Last Wednesday we heard a talk by Fr. Edward Vodoklys, S.J., a member of the Holy Cross Jesuit Community and a senior lecturer in the Classics Department. Fr. Vodoklys is an alumnus of Holy Cross (class of 1972); he earned his doctorate in 1980 from Harvard University, entered the Society of Jesus in 1983, and was ordained a priest in 1991. His presentation on Wednesday was about discernment, both about the process in general and his own experience. His talk also included an interactive case study.
Father began by defining what discernment is and what it is not. Discernment is not necessarily making of a moral judgement; rather, it is a process that requires time, reflection and prayer. We need to be attentive to what's inside of us, especially with respect to our motives, desires and drives. Discernment can concern anything from a day-to-day decision to a permanent, life-long choice. St. Ignatius provides us with the Discernment of Spirits, which asks us to look at our motives and discern whether a good or evil spirit is prompting them. We also must decide whether we will follow through with responding to something once its motive is discovered (and truly responding within a larger context of the decision's implications, not merely reacting). Finally, we must reflect on how the actions of a decision turn out.
In discernment, we begin by looking at what motives are driving us, then at what action we take and finally reflect on the end result. This process often takes patience and time, and usually our motives are complex and manifold. We might think of all the students who enter Holy Cross as premed and then leave the program, discovering that the program was not for them. We must also remember that doors open and close at different times, and while something may not work in the present, it can become a possibility later on.
Much of what Father is describing comes from St. Ignatius, who spent much time reflecting while he was recovering from a cannon ball shot. He found that he was being driven by spirits of consolation and desolation. while it may seem to us that one is good and the other bad (the one leading to comfort, joy and peace and the other to despair and doubt), in fact both can come from and bring us to God, or move us away from Him.
Father outlined several scenarios explicating the interaction between good spirits, bad spirits, consolation and desolation. A good spirit, (that is, the Holy Spirit) can prompt us to do good, act well and come up with a good result (consolation). A bad spirit (that is, the world, the flesh and/or the devil) can move us to sin, despair and doubt (desolation). Yet, the relationship can be more complex than this. If one is leading a bad life, for example, the Holy Spirit can inspire desolation from the wrong one has done, which leads to repentance and reform. Or, the evil spirit can introduce desolation to one leading a good life to sow doubt and despair.
We must remember that the Holy Spirit works openly in the light, and brings love, trust and growth. The evil spirit, however, works in deception.If we are leading a good life and are met with desolation, we must remember our goals and ends, and to persevere in prayer and active charity so as to get back on track. If, however, we find that our spiritual life is dormant, it could be the evil spirit or it could be an invitation to pause and reflect. Father was reminded of an ekphrasis, a device in classical literature when the action in a narrative pauses while a particular object is described in great detail. For example, in the middle of a battle the narrator can stop and describe a warrior's shield in great detail - thus, the action stops while the motives and reasons for the battle are examined.
Father then recounted to us the story of how he made the decision to become a Jesuit. Father comes form a family of four (one sister), and sixteen cousins; of these, fourteen have worked in education. It seemed, then, that education was Father's clear path, but the journey there was not without its rough patches. He worked at Ohio State University for a time, but was let go because of a drop in funding. He then took an intensive business training program at Harvard and found work doing the books in his other's hospital gift shop, but still felt lost and confused.
Eventually, he went on a retreat offered by the Paulist
Center that staffed the Newman center at OSU. The retreat was led by a
Dominican Sister of the Sick Poor who was also originally from Boston. During the retreat that was held over Pentecost Sunday, he
recalled two incidents where he was asked if he had ever considered becoming a
priest. He was surprised, because in sixteen years of Catholic education (eight in grammar school, eight in high school and college) he had never been asked about having a vocation. Yet, there had been other indications before this. When he had been getting his doctorate at Harvard, he had lived next to a man who was the son of a Methodist minister, who had asked him if he had considered becoming a priest. Father had never been asked before, but had the ready excuse that his Cerebral Palsy would prevent him from doing priestly duties.
