The night does not fall in Rome, she rises from the heart of the city,
of dark alleys and courtyards where the sun only penetrates to a radius,
then as the mist of the Tiber,
it glides over the rooftops and spreads over the hills.
[Caroline Llewellyn] [+]
Excerpt from The Masks of Rome [+]
It is 13:00, October 10, 1958. We, the eight students Brothers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Magister Institute, taking place for the first once the refectory of the Istituto dei Figli di Maria Immacolata, a community of Italian priests, who will host for the duration of our stay in Rome.
The day after our arrival at the general house, during the morning, the Rev. Brother we had gathered in the chapter house in order to invite us to "accept good graces many disadvantages was going We make this trip in a 100% Italian community in the heart of Rome, in a community of good fathers that nobody knew.
Without him say at the bottom of ourselves, we felt some relief not to be dependent (understatement footprint ecclesiastical subtleties), we religiously and any bid accepted provisions he had seen fit to take to us. There are sometimes situations where obedience comes to us under the color very easily. We would therefore form an autonomous community. Brother Louis-Régis de Quebec will be our superior.
Total immersion in the heart of Rome in an Italian community. What could we wish more? The exotic flavors of a fascinating approach, if not an undeniable sex appeal.
The parent of Figli di Maria Immacolata well established on the Via del Mascherone, 55, facing the Palazzo Farnese . A few strides from Piazza Farnese, is the famous Campo de 'Fiori , famous place where, 17 February 1600, was burned alive for heresy and apostasy, the mysterious Giordano Bruno , precursor freethinkers. Every day Sundays excepted, from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., stands in the Campo de 'Fiori market open. Could we find ourselves more in the heart of Rome at the residence of the good fathers? a few yards from Via del Mascherone the Ponte Sisto, the oldest Roman bridge spanning the Tiber still stands guard over the famous river and allows us to access in less than two in Trastevere, the oldest neighborhoods of ancient Rome. And one can blithely walk up to St Peter's Square in less than thirty minutes.
All around, within a diameter of less than two miles before us, during our walks: the Victor Emmanuel monument , the Colosseum, Roman Forum the the Capitol the Piazza Navona the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon , the Castel Sant'Angelo and what else?
center of the world and the time spent and who will come.
We stayed on the third floor of the Istituto. Eight rooms small but adequate, and a community hall. On the second floor, the chapel of the fathers had at our disposal to our exercises of piety.
The refectory, situated on the ground floor, was common to all residents of the pension. There was a large rectangular room where tables were arranged in a U along the walls according to the monastic way, leaving the center free for the service.
For two years is common in this mess that we go three times a day take our meals. This mess was also attended by a dozen priests various nationalities who studied or worked in Rome at the papal curia.
The third year, the number of students from Magister Jesus rising from six to fourteen, the direction of the house agreed to put at our disposal a room where we were alone. This preferential treatment had the advantage of enabling the director brother to add a few treats on our tables, such as cereals, jams, honey, etc.. We could also revive the tradition by reading the life of the saint's day out loud without fear of bothering other guests.
Although we were no longer the common refectory, the maid (Carmine, Attilio, Aurelio, Fausto) remained in our service during the meal all the time. The most colorful of them, Carmine, a little man in his fifties with no jerky borrowed from gent-trotting menu, we liked to tell jokes, even though he knew that no new students do not understand.
We served the same food as everyone else. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays were the days most anticipated since the entry of the lunch was always made an excellent " pasta asciutta " whose method of preparation was kept secret by the religious-ranges of the pension. Presented in a new form of time in time, this 'divine' pasta was the delight of all students, while some Other dishes do not always correspond to our standards of North American gourmets. The rice soup, served Tuesday and Thursday evenings, thick to hold a spoon upright was also our delight especially if we added a dollop of white wine.
And all had to be satisfied with a single class of dessert: frutta, which took the name orange January to March, from March to June pear and apple from October to January. A small carafe of white wine accompanied our lunch and dinner.
lunches taken in haste and often were standing in line with Italian habits: always, every morning, a bowl is filled with three quarts of warm milk and coffee and in which is dipped pieces of a bun.
