reflections from me would probably answer a big fat 'no' to this particular question, it was instead a very, very big fat YES from me.

Not only did I answer in the affirmative right away, but I also had the strangest sensation that I was standing precariously on a major pivot point in my life. I was still only 15 or 16, but yes, I realized, the call to a religious vocation was there. It was always there. I'd been a dedicated altar boy and Bishop's server at my home parish, Saint Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre, since the fourth grade, and I remember whispers on more than one occasion from neighbors and family members alike that they could see me being a priest one day.

In my junior year of high school, my religious instruction focused on morality, and my teacher was Brother Kenneth Hoagland, who is now the principal of Kellenberg. Ken was always such a sweet guy, very friendly and kind, and we just hit it off really well. We talked a bit after class at first, and then in his office after school later on.

Somewhere in there, I realized that Ken and Brother Robert (who I later knew as Frère, a French word that means 'brother') had actually talked with each other about me, even though I'd never even seen the two of them together. I'd been handed off very carefully and very purposely from one monk to another, and though I became aware it had happened at some point there, I felt only amusement at the process, and genuine appreciation for their time and interest.

Brother Ken, however, was only yet one more middle man, and before I knew it, the baton was handed off to one last person, who ultimately became my recruiter (yes, that's literally what they're called). This last soul was Father Thomas Cardone, the chaplain of Kellenberg. Tom and I used to talk for 45 minutes to an hour or more every weekday. He'd excuse me from class quite often too, and while my classmates were busy doing important schoolwork, I'd be chatting with him about the possibility that God was calling me to a vocation with their order.

I used to tell Tom that I was 55% leaning in that direction, or 70%, or 90%. He was amused by the way I used percentages to explain my feelings, but I just wanted him to understand what it felt like in my brain and soul. God was pulling my arm for sure, but never pushing me, it seemed. I had no intention of making such a huge decision lightly, and as far as I could tell, everyone including God understood that.

And then it happened.

I was invited to the community for Holy Thursday and Easter Vigil services the spring of my senior year, and it was between mass and dinner on Holy Thursday on April 8, 1993 that God and I finally aligned energies with 100% surety and confidence in my near future.

We had left the chapel after a beautiful mass, and as we walked as one large group of 34 or so men into the brothers' house, some of the brothers were laughing about something incidental that had happened, I can't recall what. I know my future Prefect Jim Williams was one of those giggling most--not surprisingly to anyone who knows him--but several brothers were clearly in on the joke. Something about all this, the gentle, fluid transition from solemn prayer to community and laughter, answered a question I must have had deep in my soul. It told me once and for all that this place, this group of men, could indeed be my new family on a great new journey in my life.

As our meal in the brothers' dining room ended and some of the brothers and priests started clearing tables, Brother Ken and Father Tom approached me--we had been eating together already along with a few others--and they asked me how I enjoyed everything. It was then that I told them what I had already heard in my heart: I was 100% certain this life was for me, that God was indeed calling me to be a Marianist Brother in the Society of Mary.

They were both understandably thrilled for me, and in an awesome, completely genuine way too, not at all concerned for the community because they had recruited someone new. I could just see it on their faces and still can 27 years later as I remember this moment. I know where we sat for our meal, where we stood in the dining room as we chatted, and even which one stood to my left and which to my right.

That was April 8th, and on the Thursday or Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I received this letter in the mail from my future Novice Master:

Three weeks later, on June 19th, I attended my high school graduation ceremony. In a card my parents gave me that day, my mother wrote, "May God and his blessed Mother be with you always," and my father wrote this short poem for me:

You may never walk on the moon,
or scale Mount Everest's peak,
but you'll always remember this day in June,
as you start a new life, you've heard God speak.

You've answered 'Yes' when you heard God call.
We're happy you set an example to all.
Let your life be a prayer, always filled with love,
walking hand in hand with Mary above.

Whereas my late father chose poetry to express his feelings, my late friend Lex chose instead to wish me well in a card entitled, "Enjoy Your Vacation", which, I swear--you tell me--I think he purposely bought because of how much it looks like "Enjoy Your Vocation" instead. Lex was a creative genius and certifiable wackadoo of the greatest kind. Incredibly kind, loving, smart, and funny, and especially back in high school and college, used his mind to entertain us all in so many incredibly creative ways.

Inside the card, Lex wrote,

"Well, you've really decided to throw the kangaroo over the field. I can't believe it! I wish you all the luck in the world, and I'm very proud of your intentions. I guess we all have to kill the time one way or another, and devoting yourself to others is probably the best way. Don't get me wrong though. I still believe it is too young to get married, but I think it will be a great experience for you. Someday, we'll all look back at this and laugh, either in this time or while we're listening to Bird & Diz at the greatest jazz club of all. What seems like a long time now will be ridiculously short in the long run."

And here is the beautiful card I had waiting for me on my desk in my new room inside the brother's house (monastery) at Chaminade on June 29, 1993:

I have so much to tell you still! This is only blog entry 14 and we're still in 1993. I was Brother Sean from 1993 until 1997, and have piles of old diary entries, stories, memories, poetry, letters, and even spiritual dreams from those years to share with you! Please check back soon. I'm resuming a weekly schedule for this blog throughout October of 2020.


Coming Next Week: The Honeymoon is Over


P.S. Here's something I received at the end of my freshman year at Chaminade. Though I failed out of the school (failed three classes and wasn't allowed to make them up to return), they at least acknowledged I wasn't a "bad kid", as my friend Fr. Ernie would have said back then.