Later, when he was at Ohio, he was asked again. He had a friend who was the son of a Lutheran minister who became ill. When visiting him, he asked Father about the priesthood. A Paulist priest at Ohio asked him about it as well. Overall, father was a bit slow on the uptake, but eventually realized that he was being called to the priesthood. At his ordination, one of his aunts told him that she knew he had always wanted to be a priest. Father emphasized the need to pay attention to things that happen to us in life, because they can bear important fruit.
In the last part of his talk, Father led us through a case study where a couple had to make a decision about where to move for a job. He emphasized the need to consider the motives and needs of all the people involved in the case study, and how those needs interact and overlap.
We thank Fr. Vodoklys for his incredibly helpful description about the discernment process and for sharing the story of his own discernment.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Theology by the Slice: There's No Place Like Home
Last Wednesday we heard a talk by Bill Gibbons, head coach of the Holy Cross women's basketball team. This year marks Coach Gibbons's thirty-fourth season at Holy Cross, and his thirtieth as head coach. During his time here, he has led the women's basketball team to over 550 victories during his time at Holy Cross. During his talk, Coach Gibbons shared with us several stories of events that have influenced his Catholic faith. His talk was entitled "There's No Place Like Home," and this phrase recurred throughout the coach's presentation, with audience members chanting it at his indication.
Coach Gibbons began with the classic tale of how he came to coach women's basketball at Holy Cross. Many of the coach's uncles had gone to Holy Cross, and had told him that he ought to be a Crusader throughout his high school years. Though Coach Gibbons went on to go to Clark University, he played basketball at Holy Cross during his college years. Afterward, he spent some time substitute teaching while pursuing an MBA, though he really wanted a coaching job. Then, he was unexpectedly offered a part-time assistant coaching job at Holy Cross by the legendary coach George Blaney (certainly different than a middle school coaching job). Coach Gibbons retained this part-time job for four years, and enjoyed his time in the position. Eventually, however, his mother advised him to find a permanent job, either in coaching or with his MBA. He applied to positions in both fields, and was soon offered a job in White Plains at a telephone company, and had every intent to quickly accept the business job.
Then, when preparing to accept the phone job, Coach Togo Palazzi the Holy Cross women's basketball team announced he was leaving, and Coach Gibbons was offered an interview for his position. The coach recalled the rather dull memories he had of women's basketball from his youth, and so had some reservations about the job. Nevertheless, he decided to pursue the offer. He had an interview with Fr. John Brooks, S.J. (which the coach likened to Dorothy meeting with the Wizard of Oz). In this meeting, Fr. Brooks expressed some doubt as to whether Coach Gibbons would be able to handle a team of women; the coach responded that, having had six younger sisters, he felt prepared for the challenge. Coach Gibbons was given the job, and soon fell in love with it. When after his second game the coach led Holy Cross to a victory against the University of Michigan (at the University of Michigan) in his,he knew that he had found his niche. A former chaplain, Fr. Joseph LaBran, S.J., had encouraged him to mold his players into women for others (something for which he prays daily). God had put Coach Gibbons into the right home.
The rest of Coach Gibbons's stories were of a more tragic nature, but each showed how his faith had helped him carry difficult crosses.
When he was in the tenth grade, Coach Gibbons had won a bicycle in a school raffle. The bicycle was a bit too small for him, so he gave it to his younger sister, Anne Marie. One day, Anne Marie set off on the bicycle to visit a friend, a few blocks away. The coach was later playing catch with his younger brother when his neighbor came racing toward his house. Anne Marie had fallen off the bicycle and, not wearing a helmet, had hit the pavement. She was in a coma for three and a half days until she finally passed away. Without his faith, Coach Gibbons would have been unable to make it through this ordeal.
