We Don't Always Choose Our Communities

In my last blog entry, I wrote about a group of former seminary classmates with whom I have been doing Zoom get-togethers for the last two and a half years. In writing about this experience, I came to believe that what kept a small group of 10 to 12 of us coming back each week was that we had developed a community. That led me to think about other communities I had been a part of during my lifetime.

Some of the characteristics of communities are that they can be small or large, based on geography or social interests, short-term or long-term in duration, chosen or imposed. I wrote in my last blog entry that communities give our lives meaning and a sense of belonging. I think they also provide a support network for us as we deal with life’s ups and downs.

While we choose some communities because of things we have in common with others, there are many times that we end up in a community because of circumstances in which we find ourselves. Once we are in that community, we will most likely find that we have shared interests with some members of that community and may form a smaller community with those individuals.

For example, I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through 8th Grade. Although my parents chose where we would live, they did not choose my school. I attended the closest Catholic school. We moved to Somerville (NJ) when I was 10 and from 5th to 8th grade I attended a Catholic school where there was one class in each grade. We had a different teacher each year but I was with the same students for all four years. I was good friends with some of them, played with others at recess and kept in touch with some after we graduated from 8th grade. I felt a connection with all my classmates but had stronger ties to some than to others.

After graduating from 8th grade, i went to a Catholic minor seminary near Baltimore for high school and 2 years of college, assigned there by my bishop.  In my freshman year of high school, there were over 100 students in my class. Plus there were five other grades. We lived at the seminary for the school year in a very regimented situation. Bells rang throughout the day to direct us to the next activity. We all ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in a common dining hall at our assigned tables with 7 other students. All of us in the seminary (students and faculty) belonged to a fairly large community. But there were also smaller communities within the larger one. Each grade formed a community, to some extent. Again, we had no choice there. As in any school, smaller groups formed, based on interests. Think about jocks, nerds, band kids, etc., in any high school. We had the additional circumstance of living together through the school year. We may have had assigned seats in the dining hall, but after dinner we were hanging out with the friends who belonged to our smaller community.

After six years in the minor seminary, I was assigned by the bishop of our diocese to attend a major seminary on the campus of St. Bonaventure University. Again, a larger community not of my choosing. We seminarians lived at the seminary but during our junior year of college we took classes three mornings a week at the University, with other college students.This seminary was a little more open than the minor seminary, especially with our attending classes with the University students. Given the opportunity to interact with these non-seminary students, we established friendships with some of them. So, I was essentially living in two communities - one very structured (the seminary), the other more open (the University).

Just before Thanksgiving of my first year at this new seminary, I realized that I did not want to continue with my seminary studies. I remained in the seminary for the rest of the school year, but applied to the University for admission for my senior year. I had left the very structured setting of the minor seminary community for the structured but more open major seminary community. Now I was about to move into a very unstructured University community. Fortunately, some friends I made at the University during my junior year became my support network as I dealt with this transition. I ate most meals with them in the large University dining hall and spent a lot of time with them when I was not studying. They were a smaller community of people with shared interests who supported me (and hopefully I supported them as well). A few of them I remain in contact with to this day.

One of the things that strikes me about the communities I’ve described here is that we frequently end up in communities that are not of our choosing. But, within those communities, we seek out smaller communities of people with whom we share common interests and who provide us with a support network. i did not choose my elementary school, minor seminary, major seminary or university communities. In each of these situations, I was part of a larger community but also, within that community, was able to join smaller communities of people with whom I shared similar interests. Both the larger and smaller communities provided me with a sense of belonging and a support network, but in different ways. Can you think of larger and smaller communities you’ve been a part of in your life?

Easing My Way Back into "The World"

In previous blog posts about life in the seminary in the 1960’s, I wrote about changes happening in the Church at that time. Primarily, these were the result of Pope John XXIII and his convening of the Second Vatican Council to open the windows and let in fresh air, to bring the Church into the modern world. I wrote about how, before Vatican II, the emphasis was on our sinfulness and our unworthiness before God. But the Council emphasized how much God loves us. Before the Council, seminarians were kept separate from “the World” and its temptations. After the Council, seminarians and priests were expected to engage with the world and bring God’s love to others. I’ve also written about how not everyone in the Catholic Church was gung-ho about the changes.

During my last year at St. Charles College seminary (my sophomore college year), seminary life was in flux. For most of the men graduating from St. Charles, the next step would be two more years of college at St. Mary’s Seminary on Paca Street in downtown Baltimore. While we were still at St. Charles, we were in contact with seminarians we knew who had moved on to St. Mary’s. We heard from them how different St. Mary’s was from St. Charles – how much more freedom they had. Faculty at St. Mary’s seemed to have embraced the spirit of Vatican II more than the faculty at St. Charles.

Life at St. Charles was still very regimented. However, there was one significant change. During my freshman year of college, the faculty had allowed the establishment of a student council. During that year, we went through a process of identifying how the student council would function. Our sophomore year was its first actual year. Officers were elected to the Student Council and each class elected representatives. I was one of the representatives chosen by my class. With all the changes going on in the Church and our awareness of things going on at St. Mary’s, there was a lot of discussion at Student Council meetings about whether changes could be made at St. Charles.

The actions of the Student Council weren’t belligerent or revolutionary, but we did ask questions about why some things had to be done a certain way and why they couldn’t change. In other words, we were questioning Authority. And Authority (the Rector and the faculty) didn’t like it. At the end of the year, there was a banquet for the graduating (sophomore) class. The Rector (i.e., the priest in charge of the seminary) gave a memorable speech, the main point of which was that the graduating class should have been going out wearing clean white hats. But the hats we wore were stained with dirt because of our lack of commitment and dedication to the ideals of the seminary program of preparation for the priesthood. More memorable was the speech given later in the banquet by Ken Hallahan, the Student Council president. He talked about how individuals who are working to get things done and make a difference in life find it difficult to keep their hats white. (Most of us connected more with Ken’s comments than the Rector’s.)

I expected that the following year I would be at St. Mary’s Paca Street, like those in classes ahead of me. But, because of the faculty assessment that identified me as a troublemaker, instead the Bishop of Trenton sent me and a few other seminarians who also had bad recommendations to Christ the King Seminary at St. Bonaventure University. I would spend one year at Christ the King and then leave the seminary and finish my college career at St. Bonaventure.

Although I would have preferred to go to St. Mary’s with my fellow classmates, I think my going to Christ the King was good for me. Along with allowing me the opportunity to make some good friends in the seminary there, it also provided a nice transition from the sheltered world of St. Charles. We had our Philosophy courses at the seminary. But we also took four classes at the University with other college students. And we had an opportunity to interact with the college students at other times when we were not in class. So, I also made some friends there who were not seminarians. I continued to spend most of my time at the seminary. But I also had more interactions with non-seminary college students. When I left the seminary and transferred to the University for my senior year, the transition was easier. I also consider the next two years as part of my transition. Because my first year out of college, I taught religion at a Catholic High School just outside of Trenton. So most of my time was spent interacting with Catholic teachers and high school students. And most of my day was spent talking about religion. Following that year, I took a job working at The Bancroft School, a day and residential program for individuals with developmental disabilities. With that, my transition from the sheltered life of the seminary was complete.

Originally, I had planned to include in this blog entry some more thoughts about the changes inspired by the Second Vatican Council and how they have not borne the fruits that some would have hoped. But that will have to wait till my next blog entry.