Out of the Ordinary
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From: "Frank Bianco" 
Subject: Re: The Giants Who Formed Us

Ron,
In your most recent post,  you touched on a chord that I wish
more of this Listserv's members could resonate with:
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    I wish I could remember my Maryknoll days in greater detail
than I do.   There was something very special about that time,
that experience.  I'm awed by the way in which that experience
spoke directly to each of us,  somehow pressing the right
buttons,  touching the chords that needed sounding.
    I've been trying to recall my reasons for wanting to give up
everything,  sexuality,  family,  familiar places and people  --
to die quite literally.    Not just why did I do that,  but what
sustained such an ambition.
    I'm amazed at the way in which I was inspired and encouraged
to do that.  I wonder not just why I gave myself to that call,
but why I persisted.  Why four and a half years and not six? I've
talked with my old classmates about the doubts that all of us had
to confront during our Maryknoll time.  Pete tells me how Father
so-and-so listened to him,  and then dismissed his anxiety almost
as though it was frivolous,  telling him that "we all get those
doubts.  They're just temptations.  Don't worry,  you have the
stuff of which real Maryknollers are made."    So,  Pete stays
and goes all the way through to ordination --but leaves ten years
later.  Joe,  who went to the same SD,  stays until First
Theology.  John tells me how he only began to doubt his vocation
when his friend Mike(a poster-perfect seminarian) decided to
leave during Novitiate.  But,  John went to a different spiritual
director than Pete.  "You doubt?" his SD asks.  "Then,  leave.
Don't risk going on and one day having them hit you  with greater
force after you're ordained."  So,  he leaves.
    Why does one man an affirming  green light at an early stage,
and caves into doubt a few years later,  before ordination,  or
many, many years later when it seems too lete to begin life
outside the priesthood?  Why?  Why was four years enough for one
man and six for another and a lifetime for a third?  How did God
enable each of us to realize all the gifts he gave without
trespassing on our free will?  How did he  -- does he -- manage
to get us to use the single greatest power we were given at
birth,  the power to give life,  when we wander from the "right"
path in our life journey?
    I'm sorry if I make this too heavy.  But,  at the risk of
confessing to pure self-interest,  for me,  for my own sake,  I
think this God of mine,  this God of us all,  can become more
real,  to the degree that we can see him moving,  differently,
in each of our lives.   I think all of us on this listserv have a
unique opportunity,  a special grace,  and it sits in our memory.
I think we can realize that grace to the extent that we tell our
story of Maryknoll,  the different Maryknoll that called us,
drew us close and formed us in a way that still nourishes our
lives.
    That's a long way of saying you're right on target,  Ron.  We
need to remember those days,  this priest or that one,  that time
or this one,  each of the moments,  both the "bad" and the good,
that form the fabric of our Maryknoll habit(s).
    We just had a pretty good run with Bishop Byrne and seem to
have one going with Father Felix White.  My giants were men like
barrel-chested Mike Pierce,  who loved woodworking;  Jake
Esselborn,  a gentle midget who was as wide as he was tall (and
absolutely malevolent under the backboards);   John Rudin,  with
his cigar,  french cuffs and quasi Socratic manner,  forever
asking,  "Quidni, Frater?"
    How about you other guys out there?  Whom do you remember and
why?  Let's start mining those aging memories,  maybe get this
God of ours to show himself more clearly -- or is he simply
waiting for us to open our eyes?
    Peace
    Frank B