August 28 Happy Birthday Thommy and St Augustine

Thommy,



Happy Birthday

Good morning

I love you



You and St Augustine – some bigtime connection. I didn’t think of that connection when you were born – it was more than a few years later that I was back into my daily saints reading and praying, meditating and pondering. Nineteen years later, each year aligning you with Augustine, same age, comparing circumstances and growing up choices, actions, and accomplishments. One way for each of us to reflect on you, us, me, and our constellation of people, places, achievements, stumbles, - all in the context of God, faith, religion, church, family, community, and self….



College Freshman. Yours, mine, ours – like you, me, us: inseparable. UNC-G. A place chosen by you [without your assimilating all your resources] because of the math, because it’s close to your mother - - fortunately, the tugma I made for you will pay for it all; a college education for you and at the other end a degree, a better resume, and no debt [if you do right, no debt and a nest egg: both of which was my intention and hope in 1994 when I took a big chunk of my gratitude from HCA and put it in your future.]

Math is a great start. You’ve got a head for numbers; I hope you learn the discipline of the subject that’s necessary to fulfill your talent.

UNC-G is a good school, a big school, in a good city – each with the opportunities for you to lay the groundwork of your future as well as relish the chance to be all you can be. Being a student, especially without financial barriers to your immersing yourself in the student experience, is a blessing and a half. Deo Gratias. Good Luck. And, Happy Trails. Or, Happy Motoring. J



My nineteenth. 1968. whew, what a year! One year into the novitiate. In Fall River, MA when MLK was murdered and the country was inflamed and in flames – so, too, downtown Fall River; and so were the freshmen and sophomores at Bp Connelly H.S. where I was doing my novice thing…. Then RFK was assassinated. I was at the novitiate when that happened. Some of us had stayed up late to get the CA results: a bit of an exception to our regimen. Many RFK worshippers among the novices. Me, I thought him to be a carpetbagger and JFK’s hit man. [I was so proud of the Irish Catholic Kennedy running for and getting the presidency in 1960 – 11 years old – sixth grade – in the midst of the mostly protestant Longfellow elementary – in your face!

Then I turned 19 in July. The summer was a rejuvenating time at the novitiate – we second years welcomed the new class. Secundi had many responsibilities and some privilege of rank. And, come the fall semester, we had new focus on our first vows coming up in May. Latin and Philosophy classes at the novitiate with excursions to Boston College and Weston for some classes and communing with fellow Jesuits. Plus, more sophisticated and more serious spiritual training – for self and how to become a Jesuit, what it means to be a Jesuit.

I also went to my hospital experience – one of the few types of training that Ignatius required for novices – serving the sick. I suggest that you too volunteer for a significant period at a hospital and serve the sick. I got to be better friends with three novice-mates (two of whom are priests now, one a brother). I also got to be friends with a few nurses at Boston City Hospital – friendships that have lasted for a very long time. Plus, it was a place where I learned about hospitals, no longer was adverse to the smells of hospitals, no longer afraid of the tribulations of hospitals. Maybe that month helped me become a lot of who I am today? I surely got to love the hub of the universe more when I was there.

In the spring of 1969 we went to Berkshire community college as well as courses at the novitiate and BC. An opportunity to mingle with peers of all sizes shapes and types. I got involved in the student magazine and student politics – I love the forums of conflict and change [can’t have one without the other]. There I discovered psychology as an academic pursuit. The seed blossomed into a major and a degree or two which have led to my professional trajectory.

Also in the spring of 1969 I had my crisis of vocation. I confronted my difficulty with the vow of obedience. And one March day saw Denis Carter in the student lobby at BCC, with the 5 foot high fireplace keeping the room warm, and said to him, the merry go round has stopped. He knew immediately what I meant. That’s what friends can do – know immediately. It took me about a week to talk with my spiritual adviser about that and a couple more before talking with the novice master – by then I was already gone in my head. They let me stay to complete the academic courses – not telling anyone else until a little before I left.

