Marists All February 2011
Issue #103
From the EDITOR: It is with deep gratitude that we, the Marists All team members, acknowledge your overwhelming response to "fill the coffers," allowing for several more issues. Thanks especially to John and Joan Brady, Jerry Byrne, Bernard Connolly, Rich Foy, Pat Gallagher, Dennis Hartnett, William Kawka, William Kelly, Marty and Ann Lang, Artie Lavigne, Br. Bill Lavigne, George K. Mannix, Paul Maloney, Ed McElroy, Br. Jim McKnight, Ray Morrissey, J. Perring_Mulligan, John (Buddy) Nolan, Alex Senes, Anne Sheridan, Frank Sutton, Br. Hugh Turley, Gene Zirkel
For those others who wish to help, kindly send checks directly to Gus Nolan, making out the checks in his name. Also, those who would like to have us send your copies of Marists All electronically rather than in printed version, kindly let us know. Please update us on changes to your email address.
From BOB AND GINNY GRADY ('53): I would like to update the Marists All readers on this year's Marist Spirituality Weekend to be held on July 8, 9, and 10 at Marist College. The theme for the weekend is based on the book Gathered Around the Same Table The Vocation of Champagnat's Marist Laity.
John Scileppi has made arrangements with the facilities management personnel at Marist College to assure adequate housing and meeting rooms. John and Lynn are off to Florence, Italy, and the Marist College Extension SchooL They will return in time to join us in July.
Br. Sean Sammon has accepted our invitation to return as a featured presenter. He will address the topic "Vocation of Champagnat's Marist Laity." A panel of guests will share with us their experiences in "Marist Present Day Apostolates.". Members of the panel include: Br, Dominick Pujia, Br. Philip Robert, Alice Miesnik, Br. Leo Shea, and Br. Stephen Milan.
We extend an open invitation to all those interested in joining us this summer.
Those interested in participating, please send a. twenty-five dollar deposit to Br. Charles Marcellin at Archbishop Molloy High School, 8353 Manton Street, Jamaica, NY 11435. The cost for the weekend will be the same as last year, $185 for an individual and $330 for a couple. If you have any questions regarding the weekend, please call us.
From MARIST LIFE: David Kammer ('42) sent the following item describing the impact of a meeting held this past fall in Guatemala of former Marist Brothers. It is published here because Tomas Martinez, the writer, has chosen wonderful words that should resonate among former Marists in the USA. In the Marist tradition, there are no boundaries ... ,
It was with the prayer of praise (Laudetur Jesus Christus et Marie Mater eius) we greeted each new day. We had learnt it from our first days in the houses of formation (Carrion, Pontes and Miranda de Ebro - Spain). In thanking the good God and his Mother Mary, who have always accompanied us, I wish to salute the Marist Brothers and thank them for the invitation they addressed us to a reunion on 17 October.
In the Marist house, we learned to love and praise God. The formation we received, the education, the community and personal prayer, and the love of work learned from those Brothers wearing soutanes with the crucifixes on their breasts, Sthose Brothers who gave their lives so that we might grow: such is the foundation of our lives - a life of faith and of service to others.
We know the Brothers as if they were our own. We know the sense of belonging. We breathe in the refreshing air of the Marist Family. We form part of this great network of the Marist mission in the world of today. We who have been part of the Institute carry in our hearts and in our lives the teachings of the exemplary men who educated us.
We have integrated and made our own, thanks to what we lived in Marist life, the Christian message: "He who wishes to become great will be your servant," in the manner of Mary and in the shade of the Marial virtues of simplicity, humility, and modesty.
Thank you for having made yourselves so close to us and for having given us the opportunity to share with you the same ideals and the same vocation. There we learned the values and human and Christian principles which have inspired our ways of doing and acting in our personal and professional lives .... During the gathering, we listened, we were listened to, and we shared part of our lives, what we are now and what we are doing, and our desires to remain always united in the Marist mission and educational work. They were moments filled with joy, with union, with satisfaction for our common past. We engaged ourselves to stay in contact, to remain in the tracks and paths of Marial spirituality "ad Jesum per Mariam," to reflect together about a new model which integrates us fully into the life of the Institute.
