each of the spiritual exercises we could practice each day.
He was an excellent speaker and each day for about ten minutes
he would explain to us the deeper meanings of the mass,
of the divine office, of confession, and during May of the rosary.
During their fifteen-hundred-year history the Benedictines
have been forerunners in developing a beautiful liturgy.
Father Bernard would talk to us about the church’s year of grace.
He explained to us how the daily sacrifice of the mass was
at the very center of our spiritual exercises and how it was
divided into the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist.
Each morning there would be a special reading from
the Hebrew Bible and from one of the New Testament Epistles
and from one of the Four Gospels. Father Bernard often
picked the connecting point between the three and spoke on that.
The Benedictine fathers would come together in the choir stalls
and chant back and forth the eight parts of the divine office.
Father Bernard explained to us how they sang the 150 psalms
of the Psalter each week and how many of the older fathers
had all the psalms memorized, which made them very dear.
As parish priests we too would eventually pray the Breviary
made up of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terse, Vespers, and Compline.
Each day we would recite Lauds, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.
Thus already as freshmen we started learning the Old Testament
and began to see what Matthew meant when he claimed
that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
Father Bernard began to help us see how love and justice were
so important throughout Hebrew history and how Jesus came
to take them further even with a love for all our enemies.
I,1.6 Father Ambrose and the Intellectual
Father Ambrose Zenner had gone to Rome to get his doctorate
in sacred theology and the word was that he was being groomed
to become the next abbot of the monastery and he did become
the rector of the major seminary when the new building
was built in 1956, and there were then two seminaries.
When I arrived in 1952, Father Ambrose was the vice rector
of the entire seminary under Father Bernard and every two months
he would talk with each of us as he gave us our report cards.
He was very encouraging and right away I liked him.
I would ask him why a priest had to study algebra and science
and he would tell me why a liberal arts education was important.
We students would talk with each other about such questions
and we would discuss with each other what he told each of us.
Already as freshmen we began to hear about the intellectual virtues
of science, art, practical wisdom, intuitive reason, and philosophical
wisdom and in the seminary there were those studying philosophy.
We called the students in the major seminary logicians,
philosophers, and theologians because that’s what they studied.
Philosophy especially began to have a mysterious appeal
and it was good to believe that mathematics and science
could teach us special methods that would help us love wisdom.
My algebra teacher’s name was Father Method and Father
Ambrose joked that Father Method was teaching us a method
of clear and correct reasoning that could help us in everything.
My grandmother Coates had a book on her shelf called
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant and I loved
looking through it and certain quotations stayed in my mind
such as the saying of Dmitri from The Brothers Karamazov
“I don’t want millions, but only an answer to life’s questions.”
I mentioned this quotation to Father Ambrose and he told me
that I already seemed to be a philosopher with all my questions.
I,1.7 Father Anthony and the Vital
Father Anthony was both my confessor and my science teacher.
As freshmen he introduced us to chemistry, physics, and biology.
We put water in a container and after a few days looked at
a bit of it under the microscope and pretty soon bacteria began
to appear and after a couple of weeks it was loaded with many
kinds of little swimming critters visible only with the microscope.
We would remember forever how quickly germs could multiply
in water or any sort of unrefrigerated thing such as meat.
We were each growing rapidly and he kept a record of
each of our growth in weight, height, leg length, and even
the size of our muscles when we flexed our biceps, and we
each went individually to the laboratory for these measurements.
One day as he was measuring the inside of my leg his finger
touched my testicles and he asked me if I was missing one.
I asked him what he was talking about and he told me that
one
