NO SKIPPING GOOD FRIDAY!

Front steps 1956,2022

The first Benedictine monks I ever met were my teachers at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark. By the end of my freshman year I had already decided that I wanted to become a monk like Father Eugene and Father Benedict and live in that monastery and teach in those classrooms. I did indeed become a Benedictine at age 19, and after being ordained a priest I did begin teaching at St. Benedict’s in 1969. 

Unfortunately, however, not long after my arrival rumors started circulating that our school was in such serious financial difficulties that it might not survive. It was a typical scenario for Catholic institutions in inner-city areas during the early 1970’s: a combination of the lack of new monks to replace the ones who were dying or leaving, and a declining enrollment due to a general disaffection with Catholic education and to the “white flight” from the city into the suburbs where new archdiocesan regional high schools were being built. Eventually these factors, including the uneasiness among several of the monks over the fact that more and more African American students were enrolling, culminated in a catastrophe.  

"The bomb was dropped," as I wrote n my journal that day fifty years ago, on February 16th, Ash Wednesday 1972. The headmaster, Fr. Cornelius Sweeney, O.S.B., announced to the student body assembled in the school auditorium that St. Benedict's Prep would be "suspending operations indefinitely" as of that June. (A polite way of saying "The school is closing forever.")

I was only twenty-nine, and less than three years into living my dream of teaching here. and suddenly my life had been turned upside down. This was certainly the most devastating event I had ever experienced.

"Feb. 10, 1972..."

The previous week, on Feb. 10, when I realized that things were quickly falling apart, I had begun keeping a journal of the events and of my personal reflections. Now, at a school assembly on Feb. 16, 2022, Fr. Edwin, our present Headmaster, read to our students excerpts from that 50 year-old journal. Even I was fascinated listening to the tragedy unfolding hour by hour. 

But for me it was not just fascinating, it was gut-wrenching. I've come to realize that even half a century later I am still grieving, still deeply saddened by that experience. A couple of friends have pointed out to me that it was this death of the school in 1972 that made possible the miracle of the present St. Benedict's with it's 900-plus students in grades K-12, composed of all races, religions and socio-economic groups. That is, of course, absolutely true. But my heart won't let me just skip over the painful events of February 1972.

The Road to Easter

Ash Wednesday, 1972, was in one sense Good Friday: It marked the death of our school and of my personal dreams. I can't and won't just bury that experience and look forward to July 3, 2023 when we'll celebrate the "resurrection" of our school. 

Letting myself feel once again the grief of that time so many years ago is the honest thing to do. It is also the Christian one: It's only by going through Good Friday that we get to the joy of Easter. 

So, as we celebrate Ash Wednesday 2022 this coming week, I'll be remembering also the pain of that "Good Friday" experience of fifty years ago.