FORGIVEN and FORGIVING

 

IBM Selectric

On Ash Wednesday I gave the homily at the mass for about 800 students (grades 7 through 12), faculty and staff. I thought I might share it here with you. The story is borrowed from my book “Downtown Monks.”

=============================

When I arrived as a freshman at St Benedict’s, one of my first teachers was Father Eugene Schwarz.  He was our music teacher, and was in charge of the choir, which was where I got to know him. I thought he was just the greatest, or as we said back then, the “coolest.”. 

By the end of my sophomore year I was convinced that what I wanted to do when I grew up was to become a monk, and return to St. Benedict’s Prep to teach, and be like Fr. Eugene. 

It would be some years later, after college, novitiate and seminary training that I did come back to the Hive as a monk and a newly ordained priest, and taught alongside Father Eugene. 

Shortly after I returned to live here in 1969, I asked Fr. Eugene if he would lend me his new IBM Selectric electric typewriter so I could type a paper for a class in graduate school. This machine had a sphere containing all the characters, and when you touched a key on the keyboard the sphere would immediately whirls and strike the proper character onto the paper.

“Sure!” he says, happy to be of help. “Just take the whole thing, table and all. It’s easier to move that way. Take the elevator though. Don’t try to carry it on the stairs or you’re liable to drop it.” I agree readily and take the shiny new machine back to my room, where it does a beautiful job on my paper. . . .

I finish typing my paper (remember this is before word processors and the internet). As I roll the typewriter on its table back down the long hallway toward the elevator to return it to Fr. Eugene, I notice the staircase that leads up to the fourth floor. His room is right at the top of the stairs. I could save several minutes by just carrying the typewriter on its table right up the stairs. Why not? I pick up the table and carefully start up the steps.  

Crash! The sickening racket echoes through the monastery’s hallways as the brand new IBM typewriter slides off the table and smashes onto the first step. I stand frozen, mouth hanging open in disbelief, holding the empty typewriter table and staring down wide-eyed at the pale blue machine that has just landed at my feet. I look up the steep flight of stairs and change my mind: there’s no way I’ll carry it up the stairs now! I decide to do what I should have done in the first place and take the elevator.

I set the typing table down at the foot of the staircase and glower accusingly at the front leg that caught on the bottom step and sent the typewriter flying. How could I be so dumb? Especially what Fr. Eugene said to me, I still couldn’t resist saving three minutes by carrying it up the stairs instead of going to the far end of the hallway and taking the school elevator. Now I’ve got this disaster on my hands.

In a daze I bend over and lift the machine carefully back onto the table, coiling the long black power cord onto the top. I can’t see any damage, but I’ve got a sick, foreboding feeling. I hurry, trying to disappear before curious heads start peering out of the monks’ rooms that line the long hallway.

==================

You know, we believe that God made us. We also believe that God doesn’t make junk so we are led to the inescapable conclusion  that each one of us in this room is God’s idea, God’s beautiful idea.

But experience tells us that we often fall short of that beautiful idea that God had in mind when he made us. In fact, we spend our whole lives trying to close that gap between God’s idea and the way we are now.

What brings all of us here to mass this morning is our belief that each of us is a sinner in need of repentance, in need of a change of heart.

Back to my story: 

With the typewriter back on its stand I wheel it squeakily down the hall toward the elevator. I’m numb as I mechanically push it through the doorway and then onto the elevator. I poke the button with the “4” worn off of it.

You have to understand that I loved Fr. Eugene. And now, in my first year of teaching here with him, I’ve ruined his expensive new typewriter.

Imagine how I feel as I push the typewriter down the hall, and onto the elevator. The way Father Eugene had asked me to do in the first place. It was the longest two minutes of my life.

It seems to me that this is sort of the idea of repentance: returning to God and asking for forgiveness. Did you hear the prophet in the first reading: “return to me, says the Lord….”

Fourth floor. I roll the table out of the elevator as fast as I dare—I want to get the next few minutes over with as quickly as possible. I let myself through the door leading into the monastery and squeak up to his door. I swallow hard and knock. I can hear my heart thumping.

“Come in, please.”

I turn the knob and push the typewriter in ahead of me. “Hi, Fr. Eugene! I’m bringing your typewriter back.”

“Oh! Finished already? Good for you!” he answers cheerfully.

I blurt out right away, “There’s a little problem though. I dropped it. I dropped the typewriter.” I hold my breath, waiting for the explosion, the scolding and the “Didn’t I tell you to use the elevator?”

