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CHAPTER TWO

ASSISI CONVENT CHAPEL

Years of preparation came before my entry into Mettray Seminary. Serving at Mass as an altar boy was one of my favorite things. I went to Mass daily. The convent at Assisi hospital was a special opportunity for me.

Freezing in winter, often storming in summer, the predawn Sunday rides to the hospital convent chapel to serve Mass as the nun’s privileged altar boy, allowed Dad and me time alone together. I’d been picked to serve the cloistered nuns—they who never saw the everyday world needed a special boy who was not worldly. There were times when I loved my father, even through all the many years of illness and sorrow to come. I always forgave him everything and anything and always wanted him to approve of me. I loved him when he held me close. In winter, with one arm, he pulled me next to him as he drove these early morning drives to the convent. The inside of the black and white 1957 Mercury was freezing. Again, I loved the times when he knelt in the convent pews behind the nun’s choir and bowed his head, fingering his rosary and praying. These two images are central to a positive image of my father: holding me as a child away from the chill; and the reverent man praying humbly before his God on the cross. Those boyhood memories have helped me for a lifetime.

Memories break in on my consciousness as if a dream brightly, and brilliantly, begins. These two memories, and remembered dreams, are bathed in a bright light in my mind.

When we arrived at the Convent at Assisi Hospital, we entered a holy silent atmosphere. Into deep silence! Some nuns wore black; some wore solid white. There was a medical hospital and a psychiatric hospital staffed by the nun nurses, the ones in white. The nurses looked like angels in their white starched habits, their headpieces like space helmets.

The hospital convent and cloister was home to some seventy-five nuns and novices. Sister Bernadette, in black, seemed ancient to my boy’s eyes. Her sweetness and gentleness was a palpable balm that surrounded me when she gazed upon my face. For nearly two years, she greeted me with the same words Sunday after Sunday, “My faithful little altar boy, Thaddeus!”

I spoke with Father Terry; my fervor and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament was deep, sincere, and mature well beyond my years, and I was considered one who was called by God. I felt called. I felt chosen, and marked as one of God’s boys, but I had not heard a literal call, not from the air, or from an angel or a saint. I felt called by Father Terry and Sister Bernadette; they loved the idea of me being a seminarian. I didn’t know other boys had been her altar boy and had gone to Mettray.

One of the priests celebrating Mass at the convent was the ombudsman for Mettray Seminary, Father Bringhurst. He quizzed me about my Latin and catechism in a gruff but kind way.

On August 17, 1957, Sister Bernadette gave me a going away present to take to the seminary: a book entitled My Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. The inscription in the book, in Sister Bernadette’s shaky hand said,

“To my faithful little altar boy, Thaddeus.

“I know you will enjoy good reading in the pages of this book.

“May you have the grace of final perseverance.

“—Sister Mary Bernadette”

She also gave me a crucifix to put on my study desk—the cross of San Damiano—the Cross of Saint Francis of Assisi with the inscription on the bottom of the stand, “Rebuild My Church!”

I was headed off to the minor seminary at Mettray in two weeks, and I was anticipating it with great hope, great expectations. For years I had been through many difficult situations that existed at home.