At Boston College I met Jesuits, and I liked them. I was in the
choir, the glee club, and I knew Fr. Henry Callahan. And then
Fr. Dick Shea used to teach me Latin, because I had very little
Latin in high school. I had no Greek, so Dick Shea used to teach
me at night after school under the streetlights at BC.
I made something like three Better World retreats in a row. I
was traveling with a team around the country. I was glowing in
the dark by the time that thing finished. And they said, "Well,
yes, come and join us if you like." So I went to Rome, took
the course, came back around January, and went to the Midwest.
Then I started preaching with the team for a couple of years.
One day I was talking with Ray Bertrand, who was the director
of the renewal team here at Campion. He asked me, "Would
you ever be interested?" He didn't know if I would want to
be staying in one place all the time. So I said, "Yes, I'd
like that. Would I ever!" So he told me, "Join the team."
Oh, he was very pleased. So in 1985 I came to Campion, and I've
been living here ever since.
I have been doing a lot of parish missions around the country
for about ten years. Virginia Blass and I met one another about
twelve years ago. Going out on retreats together, we started talking
a little bit and saying, "We work together pretty well."
So we've been working as a retreat team now for religious communities
and other groups, and especially now in parish missions. We do
that most all in Lent.
I find that there are areas in my life where there's an obvious
gift from God. For instance, I used to be absolutely and utterly
petrified to speak in public. I could not read at table. Why?
I thought I had a terrible voice, and I was just afraid of making
big, big mistakes and not being able to really communicate at
all. But during tertianship I read a book once at dinner, and
people said, "You read well." I couldn't believe them,
but since then people keep saying to me, "You have something
like a stage voice. You have a voice that you cannot not listen
to when you start talking." That was for me one of the great
gifts: my becoming aware of this. I find that in a very strange
way one of the great gifts that I've received and a confirmation
from God that I'm doing the right thing.