Austerity of local furniture simplicity, frugality and repeat the menu, those are for the meals, the terms of our "total immersion". We have suffered somewhat. Thus, November 26 1958 I noted in my diary:
"I now know what it's like to be hungry. Before coming to Rome, I have never felt this uneasiness. So the schedule or amount of food that makes the difference.
Brother Raymond was my dinner companion. Advantage: I was entitled to his carafe of wine, since Nazarene faithful he was, he never touched any alcohol then.
After supper, I was often a little walk around in the company of a colleague, or often as a priest Albanian O'Rushie father, with whom I spoke about everything and nothing, in a hodgepodge of languages: a little English, some Italian, some French, etc.. Our favorite place to walk was the Campo de 'Fiori, where we strolled under the gaze of Giordano Bruno that I've ever had.
Our daily routine was simple and repetitive. Up at 5:30, and devotions in the chapel until lunch. Breakfast at 7:00 and quickly en route to Piazza Argentina where we take the city bus that took us to the doors Lateran (1) where courses followed each other from 8:00 to 12:00. The return was usually on foot and was the occasion of long and animated discussions with his brother Raymond, especially me. Dinner was taken at 13:00 followed by a nap and study until 18:00. We took a good half-hour snack in our community hall, or playing cards and drinking coffee or nibbling on a few "biscotti" before returning to study in our rooms until 20:00. After we delivered a few spiritual exercises, we take the path of the refectory where cena we were invariably served daily at 20:30.
The day ended with a final hour of recreation: hiking, card game, television in the common room of the board, listening to music, etc.. according to personal tastes. Around 22:00, everyone retired to the rooms for the last hour of study or reading last thing at night.
Thus passed the minutes, hours and days without that we take the time to count them, each always having a job to complete or construct projects.
Entertainment
the ground floor of the pension, there was a small TV lounge available to residents of the Istituto. Brother Jean-Pierre was the most loyal customer. It happened to me also to go spend an hour or two a week, after dinner, just to familiarize myself with the sounds Italian.
We took advantage of Saturday and Sunday to complete our knowledge of Rome by visiting museums and monuments. Some of us attended the Sunday afternoon church halls where the monks could enter and where they planned feature film.
Exceptions
few exceptions came punctuate our annual calendar.
There were Christmas, Easter and the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the Mother House. In addition to the solemn mass sung by the choir of large-novice, it was entitled to a hearty dinner prepared by Italian nuns assigned to the kitchen and washed down with good wine and good glasses of Marsala. But the prosecutor brother, the brother Victorius friendly province Sherbrooke had the wisdom to come and serve himself a wonderful tract to avoid there being abused by the guests. After this hearty meal to aid digestion there was volleyball match between Great novice student of Jesus Magister. Pot-bellied less than them, we almost always won this game.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, was also celebrated with great pomp and processors, especially for fathers who stressed the feast of the patron of the institute. They entered the dining hall at one o'clock as usual and we do leave it until after seventeen hours. Throughout this time, there was a succession of dishes ranging from eggs to soup dulci (desserts) and more varied. Each dish was served in a dish and drizzled with fine wines.
On this day of celebration, the monastic frugality gave way to the tradition of the nobility of the great Italian families.
The same scenario with the same orgiastic extravagance was also repeated each year during the Feast of Christ the King was celebrated with her in our college Cristo Re
So much for the scenery and environment of our time in Rome.
Our fraternity
We are eight brothers enrolled at Jesus Magister. Five Quebec, an Ontario, an American and a Spaniard. Let me introduce them to you.
Brother Louis Regis (Pascal Ross), 34 - Quebec .
He was master of scholastics at Old Lorette. Editor about this model, so graciously donated by the Province of Quebec, the frail stem of Jesse would grow in line with the Institute. He had already made his big-novitiate .... ! " Cit. apocryphal Gospel (2)
Stocky, solid as a pine tree of Lombardy, say brother Maximilian, gifted with a good sense of living, brother Louis-Régis Custom is the quiet except when he plays volleyball. Then he reveals a fiery, driven by a passion for winning.
