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I’ll
give these dummies one more chance
I
was raised in a strong Christian family. We went to church twice
on Sunday: morning and evening. And then there was prayer meeting
on Wednesday, Youth Group on Friday and choir practice as well.
I was raised in the Free Methodist Church – a small evangelical,
Protestant denomination – and my twin brother is a Free
Methodist minister.
I am forever
grateful to my parents because they taught me to love Jesus with
all my heart. To personally and consciously acknowledge and accept
Jesus as God, Lord and Saviour is of utmost importance in our
family. This is what is essential to being an evangelical. I am
no longer a Protestant but I must always be an evangelical. Ironically,
my evangelical, Protestant parents are the most significant influence
for me becoming a Brother in a Roman Catholic religious order.
They laid the basic religious groundwork on which my vocation
as a Brother was built.
At the age
of 19 I went to a Free Methodist Bible College called Aldersgate.
It was in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, of all places. This was my first
time living away from home and I never returned. These years were,
without a doubt, some of the best years of my life. It was a small,
tight-knitted college and I made many good friends. After four
years, I earned a Bachelor of Theology degree and graduated on
April 29, 1984.
It was there
that I met the next most influential people in my life. One person
in particular was Professor David Ashton. He had a profound influence
on me. He exposed me to a broader understanding of Christianity
that balanced out my evangelical Protestant experience. Against
a religious background that centred entirely on the Scriptures,
he exposed me to Tradition and the sacraments. To my experience
of plain church services he added the beauty of liturgical worship.
Against a spirituality that emphasized the immanence of God, he
gave me a greater sense of the mystery and transcendence of God.
From a form of Christianity that was highly individualistic he
introduced me to the communion of the saints and apostolic authority.
These were all things that I sought. I felt there had to be more
than just "me and my Bible". I longed for an experience
of church that spanned time and space. Prof. Ashton was not a
Catholic himself, but he wetted my appetite for all things Catholic.
But I also
struggled with Catholicism. I struggled with such Catholic doctrines
as Mariology, Transubstantiation, and Papal primacy. There is
a saying: "the road to Rome is via Canterbury" and so
it was for me. I attended the Anglican Church during my college
days. It was "catholic" enough without having to deal
with the specific "Roman" issues all at once. Although
I eventually became a Roman Catholic, I still regard fondly my
"Anglican days." They were days of beautiful, transcendent
liturgies but with the added benefit of having all the great hymns
that I knew from childhood.
It was also
during these college years that I first encountered Religious
Life. I discovered (in the Bible) and came to believe in the ideals
of Religious Life (celibacy for the Kingdom of God, simple life
style, and communal living with shared property) before I knew
it already existed. This was the most significant affirmation
that called me.
Every year
the Church History class took a field trip to St. Peter’s
Benedictine monastery in Munster, Saskatchewan. I was so fascinated
by this special place that I managed to "wrangle" my
way on to the trip three years in a row. Although I became a Franciscan
Friar, St. Peter’s Benedictine Monastery still holds a very
dear spot in my heart. My greatest struggle in discerning a religious
vocation was not whether I had a calling or not, but whether I
should join the Franciscans or the Benedictines at St. Peter’s.
Fr.
Richard Rohr
Another influence
towards becoming a Religious was meeting a Franciscan Friar named
Fr. Richard Rohr from Cincinnati, Ohio. A few fellow students
and I listened to some of his taped lectures and we were so profoundly
moved by what he had to say that we determined to visit him. We
eventually made two such trips from Moose Jaw, Sask. to Cincinnati
Ohio in an old "rattle trap" car - there and back on
a long weekend. It was over 1600 miles.
While down
there I talked to Fr. Richard about my desire to become a Religious
even though I wasn’t a Catholic yet (I didn’t even know
if one had to be a Catholic before entering a Religious order).
He took his book of all the Franciscan addresses in the world
an tore out the "C" section which contained "Canada"
and said for me to try these addresses.