One of the coach's players had once likened the sacrament of Confirmation to stirring a spoon in a glass of chocolate milk. The sacraments of Baptism, Confession and First Communion like pouring chocolate syrup into a glass of milk; the one who receives them does so because their parents make them. When one chooses to undergo the sacrament of Confirmation, it is like taking a spoon and stirring up all the grace that has been given. In this time of trial, when the coach was preparing for Confirmation, he found he needed to stir his spoon and rely upon the store of faith he had been given.
Anne Marie died on September 7, and every year on that day a single rose blooms in the backyard of his parents' home. Coincidence? Anne Marie has gone home, to her heavenly home.
In 1991, the Holy Cross women's basketball team upset a school record for victories, making number three in the country. The game in which they had won their victory had been recorded, and it was the first one to be recorded on television. The coach planned to watch the rerun with his team. The night of the victory, however, Coach Gibbons received word that one of the former team members had committed suicide. A year earlier, this girl's father had committed suicide, and she did the same a year later. Coach Gibbons decided to watch the game and then inform the team afterward. Later that evening, after he and the team had watched the game, he told them the news. Although he had expected it to be quick, they instead sat and talked for four hours. They talked about life, death, faith, eternal life and shared stories of suffering and loss. Some students who had never really thought about "the end" were exposed to its reality, and the lengthy conversation brought them all closer together.
In 2011, Coach Gibbons's grandmother passed away at the age of 104. She had suffered the deaths of many of her own family: a daughter who died of cancer, the coach's Uncle Tom (a man with Down Syndrome and the center of love of the whole family), her own husband and a granddaughter. His grandmother had been a rock of faith, and her faith ad shone through and onto the whole family. The coach had the honor of giving the eulogy at her funeral, which was titled "There's No Place Like Home."
Coach Gibbons likened the road home to a highway where you need to stop at tolls. We need a deposit of faith to pay the tolls, and as the tolls get higher, the crosses bigger, the more faith we need to get through. He emphasized the importance of cultivating faith throughout that life, so that we have an abundant store of it to access when you need it. Finally, he said that on the way to our heavenly home, we ought to bring someone else along with us.
We sincerely thank Coach Gibbons for his sincere and moving talk. It is comforting to know such a faith-filled man is a part of the Holy Cross community.
Coach Gibbons began with the classic tale of how he came to coach women's basketball at Holy Cross. Many of the coach's uncles had gone to Holy Cross, and had told him that he ought to be a Crusader throughout his high school years. Though Coach Gibbons went on to go to Clark University, he played basketball at Holy Cross during his college years. Afterward, he spent some time substitute teaching while pursuing an MBA, though he really wanted a coaching job. Then, he was unexpectedly offered a part-time assistant coaching job at Holy Cross by the legendary coach George Blaney (certainly different than a middle school coaching job). Coach Gibbons retained this part-time job for four years, and enjoyed his time in the position. Eventually, however, his mother advised him to find a permanent job, either in coaching or with his MBA. He applied to positions in both fields, and was soon offered a job in White Plains at a telephone company, and had every intent to quickly accept the business job.
Then, when preparing to accept the phone job, Coach Togo Palazzi the Holy Cross women's basketball team announced he was leaving, and Coach Gibbons was offered an interview for his position. The coach recalled the rather dull memories he had of women's basketball from his youth, and so had some reservations about the job. Nevertheless, he decided to pursue the offer. He had an interview with Fr. John Brooks, S.J. (which the coach likened to Dorothy meeting with the Wizard of Oz). In this meeting, Fr. Brooks expressed some doubt as to whether Coach Gibbons would be able to handle a team of women; the coach responded that, having had six younger sisters, he felt prepared for the challenge. Coach Gibbons was given the job, and soon fell in love with it. When after his second game the coach led Holy Cross to a victory against the University of Michigan (at the University of Michigan) in his,he knew that he had found his niche. A former chaplain, Fr. Joseph LaBran, S.J., had encouraged him to mold his players into women for others (something for which he prays daily). God had put Coach Gibbons into the right home.