Also, as a secundi, I was the leader of our foray over to Berkshire Farm for Boys – what we’d call a residential treatment center these days. Me, a street kid from NYC, me and another seven novices, went over every Wednesday night and every Sunday morning to be, what, big brothers, witnesses to our faith, the ones responsible for the liturgy – think about engaging those teens in their Catholicism and the liturgy when it was an option whether to attend mass or not! Another foundational experience for my life long vocation for children, especially those who need psychiatric care.

In the summer after I left the novitiate, I had to choose my next college. BC was an option and in hindsight, it would have been the best choice. I took Alabama because I was accepted there within two weeks of applying and come August, I’d not heard from any of the other half dozen to whom I’d applied. My choices: BC, BAMA, or be drafted. I figured fate had a hand in this so I headed south….

Between novitiate and bama I worked construction as a wire lather – my uncle Arch and Grandpa’s uncle Bill [a shop steward] got me the job. Fantastic money – paid for more than a year of school plus lots of playing. It also had some experiences that were formational – including the one that almost got me knocked off the 33rd floor – and there was no net over the side either. Or the fight that got started because somewhere in the past Uncle Bill had blocked some guys entrance into the union. Family does matter!

Oh yeh, one other important thing happened that summer. Over the fourth of July weekend, on a private island off the coast of Maine, I wrote my application for conscientious objector status in the draft. It was after July 27th when we had the hearing. Fr Bertrand came and testified – the novice master, how’s that for support?! The draft board denied my application. Oh well, I got lucky a few years later when my number came up way high….

19. look around. Immerse yourself in the now. Be all that you can be. Leverage all of your resources as well as talents. A pile of money is only one gift I have for you. Three boxes delivered to you today – with presents from Grandma, Grandpa, and me. And then there are the balloons on the bedroom floor, living room, kitchen…. Tradition. No gorilla but maybe the mobile billboard within a few weeks will be enough of a surprise….. think back on all of your birthdays. Add to your diary. Track your growth. And remember. Remember your start. Remember the soil from which you grew. Remember what you have done with what God’s given you. Good times and bad. And for this nineteenth year – LIVE! Just do it! Be that best that you were created to be.

I may have three times more experience than I did at 19, but those first nineteen years – that nineteenth year itself, probably have more formative value and influence than any others. Check with your brother and see what his feeloughts are about 19 and freshman year…. Leverage all of God’s gifts to you….



August 28

Augustine of Hippo

b. 354



[catholic encyclopedia on line; butler’s lives of saints]



November 13, 354 in Hippo, now Souk-Ahras. An African.

We don’t get much from him, his writing (which fill a library not to mention their powerful influence), nor his biographies (another libraryfull of manuscripts) the role his place of origin or his ethnicity played in his life. It certainly was important even in his day. That you are from Nashville, so far spent most of your life there, is important to who you are.

Monica, that would be St. Monica, a woman who might not have made the list of saints were it not for her son’s accomplishments – and her role in his Catholicism, the conversion of her husband/his father, and her place in the church as she followed her son around to ensure his salvation. A holy woman who shows you what a wife and mother should be like – an ideal of Catholic mothers ….



Patricius, Augustine’s father, a curiales of the city, and a pagan. Augustine, too, was born into a mixed marriage.



A family that was not rich but was respected in the community. A family that regardless of the deal breaking differences persisted as family, as husband-wife and son. A family that stayed on a trajectory toward fulfilling their collective and individual Catholic faith and vocations. I am sorry we did not give you such a family. However, you do have a Catholic parent not nearly as holy as Monica but as persistent for your faithfulness. Imagine Augustine’s early and youthful life and how he developed his faith while living a non-Catholic even an anti-Catholic life. I don’t recommend his path to sanctity, but when you see yourself on his same road, also see how he got back onto the right road so that you can short-circuit the time it takes to make such a jump; not to mention emulating his maximizing his talents and his accomplishments in his vocation.



Augustine’s Catholic parent signed him with the cross and enrolled him among the catechumens. Not unlike your Catholic parent’s signing you at birth, bringing you to the ‘family’s’ baptismal font, and ensuring you got a Catholic education. [that your not Catholic parent withdrew you from faith formation, never mind not providing a Catholic school education is an omission you will have to overcome.] Like his non-Catholic parent, Augustine deferred baptism, as was a convert’s practice at the time because they did not see how to best use the sacrament of reconciliation along with the sanctifying grace of baptism. You have the advantage of 1600 years of faith formation by Mother Church….



