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Chapter Four

Major Seminary — Closer to the Goal

At last, it was time to go to Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, to complete his studies for the priesthood. With happy anticipation, John and his family began preparing the things he would need to take with him. He was fitted for a tailored cassock, made of heavy serge, with deep cuffs and pockets in all sorts of mysterious places. He also ordered a clerical vest, biretta, and a dozen Roman collars. His second mother, Mary, sewed his surplices by hand. His family delighted in seeing young Johnny, dressed in the clerical garb he would wear as a major seminarian, on his way to the priesthood.

John entered the seminary on September 14, 1893. After the hard years at St. Lawrence, the atmosphere of the seminary seemed much more relaxed. Although the discipline was strict, each seminarian had a private room, and on free days students were allowed to go sightseeing in the city with fellow students.

The “first five,” John’s oldest siblings

All of the theology lectures were given in Latin, and the students were required to answer their questions in that language. Here John’s thinking, speaking, and writing became concise and powerful, and he developed a clear and logical way of thinking. At the end of his second year of philosophy, John won the class competition and received as a prize a six-volume set of St. Thomas’ Summa Philosophica.

During his study of theology, John became devoted to apologetics — proving the logical position of the Catholic Church. His studies were intense, but interesting, and the weeks seemed to fly past as the young seminarian matured from boyhood to manhood.

Out on the Farm

During the summers, John often spent his vacation time at the Herman Schnelker farm near New Haven, or visiting at the Besancon rectory with his friend Fr. Francis LaBonte. (It was common for seminarians to find hospitality in a parish or private home for the summer.)

John and friends

By the second summer break, John was exhausted from his strenuous studies and physically spent. He wrote his friend Ed Schnelker and begged him to ask his parents if he could visit for a couple of weeks to drink a lot of fresh milk and build himself back up. The answer, of course, was “yes.” But, unfortunately, the Schnelkers didn’t realize how run-down the young man was. Since John had been there before and would remember his way to the farm, the boys didn’t bother hitching their horse, “Old Tom,” to the buggy to go and meet him at the Wabash station.

The entire family was shocked when John finally knocked at the door. After the long walk from the station, he was so exhausted that he couldn’t speak over a whisper and immediately asked if he could lie down for a short rest. Scolding her sons for not meeting John, Mrs. Schnelker immediately began to bustle about to find ways to help build the young man’s strength back up.

The Schnelkers had a windmill and pump for the well in back of their house to draw up fresh, cool water. At first, while the Schnelker boys greedily drank several cups of the refreshing water from the old tin cup by the well, John could only slurp a tablespoon or two. And when he tried to help the boys with their harvest chores, he was still too weak to do much. As Mr. Schnelker operated the self-binder on the hay, the boys would gather up the golden sheaves of grain, stacking them into shocks. The Schnelker boys cheerfully hoisted two or three sheaves at a time, while poor John was barely able to lift a single one.

But soon, the loving care of his friends began to show, and he regained strength rapidly. By the end of the summer, his health had returned, and he was able to help saw down an old pine tree in the front yard. Then, with saw and ax, the boys chopped the tree into kitchen-stove-length pieces and kindling, and hauled it to the wood shed in a wheelbarrow.

As John’s strength returned, so did his voice, and he began to practice his preaching to the trees in the orchard. John talked so loud the Schnelker brothers worried that someone might notice him and think he had gone daft, so they suggested it might be better to practice in the barn, preaching to the walls instead of the trees. John readily complied, and the brothers sneaked around and often peeked through the cracks of the barn to hear him declaiming. They enjoyed watching him practice dramatic gestures — and more than one of his practice sermons hit home with them.

The brothers mentioned John’s speeches to some friends and the word spread through the small town that the Schnelkers had a good speaker visiting at their home. A Protestant man named Effie got a gang of fellows together and came up to the farm and asked the Schnelker boys if they would ask their guest to give them a talk. John readily agreed and, using stack of hay between the barns as a pulpit, he gave a lively speech. Years later, Effie remembered that as the best sermon he ever heard.

Fr. Bernard Wiedau, a very pious man, was then the pastor of St. John’s Church at New Haven. On Sundays, the youth sat at the front of the church on straight benches with no backrest. Fr. Wiedau would read the epistle, the gospel, and then preach the sermon, first in German, then in French, and finally in English, in his concern for his multi-ethnic parish. In spite of his watchful eye, occasionally one of the youth would fall asleep during the long, extended sermon, and topple backwards off the bench. The Mass, which began at 10 A.M., was rarely finished before noon.

The first time John went to confession to the pious old priest, by the time he left the confessional, his face was redder than his hair — he was so embarrassed that others in line would think he was a truly great sinner. As he knelt to say his penance, however, he noticed that the others stayed equally as long, so his mind eased a bit on that score. By the time he returned to the farm afterward, he could joke about it with the boys.

Young Fr. LaBonte, stationed at nearby Besancon, was the proud possessor of a two-wheeled sulky. By the simple expedient of putting a board across the single seat, two could ride in place of one. John and the Schnelker brothers were often treated to a ride in this way.