The rest of Coach Gibbons's stories were of a more tragic nature, but each showed how his faith had helped him carry difficult crosses.
When he was in the tenth grade, Coach Gibbons had won a bicycle in a school raffle. The bicycle was a bit too small for him, so he gave it to his younger sister, Anne Marie. One day, Anne Marie set off on the bicycle to visit a friend, a few blocks away. The coach was later playing catch with his younger brother when his neighbor came racing toward his house. Anne Marie had fallen off the bicycle and, not wearing a helmet, had hit the pavement. She was in a coma for three and a half days until she finally passed away. Without his faith, Coach Gibbons would have been unable to make it through this ordeal.
One of the coach's players had once likened the sacrament of Confirmation to stirring a spoon in a glass of chocolate milk. The sacraments of Baptism, Confession and First Communion like pouring chocolate syrup into a glass of milk; the one who receives them does so because their parents make them. When one chooses to undergo the sacrament of Confirmation, it is like taking a spoon and stirring up all the grace that has been given. In this time of trial, when the coach was preparing for Confirmation, he found he needed to stir his spoon and rely upon the store of faith he had been given.
Anne Marie died on September 7, and every year on that day a single rose blooms in the backyard of his parents' home. Coincidence? Anne Marie has gone home, to her heavenly home.
In 1991, the Holy Cross women's basketball team upset a school record for victories, making number three in the country. The game in which they had won their victory had been recorded, and it was the first one to be recorded on television. The coach planned to watch the rerun with his team. The night of the victory, however, Coach Gibbons received word that one of the former team members had committed suicide. A year earlier, this girl's father had committed suicide, and she did the same a year later. Coach Gibbons decided to watch the game and then inform the team afterward. Later that evening, after he and the team had watched the game, he told them the news. Although he had expected it to be quick, they instead sat and talked for four hours. They talked about life, death, faith, eternal life and shared stories of suffering and loss. Some students who had never really thought about "the end" were exposed to its reality, and the lengthy conversation brought them all closer together.
In 2011, Coach Gibbons's grandmother passed away at the age of 104. She had suffered the deaths of many of her own family: a daughter who died of cancer, the coach's Uncle Tom (a man with Down Syndrome and the center of love of the whole family), her own husband and a granddaughter. His grandmother had been a rock of faith, and her faith ad shone through and onto the whole family. The coach had the honor of giving the eulogy at her funeral, which was titled "There's No Place Like Home."
Coach Gibbons likened the road home to a highway where you need to stop at tolls. We need a deposit of faith to pay the tolls, and as the tolls get higher, the crosses bigger, the more faith we need to get through. He emphasized the importance of cultivating faith throughout that life, so that we have an abundant store of it to access when you need it. Finally, he said that on the way to our heavenly home, we ought to bring someone else along with us.
We sincerely thank Coach Gibbons for his sincere and moving talk. It is comforting to know such a faith-filled man is a part of the Holy Cross community.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Theology by the Slice: Playing the Fool: Auden, Toole and Why a Rat is NOT a Squirrel
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another exciting year of Society of Ss. Peter and Paul, and especially to a promising series of Theology by the Slice presentations.
We kicked off TBTS last Wednesday with a talk by Prof. Lee Oser of the Holy Cross English Department. Prof. Oser earned his doctorate from Yale University and his research interests include religion and literature, modernism, Catholic fiction and American and English literature. Prof. Oser is also a novelist, and his most recent book is The Oracles Fell Silent, published by Wiseblood Books. Proceeding from his literary and professorial work, Prof. Oser delivered a presentation on the vocation of the Catholic novelist, provocatively entitled "Playing the Fool: Auden, Toole and Why a Rat is NOT a Squirrel."
Prof. Oser began by saying that there has been some recent press about the current lack of Catholic novelists. There had been more Catholic authors in the past, such as Flannery O'Connor, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot and, of interest to this presentation, John Kennedy Toole.