As he made no Thomist philosophy must take four years to Jesus magister. After obtaining a degree in Religious Sciences, he continued his theological studies at the Gregorian University where he earned a doctorate in theology. After five years in Rome as a student, he took charge of the Grand Novitiate the general house, a post he held until 1988. He lived thirty years of his life in Rome. Domestically, he participated as Provincial in the province of its merger with Community and Rimouski province under the name of St Lawrence. Suffering from a malignant cancer, it will walk in a wheelchair before returning to the Father, December 23, 2004. (Brother Lawrence Normandin (Maximian) wrote his biography directory 99 of the Institute.)
Fr.Ls Omer (Georges Labrecque) - Arthabaska
degree in literature from Laval University, famous professor of rhetoric at Scholasticate Arthabaska. It offers the beneficial features of asceticism already disciplined by the patient practice of yoga East (Air China), a spirit that has already supported the purifying flames of Greek poetry. Cit. apocryphal Gospel
Brother Louis Omer was a professor of Latin and Greek Scholasticate Arthabaska before coming to Jesus Magister. Endowed with remarkable intelligence, well versed in Greco-Roman, he imposes his knowledge. It must be very sure of its advanced when you talk to him. It will soon put us in box with all the subtlety of his genius. He was a man of letters and theater. And not only did he know it in painting, he also happened to grab a brush. He exhibited in the common room of the Istituto an abstract portrait gallery of all of us. This will create the Culture Café.
At the end of his second year Magister to Jesus, he spends his holidays in Greece and returned to Quebec with a indult of secularization. It's a surprise for us his brothers. We were all in very high esteem.
At the end of the school year, students at the brothers were present at Jesus Magister Reverend Brother their holiday program. In the holidays of 1961 the Reverend Brother reportedly said Ulysses Not just anyone!
Brother Marcel (Lionel Riviere) 32 years - New Orleans
Already Bachelor Religious Studies, Master of juniors in Metuchen, he is the protege of dear brother Alexis Wizard. He demonstrates by his imperturbable smile charms of this prosperous American province. Cit. apocryphal Gospel
Although a native of Thibodaux, Louisiana, brother Marcel was enrolled in the English section of Jesus Magister. Upon arrival in Rome, despite its French name and a few French lessons contained in his curriculum, he dared not speak the language of Molière. With her smile ineffable, he however, was all community activities. He spent the summer of 1959 among American brothers who ran a school in St.Albans, England.
At the end of the holidays, I had the pleasure of returning to Rome with him, since I, too, spent several months in London. We returned to Rome via Zurich and Switzerland. A U.S. pilot met during a visit to Zurich had acquired a new Mercedes he had to check in Milan before being shipped by boat from Naples to the USA. We offered to mount with him from Zurich to Milan. It was a very pleasant journey through the Alps.
After three years of study at Jesus Magister, Brother Marcel became master of scholastics of the New Orleans province, a position he held until 1970. He was then elected Assistant General in Rome, a post he held for more than eighteen years (1970-1988) .. No other brother had before him in that position for so long.
At the end of his term as Assistant, he became head of the community of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi High School attached to St. Stanislaus. In 1993 he was the founder and director of the International Centre André Coindre (CWC) in Lyon, France. From 2003 to 2005 he lives in a retirement home in Bay St. Louis. When the house was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he traveled to Arizona where he is the original school built in 1902 by St. Katharine Drexel in the Navajo reservation with two other colleagues who teach at the Indian School St. Michael.
What a great tenacity! A great ace among aces! Bravo Marcel, you have been the best and strongest of us all! Hats off! LP
Brother Inocencio (Vicente Fernández de Retana) 42 years Spain
Degree in History, already skilled in asceticism, a year would suffice to make the happy fellow for processing water into wine at Renteria. Warm gratitude to the Province of Spain for this welcome contribution to lubricate a genuine joy the workings of the young new body. We hope to repeat it before long his generous gesture and greatly appreciated. apocryphal Gospel 42 years old, Inocencio's brother was the dean of the group. In 1928, he entered the Juvénat Renteria, made his first profession in 1932, was mobilized during the English Civil War from 1937 to 1939, took his final vows in 1941, graduated in Philosophy and Literature in 1950. Before and after Jesus Magister, he taught at various colleges in the province of Spain community. At Via del Mascherone, he was the 'godfather ' 's brother Jean-Pierre in learning the English language. He also served as a guide to his ward during journeys that make it one year later in Spain. The writings Cervantes seems to have marked both. They got along as well or better than, two thieves at a fair. And we had no difficulty determining which of them was Don Quixote and Sancho Panza was.