The importance
of Fr. Richard in my vocation story is that he gave my general
interest in Religious Life a more specific focus: Franciscan Religious
Life. God used him to "fine tune" His call for me. He
opened me to a love for St. Francis of Assisi. In St. Francis
I found a "kindred spirit". He symbolized for me much
of what drew me to Catholicism. Francis became a converging point.
He represented many things for me: being a Catholic, being a Religious
Brother, my love for nature (He is the patron saint of ecology),
the historic continuity of the Catholic Church.
I
Tell My Parents
I finally
had to get up the courage to tell my parents that I wanted to
become a Catholic and, to add insult to injury, I wanted to become
a Religious as well. My parents were distraught. They pleaded
with me not to ruin my life. In fairness to my parents, much of
their misunderstanding came from the bad example that many Catholics
gave.
Little did
I know at the time that I was opening an old skeleton closet long
undisturbed. My grandfather had been raised a Catholic but became
an Anglican to marry my grandmother. This had created bad relations
between him and his family. It also filtered down to succeeding
generations and left a certain coolness between Catholic and Protestant
branches of the family.
This was
a very difficult time in my life. It was painful to cause the
ones I most loved so much grief. At this time, Bible passages
such as Luke 14:26 came to meant a lot to me: "If anyone
comes after me and does not love me more than his own father and
mother… yes even his own life cannot be my disciple."
It came down to a decision between God or my parents and I choose
God.
Eventually,
through the years, my parents have come to accept (if not wholly
embrace) my being a friar. This was primarily due to the goodness
of my Franciscan brothers who treated them so well when they came
to visit me. They even came to my Solemn Profession.
After
College and Becoming a Catholic
After four
years, I graduated with a Bachelors of Theology. From there I
moved to Waterloo, Ontario where I began attending mass at St.
Jerome’s College on the campus of the University of Waterloo.
There I went through the RCIA programme and finally became a Catholic
at the Easter Vigil on March 29, 1986. It was the happiest day
of my life. It was not something I entered upon lightly. I had
taken 6 years to make my move.
Becoming
a Franciscan Friar
My becoming
a Catholic, however, is part of the longer story of my becoming
a Franciscan Friar. I had begun to inquire into becoming a Franciscan
before I was a Catholic. From the page that Fr. Richard had torn
out of his address book, I wrote to all the places in the Toronto
area. They must of thought that I was crazy because I did not
receive a single reply. I was peeved and gave up on the Franciscans.
In the meantime
I had moved to Winnipeg to check out an ecumenical Christian "intentional
community" called the Grain of Wheat Community. I also got
a job looking after a mentally handicapped man. It was a very
demanding job and the pay was poor but that was fine with me.
At least it gave a sense of doing meaningful ministry. This was
another affirmation of my calling to Religious life. It occurred
to me that I was already living a Religious Life in as far as
I could. I was praying (even praying the Liturgy of the Hours),
ministering, living a very simple life style, and had close connections
to the Grain of Wheat Community.
One day a
friend of mine mentioned that she had seen a Franciscan friary
downtown. Although the desire to become a friar had never died,
it was again aroused. I thought, "I’ll give these dummies
one more chance." I was very nervous but I finally spoke
to Br. Tom Donovan as he passed by. I had all my lines rehearsed.
It turned out that he was very friendly. The very next time I
came, he even invited me in for lunch. I could hardly believe
his generosity! Through getting to know him, I eventually shared
with him about the intensity of living with this very demanding
handicapped man. In response to this, Br. Tom offered me a room
in the friary where I could stay on my free day. This was truly
a beautiful gift and I used those days to recover and get ready
for the next week.
Taking time
to think through my decision to become a Catholic served me well.
The Franciscan policy was to admit only those who had been a Catholic
for a minimum of five years. They waived that rule and accepted
me for the Novitiate of August 1988. I had been a Catholic for
only a year and half. (Ironically, it was only when I became Vocation
Director twelve years later, that I was involved in the decision
to change the five-year rule to two years). On the Feast of St.
Francis, Oct. 4, 1994 I made Solemn Vows. That was the second
happiest day of my life. But it was not so much a day of great
elation but rather of a calm sense of finally arriving where I
belonged.
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