From AMERICAN MARIST, (e-news for Marist communities in the U.S.): Br. Ben Consigli , Provincial, welcomes readers to the new publication for the U.S. Province. His opening paragraph summarizes the focus of the premiere issue:
"The founder of the Marist Brothers, Saint Marcellin Champagnat, often said, "A Brother is a man for whom the world is not large enough." Who would think that almost two centuries later the Brothers and their colleagues minister in over seventy-eight countries throughout the world? Here in the U.S., there are so many wonderful things to report about the good work our Brothers and lay colleagues accomplish each and every day. In our schools and retreat centers, at summer camps and overseas missions, we strive to live out Jesus' Gospel in the way of Mary."
Items of interest include information on the video, "Live Marist!", a short film that highlights the warmth and spirit of the Marist community. There is a1so an announcement to "save the date" October 8, 2011 - to mark the 12Sth anniversary of the presence of the Marist Brothers in the United States. Plans for a Mass and celebration at St. Jean Baptiste Church in Manhattan are in the works.
From ALEX SENES ('64): Thank you for the labor of love that you editors have been doing throughout the many issues of Marists All. Even though I don't know personally some of the people who write, I read the letters cover to cover. They serve as a shot of spirituality Marist-style.
I have been retired since April and disabled as well -- early symptoms of Parkinson's -- shuffling gait and other symptoms. I had two episodes of angina and also urinary bladder stones. I feel like my body is letting me down. I turned 65 on September 11.
In spite of life's ironies, retirement has been good to me. I do all the things I wanted to do and couldn't. I open my day as I would any other gift God sends me. I go to Mass at 8 am and try to go for a two-mile brisk walk. I watch one hour of Italian TV to get back my lost vocabulary. I play the guitar along with CDs to sit and jam as I did in Tyngsboro.
I have been feeling nostalgic about Cold Spring and would like to walk around the property again. I graduated from Marist Hall in '63. That year, along with the two years in the novitiate, have been the best years of my life.
From BOB HOPKINS ('52): First, I want to thank all for the prayers, visits, and telephone calls at the time of my car accident. Given what is happening in Tucson, it is clear that people make a great difference in the recovery of a person with a life-threatening injury.
In that car accident I didn't have a near-death experience. I was conscious for a brief moment, and then everything went black. I am not sure how to interpret that black hole, given that most people experience light and brightness.
My recovery was nothing short of a miracle. A nurse driving behind me on the highway phoned 911. The firemen phoned for a helicopter and the jaws-of-life before they reached the scene of the accident. Two of the firemen were former students of mine; they must have passed my classes! I was air lifted to Massachusetts General where the emergency room team saved my life. Mary took a room in a motel near the hospital and stayed in Boston from June 10 to March 15 when the insurance company pushed me out of the hospital. Thank God for Medicare!
A tragedy like this brings out the best in people. Many visited me in the hospital. I owe a great deal of thanks to Pat Gallagher for literally organizing people to visit me in the hospital. I received calls from China and Spain. I don't remember who the persons were, but I appreciated the calls very much.
As I grow older, I become more grateful for what I was given by the Marist Brothers. The year I went to Esopus as a tenth grader, the gang I was running with landed in jail for stealing from a radio and TV store. Up until that time we had done small stuff. They were sent upstate. Would I have been with them? I don't know. I was very immature when I entered the Brothers, but the training years helped me grow up. My dad died when I was six. The monks helped me to have male identification.
Later on, the opportunity to work on a doctoral program that I never completed opened many doors when I moved to New Hampshire with my family. I was able to teach at five of the local colleges because of my MA and doctoral course work. I am truly grateful.
Our children are happy and content. Colleen teaches Social Studies in a new high school in Windham, a neighboring town. Craig is a vet in Providence and is married to a medical doctor, and Patrick is in Dubai teaching at an international American school. (They actually pay their teachers!) We have four grandchildren and another on the way.
From MIKE KELLY ('50): I thought it was time to let Marists All readers know how to track us down. Janet and I have been married forty-one years, and we have moved seventeen times. I just can't hold down a job! Our most recent move was to Surprise, AZ. Now, instead of a rush to the airport and a six-hour flight to Burbank, CA, to see our grandchildren, it is a six-hour drive across mostly desert at eighty miles an hour. What brought us to Surprise? Our daughter, Jean, received her master's degree in education at Long Island University. Since finding a teaching job in NY was impossible, she applied for a position in Surprise where she is enjoying teaching while not having to shovel snow and cut grass. Surprise is really a wonderful place to live. We still have our home on Long Island to escape the "dry heat" of July and August. Y'all are welcome to visit at any time.