Augustine’s non-Catholic parent, proud of the son’s success in school, determined to send him to Carthage to prepare for a forensic career. It took the family a while to get the money for that. Augustine spent the time waiting, his 16th year, giving himself up to pleasure with total abandon. By the time he made it to Carthage, still 16, Augustine soaked up all of the offerings of the big city – the New Orleans of its time: half pagan, licentious, theatres, alcohol, and the intoxication of his literary success - - his drive to be first, to be best, in everything: good or bad.

Augustine became the unwed partner of a woman who bore him a son in 372 [he was 18].



NINETEEN. In 373, at 19, Augustine read Cicero’s “Hortensius” from which Augustine fell in love with wisdom, rhetoric, philosophy. This experience changed Augustine’s life. It does matter what you read: who you read. Probably much more importantly, it matters how you read – pursuing Truth, Faith, Love….



NINETEEN. Also in 373, when Augustine was 19, he fell head over teakettle for the Manichaean philosophy qua religion. He followed the Persian, Mani (215-276) into material dualism. A young, brilliant, eager student immersed himself in Mani’s work and left behind the foundation of his faith for the snazzy appeal of the hottest philosophy of the time.

I suggest you read up on the Manichaeans and Augustine’s experience with them. That convergence of philosophy and student is not unlike the vortex you’re in now. The Manichaeans sought a scientific explanation of nature and its most mysterious phenomena. Augustine embraced the natural sciences of his time, without the prism of faith and first principles.

Augustine, in his youth, his 19th year et al., was tortured by the problem of the origin of evil – and in his failure to solve it, he accepted the Manichaeans’ two principles – with the moral irresponsibility that followed from their doctrine which denied freedom and attributed committing sin/crimes to a foreign principle.

Augustine devoted himself to the Manichaean sect with fervent ardor. With his prodigious gifts, he read all their books, adopted and defended their opinions, and proselytized successfully his friends and associates. Taking them with him down the wrong road…. Possibly a St Paul quality. It does matter where you begin; more importantly it matters where you end up….



His Catholic parent stayed with him, prayed for him, cried for him – while deploring Augustine’s heresy and proselytizing. Monica sustaining support of her son was supported by her family the church – e.g., by the encouragement of the bishop who told her “the son of so many tears could not perish.” Amen. Augustine stayed mesmerized by Manichaeanism for nine years….



Augustine’s Confessions is worth your while – if only following the biography parallel to your growing up too. Keep your own diary. Make your own confessions.



At 29, in 383, Augustine went to Italy…. His Catholic parent followed.



In Milan, he visited Bishop (saint) Ambrose – fascinated by his kindness and enthralled by his preaching. It does matter where we lived and from whom we learn….



Beginning in 386 – at 32 - having passed through both conversion experiences and a few academic stages, Augustine devoted himself to the pursuit of true philosophy, i.e., Catholicism [in the 4th century, aka, Christianity].



Baptized, Easter, 387 - - at 32. by Bishop Ambrose.



Autumn 387, Monica died. How do you look to the death of your parents? Your place in that? Your preparation for that? Even at 19, now and forever, you have the obligation to honor your father and mother – in this life, at the time of death, and beyond….



In 391, at 36, Augustine was ordained a priest in Hippo.



In 396, at 41, Augustine became bishop of Hippo. His residence became a monastery and the clergy who lived with him took vows of religious poverty. Ten of his friends/disciples became bishops and formed similar monasteries. Thus, Augustine’s accolade: patriarch of the religious.



Augustine was, above all, the defender of truth and the shepherd of souls. As bishop, pursued the Manichaeans, by defeating and converting their philosophers in/with debate and compassion. In defense of free will – his writings against Manichaeanism is worth your time: to put into context today’s materialism and the scientific anti-faith writings of our time.

And much much more… a full life for a great saint, doctor of the church, son of Monica and Patricius.



Happy Birthday,

I love you,



Dad