Brother Inocencio was doing very well in French. He followed Jesus to Magister courses of the French section. Tongue-in-cheek he has with intelligence and humor make a great place in our fellowship.
He died in Vitoria at age 90 after 74 years of religious life.
Brother Raymond (Jean-Claude Ethier) - 28 years - Ottawa.
My colleague novitiate.
graduate of the Ecole Normale of the University of Ottawa, accredited in Latin from the same university, a professor at the Novitiate-Scholasticate Embrun. Antagonist brother Florian, he will surprise, and with it the whole community, by the infinite resources and energies that hides his puny unsuspected nature. . apocryphal Gospel .
Brother Raymond was also a patent holder education (bilingual) Department of Public Instruction of the Government of Quebec, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Montreal and enrolled in the MA in Latin Literature at the University of Ottawa.
workaholic and ascetic, he will spend the summer holidays 1959 and 1960 in the General House to write his dissertation whose topic was:
Taquin he knew enamel conversations fine questions that oozed a refined humor. He was our " nabi "the prophet of modern times, revealing the riches of the past. St. Augustine St. Thomas was more than his mentor.
From 1973 to 1979, he was superior of the province of Ottawa Community. His term as provincial superior finished, he spent nine years as provincial director of Christian education (French sector) for the Assembly of Bishops of Ontario and then for nine years, from the 1990s, as national coordinator Christian Education (French sector) for the Conference of Catholic Bishops Canada.
Symbolically sent into retirement in 2000, he was offered back to Quebec and to fill the post of secretary of the provincial council of the province of Montreal. Upon the merger of the three provinces of Arthabaska, St-Laurent and Montreal in 2002, he was given the responsibility of assistant secretary in the new quarters of the administration of the Province of Canada in Victoriaville.
In October 2004, Jean-Claude Ethier published BROTHERS OF THE SACRED HEART - Their apostolate in Canada - 1900 to 2004, volume of 294 pages illustrated with tables, which, on the bottom history, describes the contours of the work of the brothers and the important role they had in the education of youth in Canada and particularly in Quebec.
Brother Maximian (Laurent Normandin) - 26 years - Sherbrooke
The pianist does not want to talk to him. Degree in Religious Studies at Laval University, accomplished musician, both teacher and recruiter at the Novitiate of the Province of Sherbrooke. The staccato laughter which are sometimes unknown ranges of conservatories and harmonious ripples arising from his fingers frolicking on the keyboard reflect the inner bliss of religious plump. . Op. cit. apocryphal Gospel
We called him "BoMax" (nickname given to him in reference to the rockets that were BOMARC speak of them in Canada at that time), and later " Benigar "following her cry through the whole house, worthy of Archimedes' eureka, Benigar, Benigar! .... A child's spontaneity without calculation or measurement made of him as the transmitter of sound waves and happy that were spread throughout the community.
Subject elite, he was, before coming to Jesus Magister, five years professor at the novitiate in his province to Brompton.
After Jesus Magister, he taught religion at school and the University of Sherbrooke, where he participated in the creation of the Faculty of Theology, he witnessed his brother Louis Regis Grand novitiate in Rome, was ordained priest in 1971 and assumed the function of general house chaplain for nearly eleven years. He will go four years and eleven years in Togo in French Polynesia. Revenue Quebec, Gaspé, it serves the diocese, parish and surrounding area.
Jesus Magister can be proud to have contributed to the formation of this tireless apostle of the new times.