It has been a while since I wrote a letter to Marists All. The last letter may have been when we were living in California. The biggest event at that time was the delivery of twin boys to our daughter, Joan.
The twins are now eleven. We moved to Long Island about eight years ago. The highlight of that move came when Joan had twin girls. They are now six years old and back living in Burbank, CA. She added a fifth child, Liam Desmond, three years ago. He was named after my brother Des, who died at Mount St. Michael last year. No one who knew Des has any trouble remembering him, but it is wonderful to see Liam Desmond, whom we hope will one day inherit Des's many virtues and love of Irish music.
Saint James on Long Island, where we lived, is about a ten minute drive from Stony Brook University. After arriving in Saint James, I went to see my friend, the Dean of Engineering at Stony Brook. I offered to teach a course in professional ethics. Ethics was not taught in the engineering school, and t couldn't convince the dean that it should be. He suggested I talk to the dean of the school of business and management. Yes, ethics was taught there. I recently wondered how many of the graduates were hired by Wall Street. The dean asked me if I would teach Strategic Management and a semester later Human Resource Management. I had spent the previous thirty years in management and felt more qualified to teach management courses than engineering courses. I probably enjoyed teaching those two courses more than any course I taught at other universities. I taught the classes and then left the campus, avoiding all the bureaucracy and faculty meetings that could raise my blood pressure.
I still love teaching, but after having been on the faculty at seven different universities, I believe that it is time to ask, "Is higher education really worth it?" I started thinking about writing a book: Lower Higher Education, i.e. lower cost, lower job expectations, lower graduate's debt, lower the time it takes to get a BA, lower the number of required credits needed to get a degree, lower the number who start college but never graduate, and so on.
I keep hoping that the new program in Esopus to prepare leaders might focus on preparing leaders to work in education. Higher education doesn't need better administrators as much as it needs better leaders and managers. It is disconcerting to hear that universities are recruiting in foreign countries and out_of_state not for better students so much as to get freshmen who can pay full tuition. I get really bothered to hear that 1200 colleges pay the College Board 32 cents a name for students whose standardized test scores and grade-point averages meet the criteria they seek. And what do the students who apply get-rejection after rejection letters. How do all these rejections affect the students, and do universities really care? Maybe the universities think they need to prepare students for the number of job rejections they get before they have to declare bankruptcy because they can't pay back their loans. The universities claim to fame is the number of rejections against the pool of applicants. I think I will write that book! The Marist College Leadership Program could make a difference where it is badly needed. I hope it will accept the challenge, and Marists All should be there to help.
If anyone reading this would like to contribute to the book, Lower Higher Education, all contributions are welcome. In your experience, do universities realize who their customers really are? Does a class of 1500 students on-line compare favorably with a campus class of twenty-five? Does an adjunct professor with experience compare favorably with a tenured professor with no work experience? Do better facilities attract more students than scholarships and lower cost? Would it be more effective for universities to hire researchers who don't teach and faculty who teach with no requirement to subsidize their salary?
Is the goal of universities to teach students or to provide the opportunity for students to teach themselves? Should universities be measured by the success of their graduates five years after graduation rather than their GPA or success in the sports arena? Will looking at the graduates after five or more years provide universities with information on the moral qualities and wisdom gained in pursuit of a degree? Instead of a semester of remedial courses for no credits, should universities be contributing to the institutions that provide them with "customers"? Is specialization at the BA level superior to a liberal and systems education?
How important is gaining public recognition in sports to the goals of a university? Most universities require that professors have a terminal degree. Are there any requirements that professors have training as teachers? What is measured to obtain tenure: ability to obtain grants, the number of publications, leadership, influence on students, effective teaching, or peer acceptance? Is tenure necessary?
Could a leadership program help answer many of the above questions? Can a leadership program influence the professions students select, including science, engineering, politics, and teaching? Maybe together we can help answer some of these questions and maybe make a difference in lower higher education.
I had great teachers at Marist College, but the Brother who most influenced my engineering career was Br. Nilus. He offered me many challenges, and when I sometimes told him, "I have no idea how to do that," his response was, "You can learn." Colleges can have great value if they give the graduates the confidence that they can learn to accomplish whatever they want.: and, hopefully, our graduates will choose to make a positive difference.
From RICH FOY (in response to Mike Kelly's reflections above):
I think the emphasis at the new Marist College program in Esopus on leadership will focus on corporate leadership, but this is just a guess. It is Doctor Murray's project, and most of us are wondering how he will fuse care of the Esopus property to a leadership program when the vital energy for the program will come from the faculty in Poughkeepsie. There has been no leader named at this time.