John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969) wrote a novel around 1964 called A Confederacy of Dunces. Although it was eventually (posthumously) published in 1980 by Louisiana State University Press (and went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize), Toole first attempted to publish it in 1965 at Simon & Schuster. The Editor at the time, however, Robert Gottlieb, decided not to publish it - a decision Prof. Oser believes was the greatest embarrassment of Gottlieb's career.
Prof. Oser also promised that W.H. Auden, the Anglo-American author and poet, would come into the analysis through his 1946 poem "Under Which Lyre."
He then told a story about a joke Frank Sinatra once told. He once quipped that "I went down to the Grand Canyon one day, but it was closed." While this joke would have elicited laughter in the 1940s, the punchline is lost on a modern audience. In Sinatra's time, the idea of nature being closed down was preposterous, but today we have so lost touch with nature that the joke is lost on us.
Sinatra was a part of the Rat Pack, an ethnically and religiously diverse group (though politically liberal) of entertainers. There was equal opportunity for success in the Rat Pack, if one had wit, talent and a tough enough liver. Success was also dependent on one's ability, as Sinatra put it, "to play the fool." Thus, the question: what is the place of the foolish Catholic novelist against the groupthink of secular society at large?
In the tumult of the 1960s, Robert Gottlieb rejected Toole's manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces. He thought that the book wasn't really about anything, and he thought the main character, Myrna Minkoff, was particularly unpleasant. Myrna is a countercultural liberal, consumed by her many campaigns - for sexual liberation, against the Pope, and against the KKK just to name a few, She in fact worships these various projects. Yet, Mynka seems to be wearing different "masks" - that is, hiding behind these various projects that are distinct from who she is. This is central to Toole's writing: people's masks must be broken through, and his Catholicism helps to remove these masks.
Add W.H. Auden into this mix, the Anglican poet who observed the culture wars taking place at Harvard during the 1940s. In his poem "Under Which Lyre" he describes the conflict between the "Apollonians" (the secular, existentialist establishment) and the "Hermetics" (the Christian underground). At the time, Harvard was in turmoil over the controversial Jesuit chaplain Leonard Feeney. Fr. Feeney assisted in the conversion of many Harvard students to Catholicism and was a source of irritation to the Harvard establishment. In him, Auden likely found a kindred spirit, who was strongly opposed to relativism of the time.
Prof. Oser then presented and expounded on these two stanzas from "Under Which Lyre:"
Returning to Toole, we find a series of correspondences between Mynka and the protagonist Ignatius Reilly. At one point, Myrna describes how she realized that a folksinger she was engaging with and admired was really only interested in bedding her. She likens the incident to a time when she thought she was feeding a squirrel in the park, but it turned out to be a rat. For a long time, the rat could have passed for a squirrel, but she was finally able to see through the deception.
This ability to see through the mask, this sympathy, is the Catholic intuition in Toole's work. It is the job of the Catholic novelist to break through the mask, to tell the difference between a disguised Apollonian and a true Hermetic. In short, he must be able to tell a rat from a squirrel. The catholic novelist plays the fool in the discernment of this truth.
We sincerely thank Prof. Oser for his engaging presentation. It was a pleasure to hear such an erudite perspective from so relevant a topic.
We kicked off TBTS last Wednesday with a talk by Prof. Lee Oser of the Holy Cross English Department. Prof. Oser earned his doctorate from Yale University and his research interests include religion and literature, modernism, Catholic fiction and American and English literature. Prof. Oser is also a novelist, and his most recent book is The Oracles Fell Silent, published by Wiseblood Books. Proceeding from his literary and professorial work, Prof. Oser delivered a presentation on the vocation of the Catholic novelist, provocatively entitled "Playing the Fool: Auden, Toole and Why a Rat is NOT a Squirrel."