“Oh! Was that the crash I heard a minute ago?” he asks as if he were simply curious.

“Afraid so.” I answer in a cracked voice. “I was starting to carry it up the stairs and it slid off and hit the floor.” How I wish I were somewhere else right now! Some place very far away.

“Well, let’s plug it in and see if it still works,’ ” he suggests matter-of-factly as he carefully marks his page, closes the book, and gets out of his chair.

I snatch the power cord a little too eagerly and, hands fumbling and shaking, I bend over and plug it into an outlet right by the door. Please, God, please let it work! Let it be all right! My knees are getting weak.

When he pushes the switch, I close my eyes and hold my breath. There’s an odd humming sound. I half-open one eye and peek at the little steel ball with all the letters on it. He touches a key on the keyboard. The ball gives one sickly little twitch, and then the weird buzz gets louder. It’s shot! He tries a few more keys, each time with the same result. Oh, God! I’ve ruined it! I start to sweat as I prepare once again for the scolding to start.

“Well, looks like something’s broken, huh?” he says calmly, as he pops open the top of the machine and peers down casually at its innards.

“I . . . I’m sorry!” I blurt out, “What can I say? It was such a dumb thing to do! I feel awful.” I don’t just feel stupid, I also feel as if I’ve betrayed his trust and let him down. “Man! I just feel so. . . .”

“Hey!” he interrupts me in a gentle voice. Still bent over the ruined typewriter, he turns his head to look up at me. “Relax, please! So something’s broken. It’s still under warranty, and we can probably get it fixed for nothing. No big deal!”

I blink at him. I can’t believe my ears. “You mean you’re not mad at me?” I ask incredulously.

“What for?” he mumbles, his nose buried in the machine again. After a few more seconds he straightens up, gently closes the top of the machine, and adds, “These things happen. We’ll all survive, I’m sure.”

I’m at a loss for words. Although I still feel terrible, a new feeling starts to sweep over me—a wonderful sense of relief. Look what I’ve done! Yet he’s just brushing it off as if nothing happened!

“Well . . .” I stammer, still trying to figure out this turn of events.

“I’ll get Fr. Ben to call the service guy and get it fixed,” he continues. “So do me a favor and don’t worry about it!” His smile is utterly convincing. “Okay? Really. I mean it.”

“Okay. Thanks a lot, Father!” I answer, forcing a smile. He’s already walking back to his chair where he’d been reading when I came in. As far as he’s concerned, the business is finished. But I’m still mortified and feel that I have to say something, anything. “Sorry! I mean, that was so dumb, you know?” I babble, “I just feel so, well, so. . . .”

At his chair he stops, turns back slowly toward me, and with an amused look, gently interrupts me in mid-sentence: “Just close the door on your way out. See you at Vespers.” He sits down, picks up his book, and opens to the bookmark.

“Okay,” I babble. “And thanks!” I pull the door gently behind me until it clicks.

 *  *  *  *  *

Lent is a special time that the church invites us to reflect on our need to turn to God and repent. It’s a time for healing, time to return to the idea that God had in mind when he made me.

The ashes are a sign that we are sorry for our sins and failures, but they are also a sign that lets everyone see that we are committing ourselves to be better followers of Christ, to work at imitating Christ in his self-giving love for others.  

So today, as we begin this season of lent, besides those Lenten practices that we’ve promised, let’s commit ourselves to imitating Jesus by the way we treat one another whether schoolmates or parents or teachers, or anyone we meet. 

Oh. I have to finish my story about Father Eugene: 

In 1972, when Newark became an independent abbey, Father Eugene, who was already sick with MS, moved to St. Mary’s Delbarton so as not to become a burden on the small, new community here in Newark. He would die a few years later.

The ending of my story comes in 1984, when the monastery building was renovated. We decided to have the novices and the young monks live on the fourth floor of the monastery along with  the novice master -- which was  me. And guess what room was assigned to the novice master? 

It was father Eugene’s room, the one right at the top of that fateful staircase!

So now, when I come back to my room, I step through that door through which I had pushed the broken typewriter all those years ago. 

Every now and then I’m reminded of Father Eugene’s gift of loving, gentle forgiveness that he showed to a thoughtless young monk back in 1970. 

He keeps challenging me to treat others the way he treated me that day. When I get my ashes today I’ll be thinking of him, and I invite, I challenge each of you today, when you receive those ashes as a sign of repentance, to let them also be a sign of your commitment to work harder at being the loving patient and forgiving person that God had in mind when he created you. 

The kind of person that Father Eugene was for me.