Nilus' advice to you strikes a very responsive cord. Br. Austin Lamprey fms is a scholar in France who has written about the failure of the religious orders and the Church in France to adjust to the changing views on education in the late nineteenth century, including the Marist Brothers. (Bro Joseph Belanger had told me that there was a Superior General who wrote a circular letter to the Brothers telling them to adjust to the changing and future demands for teaching; he died young, and his directives were ignored.) As I read some of Lamprey's writings, he has a section about Catholic education. He says the purpose of Catholic education is to teach people to think, not to tell them what to believe. I am not sure how he would be treated by the American Bishops, who seem to have all the answers already and get increasingly annoyed when U.S. Catholics do not humbly accept their dictates.
In my own experience, I had an ethics teacher named Father Halpin, PhD from Fordham, pastor of a little church in Milton, NY. He had a strange way of presenting ideas, but he always made you think. After I became President, I invited him to give the graduation speech. On the way back from the Marian Gym, I told him I had a bone to pick with him. ''What?'' I told him his final exam had five essay questions, and I was totally off on one of them. How could he give me an "A" for the course? "Oh, I knew you were wrong," he said, "but you were thinking, and I was confident that you would arrive at a better answer someday."
Many Brothers judged that Nilus marched to a different drum.
Of course it was; but in retrospect, it was a better drum.
From GUS NOLAN ('48): I have received a letter from Rev.
Frank Gallogly OSA with the salutation, "Dear Family and Friends." He is suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease so much so that he needs special care. He has left Villanova and been admitted to a facility. The letter came along with his Christmas card.
Frank is not pleased with his situation but does what he can to keep up his spirit. He is at peace and feels his spiritual life has been deepened by these trials. He is solicitous about others who are sick and finds great joy in administering to them, even offering Mass every day.
I responded to Frank's letter on January 2, reminding him that the day was special to Marists and that I had not forgotten his Marist connections and that he was still a Marist in spirit. I also reminded him that he was a " Stanner" (a student from St Ann's Academy), a former Marist Brother, and a contributor in writing and finances to Marists All. I assured him that he would not be forgotten but would be remembered in our prayers.
From BILL BYRNE ('52): Whether it is because of my progressing age, my need to come to grips with issues from my past and next life, or just the morbid curiosity with which I scour the subject in the online New York Times, I find myself lately listening to "Pictures at an Exhibition" and reviewing the "exhibits" of those in the obituary section of Marists All. As I conjure up each person's image, I think of the impact each has had on my twenty-year Marist life. More importantly for me,it's what and who is missing in these accounts, which is of moment to me. Here's what I remember of some.
Several monks we all knew were inflicted with what the Irish call the curse. I felt that more could and should have been done to help them fight their addictions.
I remember Br. Benedict in one context - Director of Camp Marist. Did he have other roles in the order? I also remember him for some unintentional humor he provided, although he didn't see it in that light.
In late August 1957, just prior to Molloy's opening, several of us decided on a pick-up basketball game, Br. Ben included. We had waited anxiously for the go-ahead to christen the new gym. With a nod from Br. John Lawrence, Molloy's first Boss, and an "ok" from Br. Francis Xavier, overseer of the school's construction, the virgin gym floor was about to receive its first test. When the games ended, everyone looked in horror at a sea of black scuff marks up and down the court. It seems that Br. Ben had unpacked his long forgotten leather basketball shoes and liberally polished them prior to the games. I will never forget the picture of that hulking presence, down on his hands and knees, trying to erase the marks he left on the gym floor.
My extra year of "seasoning" at Marist College, working for Br. Tarcisius, the engaging gnome who ran the college print shop, never sat very well with me. Tarcy had set his sights on someone else and couldn't hide his disappointment that I was his assigned helper. For the first six months, before Tarcy trusted me with using any of the printing equipment, I collated printed jobs and sorted type by hand, a job a monkey could have been trained to do. Later in my apprenticeship, as I was working a press one day, Br. Paul, then head of the college, suggested I think of every page I printed as a prayer offering. I had to watch my fingers to prevent them from being crushed, never mind worrying about the indulgences I was storing up. I found him preoccupied with weightier matters than my struggle. Having written that, I know he did great things for the order.
Br. J.P. Luke touched many of our young lives. I will never forget his kindness to me.