John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969) wrote a novel around 1964 called A Confederacy of Dunces. Although it was eventually (posthumously) published in 1980 by Louisiana State University Press (and went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize), Toole first attempted to publish it in 1965 at Simon & Schuster. The Editor at the time, however, Robert Gottlieb, decided not to publish it - a decision Prof. Oser believes was the greatest embarrassment of Gottlieb's career.
Prof. Oser also promised that W.H. Auden, the Anglo-American author and poet, would come into the analysis through his 1946 poem "Under Which Lyre."
He then told a story about a joke Frank Sinatra once told. He once quipped that "I went down to the Grand Canyon one day, but it was closed." While this joke would have elicited laughter in the 1940s, the punchline is lost on a modern audience. In Sinatra's time, the idea of nature being closed down was preposterous, but today we have so lost touch with nature that the joke is lost on us.
Sinatra was a part of the Rat Pack, an ethnically and religiously diverse group (though politically liberal) of entertainers. There was equal opportunity for success in the Rat Pack, if one had wit, talent and a tough enough liver. Success was also dependent on one's ability, as Sinatra put it, "to play the fool." Thus, the question: what is the place of the foolish Catholic novelist against the groupthink of secular society at large?
In the tumult of the 1960s, Robert Gottlieb rejected Toole's manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces. He thought that the book wasn't really about anything, and he thought the main character, Myrna Minkoff, was particularly unpleasant. Myrna is a countercultural liberal, consumed by her many campaigns - for sexual liberation, against the Pope, and against the KKK just to name a few, She in fact worships these various projects. Yet, Mynka seems to be wearing different "masks" - that is, hiding behind these various projects that are distinct from who she is. This is central to Toole's writing: people's masks must be broken through, and his Catholicism helps to remove these masks.
Add W.H. Auden into this mix, the Anglican poet who observed the culture wars taking place at Harvard during the 1940s. In his poem "Under Which Lyre" he describes the conflict between the "Apollonians" (the secular, existentialist establishment) and the "Hermetics" (the Christian underground). At the time, Harvard was in turmoil over the controversial Jesuit chaplain Leonard Feeney. Fr. Feeney assisted in the conversion of many Harvard students to Catholicism and was a source of irritation to the Harvard establishment. In him, Auden likely found a kindred spirit, who was strongly opposed to relativism of the time.
Prof. Oser then presented and expounded on these two stanzas from "Under Which Lyre:"
Charged with his [Apollo's] compound of sensational
Sex plus some undenominational
Religious matter,
Enormous novels by co-eds
Rain down on our defenceless heads
Till our teeth chatter.
In fake Hermetic uniformsThe Apollonians create simulated art with their "undenominational religious matter" - a popular heretical brew known to Auden's audience, such as the work of D.H. Lawrence. The Apollonians extend this simulation to themselves, and disguise themselves as Christians in "fake Hermetic uniforms." We also see that the existentialists, while claiming to be scattered and despondent, "go on writing." They do not realize that only Christian existentialists are in touch with reality and can know authenticity when they see it; the atheistic existentialism has no means of discovering the authenticity it seeks.
Behind our battle-line, in swarms
That keep alighting,
His [Apollo's] existentialists declare
That they are in complete despair,
Yet go on writing.
Returning to Toole, we find a series of correspondences between Mynka and the protagonist Ignatius Reilly. At one point, Myrna describes how she realized that a folksinger she was engaging with and admired was really only interested in bedding her. She likens the incident to a time when she thought she was feeding a squirrel in the park, but it turned out to be a rat. For a long time, the rat could have passed for a squirrel, but she was finally able to see through the deception.
This ability to see through the mask, this sympathy, is the Catholic intuition in Toole's work. It is the job of the Catholic novelist to break through the mask, to tell the difference between a disguised Apollonian and a true Hermetic. In short, he must be able to tell a rat from a squirrel. The catholic novelist plays the fool in the discernment of this truth.
We sincerely thank Prof. Oser for his engaging presentation. It was a pleasure to hear such an erudite perspective from so relevant a topic.
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