Brother Jean-Pierre (Lionel Pelchat) - 23 years - Granby
He is the baby of the group and the object of attention. Like a laborious bee, he browses all the flowers of culture. Professor at Assumption at Saint-Anicet. After BA brilliantly removed, his penetrating intelligence offered him many ways. Opened his superiors that of theology ... Opus Cit. apocryphal Gospel
It will be particularly attentive to enter teachers pollen expressions most barbarous and most tasty. It will make a honey that will brighten many galleries. To the amazement of everyone, he chooses to spend his first vacation in Postulate-Novitiate Albano, nearby town of Castel Gandolfo residence of the Holy Father during the Roman heat wave. Result: in October, the resumption of classes, it speaks and writes Italian fluently. A year later, after a month of study in Paris, he will live three months in Spain and will return with an almost total possession of the language of Don Quixote he later taught for over thirty years. He had to go see this one!
Indeed, it was not finished. He spent his summer holidays 1961 to improve his English in London, then, before returning to Quebec in 1962, he made another short stop two months in Madrid where he won one of the last degrees of the university Madrid was still in reserve for him. He will return with Jesus Magister, of course, a degree in Religious Studies, but especially with an insatiable taste for travel. He left the community in 1964, will sign a contract with CIDA teaching philosophy and English in Mali and the French and Italian in Nigeria. His marriage to Helen gave him two beautiful girls for whom he wrote his autobiography, "Lionel ... a life." D After a few years away, Lionel and I have one day, randomly cross roads, reconnected. It is with great pleasure that I found in him the bumblebee which had added to her known qualities, the look of an eagle in fact my "Memoirs" a penetrating spell checker and a very valuable text.
pioneers
Early in our stay at Via del Mascherone we were for each other as individuals connected by belonging to the same legal community. What has built us the bonds of a lasting fraternity has passed the fifty years? What adhesive cemented those deep friendships? I would say that it is mainly under the pioneers.
We are pioneers. In all. The virtue of the pioneers is to have more settled routine, familiar places or common, or traditions that are worth. The Pioneers will need to listen to the environment and adapt, to listen to each other, develop links and looks new, having to recreate their world.
I do not know that the brother Raymond. The other brothers who formed the new community me completely unknown. It was the same for almost all the other brothers housed at Via del Mascherone. So a brand new community before a new task in a whole new place. Even our director, a student like us, was his first experience of the directorate. The ages ranged between 23 and 42 years.
Slowly, imperceptibly, each with evident goodwill, was injected a little of his charisma in new machinery which began to run smoothly. "Everything is hunky-dory," as could have been describing our diagnostic situation after two months of cohabitation.
Among the main factors were the cause of this great fraternity that has developed between us, we may report the Cultural Café, the few group outings, meetings daily at the snack and the great freedom of action and thought given to the participants.
Café Culturel
This simple action begat two son. First a humorous and whimsical our first year we Magister Jesus standing before the senior novice and grandparents at a family party. The centerpiece of this record was titled " the apocryphal Gospel of Jesus M ageist r , you will find attached.
Another result of this action was the creation of a place and a moment of exchange between us was called the Café Culturel who was born December 18, 1959. During these monthly meetings, each was in turn present a topic of discussion and facilitate the meeting. I only remember vaguely a variety of topics that we discussed. But I remember the atmosphere that prevailed during the discussions. We had reached a level of mutual trust such, it seems to me to be that everyone could express the embryo or the back of his mind without fear of harm nor especially of being judged or ridiculed by others.
During one of these DC had discussed a moral issue. Christ's law of Bernard Haring, put into confrontation with the natural law based traditional morality. Benigar, I knew little, had a certain place in this debate. When is there sin? How far can the EPIK? According to the law of Christ is the fault does essentially breaking aware of God's commandments or the distance taken with respect to the invitation to love God and neighbor? Everything else, the natural law included, being about social consensus?
This topic aroused great interest and intense debate, at home, many questioned. Naturally there was no conclusion to these discussions or predominance of a truth on the other. But the questions they have triggered the avalanche will strengthen me in two attitudes that I will be very helpful in the rest of my journey.
First, go to the root of topics such as "quodlibet" of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas. If outlandish they were, these issues forced the withdrawal on the essentials and the substance of any thing to bring out the light of truth.