Big Br. Gilbert Osmund needs to be remembered. I spent seven summers at Camp Marist listening to him. He was a source of great wisdom and a fun figure to many of us. His laughter was infectious - more a roar when anything struck him as humorous. Many things, monk and otherwise, tickled him. [I wrote this before I read John Tricamo's engaging account of fourth-year Latin with Brother Gil in the November 2010 Marists All. I smiled and loved every bit of the retelling.]
The last time I saw Br. Norbert Justin, or "Norbie" as we knew him, was in the monks' home in Miami. He appeared to me to be in the throes of dementia. He didn't recognize me, though I reported to him for a dozen years. I was saddened by that last picture I have of him.
Br. Teddy Morris and I enjoyed some unique episodes together. I previously wrote a long remembrance of our relationship and our encounters with some names from that era. Once, Teddy wanted confirmation from Bishop Sheen for a program he was running at Molloy. He confronted the Bishop in a Queens' parish rectory after the Bishop had delivered his signature "Seven Words from the Cross" Lenten performance, and Ted got the answer he wanted from him - "Let the boys help each other" - the core of his "Smile" program. Our meeting at Floyd Patterson's training camp in Marlboro, New York, and Ted's subsequent encounters with the legendary heavyweight champion border on the unbelievable, unless you knew Ted's dogged determination to get the information he needed. I'm glad to see he will join other notable Stanners in Molloy's Hall of Fame. (This took place on November 6, 2010.)
Some things about Br. Terry Jones are indisputable. That he was a great teacher every student of his would attest. In community life, his kindness and personal care were always evident.
There are some little known things about him that several of us were privy to. Did you know that the students at Mt. St. Michael had a nickname for him? They called him "Captain Tootsie" for his uncanny resemblance to the character populating the Tootsie Roll ad campaigns. That the "bleacher creatures" at Yankee Stadium referred to him as the "crossword guy" for his habit of spending summer Sunday afternoons at the ballpark while quickly finishing the Times crossword puzzle? That while he was teaching in Pietermaritzberg, South Africa (1956-1959), he attended a yachting party thrown by the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn? That evening a Life magazine photographer was present at the party and photographed the gathering for the magazine. That week's spread captured Flynn and Terry on board, something he confessed worried him lest the Provincial got wind of it. That when someone was "buzzing" St. Charles College there late at night and destroying school property, Terry positioned a sixteen-pound shot put on his window sill, hoping to drop it judiciously and at least put a scare and a dent into the offender's car? After a direct hit on the vehicle's roof, he visited the local auto repair shops for several days and nailed the elusive culprit. That "old boys" from South Africa, on their customary year to explore the world, would stop by to see him as a matter of course? That big as he was, he always seemed to me to be a little bigger than life? I cherish my memory of him
As I patrolled the Esopus cemetery in 2006, I stopped at each grave site to remember each monk who had been my teacher and mentor and some, as well, who had been my friends and companions in community life I had a wish then, as now, that I could know more about some of the ones who left and have since untimely passed on and who would not be interred there. Greg Ballerino, the multitalented one, and Ken Connell come immediately to mind. We spent a few very good and productive years together at Roselle Catholic. I would love to know more about their post-monk life.
Listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition" with your eyes, mind, and heart as you picture the monks who made a difference in your life and write for us in Marists All about their impact on your life.
For MaristsAll readers who remember Tyngsboro fondly by either visitiing the campus or living there. here are a few photos of the campus as it stands in 2011. On 18 November 2010 the Boston Globe in its Globe North section published photos of the Tyngsboro campus. The Marist Brothers sold the property to Wang Laboratories, who developed a Wang Institute for training engineers and clients. In 1987 Boston University set up a branch to service the local area. About 14 years ago it was converted to a charter school, named Innovation Academy. These photos were scanned from the newspaper by the Marist College Archives. We are grateful to Maurice Bibeau who sent us the paper.
Addendum. Charles Scott '50 wrote to the editor shortly after initial publication of this newsletter.
Dick Branigan (Steven Aloysius), 1950, my classmate and good friend, recently had surgery to remove a benign tumor from his brain. He is now recovering nicely enough, taking some physical therapy for right hand movement and also some speech therapy for some slight slurring. I'm sure he would appreciate a card to cheer him and a prayer to speed his recovery.
Charles
Charles T. Scott
Professor emeritus of English
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Source: Original Marists All Site
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