And the other major conclusion: the law of Christ can not and should not be just one facet of the Good News of salvation announced by Jesus Christ. It does not derive its value in compliance with a supposed natural law or social consensus hand. She did not endorse in any way. It transcends all philosophy and it can incarnate as Christ himself in any line of thought and social order.
I do not know if Luther has benefited a Cultural Coffee before arriving at his concept of "free inquiry" but I see kinship between "truth" and the one I released following discussions initiated during the sessions of Via Café Culturel del Mascherone and developed by fits and starts thereafter.
It rests not on custom or practice on the majority of a group of people or a universal consensus (Fanno tutti così) but the quality of interpersonal relationships between men and between man and God that one day, became incarnate in the world.
The freedom of thought and action
Strange as it may seem at first glance, it seems to me that freedom of thought and action which we enjoyed in Rome been an important factor fraternal cohesion. To my recollection, this freedom has had three main poles of reference.
Also noteworthy exits group that these executives have allowed at the end of each year of study. Thus we had the beach of Fregene a day of rest and total emotional release that has obviously had to pay nursing a few blisters from sunburn, but that has remained memorable in our memories.
And what about this kind of lax indulgence on the part of superiors allowing an unprecedented, every student who wanted Jesus Magister, to spend his summer vacation somewhere Europe to complete his training in a field of their choice.
All have benefited, no one has abused it and made us great pleasure, finding ourselves in the month of October to tell us what we had seen and done.
However, the seven brothers of which I have fond memories to warm my heart for fifty years I have seen the brothers Raymond and Jean-Pierre. Brother Louis Regis is gone before I could communicate with him only once. I recently learned that the brothers Louis-Omer and Inocencio had also passed the weapon to the left. Brother Marcel release once with me by phone to announce the cancellation of an appointment and I heard his voice on the radio, on the road that led me to Calgary in an interview he gave, in French, during a report on the disaster of Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans 2005. I had, on occasion, some new Maximian's brother, but no contact either physical or verbal.
Yet they are all in my memory alive, unaltered by time. I also have fond memories of eight brothers who have joined us in 1960. But then, the charism of the pioneers had passed. This second fraternity did not have the same index octane. I must make an effort to remember the names of these new students and their provenance.
The fraternity is a mysterious fruit. Like the wind, no one knows where it comes from or where it goes. But she always keeps an indescribable flavor of eternity (3).
This fraternity has been an important addition to our theological education and human. She held the function of a laboratory for scientific studies. You could discuss the data ingested in the courses, our experience in training and syntheses draw the common treasure of precious wisdoms of life and thought. Without the fraternity, Magister Jesus could have been a university course as many others. It was not not for me or for my other colleagues, I am convinced ...
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1) To get an idea of our daily commute, click MAP
2) "The apocryphal Gospel of Jesus Magister" is a parody humorous that we produced in a "family party" held at the general house on the occasion of the patronal feast of the Rev. Superior General, Brother Jehoshaphat. . It showed Jesus Magister students and includes coverage of key events that shaped our community since its inception. Click on "apocryphal Gospel "
3) On 28 August 2010, after fifty years of separation, we met for a reunion in Terrebonne "It's as if we had left yesterday," has Normandin said Brother Lawrence, SC, aka brother Maximian. That is what best describes the quality of our friendship and the degree of our fraternity pioneers.
Jesus Magister's blog, created for this occasion, gives an inkling of what was these reunions. Clicking Jesus Magister
Next issue: # 23 A three-time theology
2) "The apocryphal Gospel of Jesus Magister" is a parody humorous that we produced in a "family party" held at the general house on the occasion of the patronal feast of the Rev. Superior General, Brother Jehoshaphat. . It showed Jesus Magister students and includes coverage of key events that shaped our community since its inception. Click on "apocryphal Gospel "
3) On 28 August 2010, after fifty years of separation, we met for a reunion in Terrebonne "It's as if we had left yesterday," has Normandin said Brother Lawrence, SC, aka brother Maximian. That is what best describes the quality of our friendship and the degree of our fraternity pioneers.
Jesus Magister's blog, created for this occasion, gives an inkling of what was these reunions. Clicking Jesus Magister
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