TONY'S JOURNAL
Brother John of the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross
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Go To Memories of Manhattan, Part One
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All stories © 2007 by H.W. Tony Hearn
Hello, dear reader:
You ask what's in my hand. It's a copy of Punch, the British humor magazine. I had to find a source for laughter beyond the mirth provided by what I was living.
I'm about to get in trouble with the stories I have scheduled. For some reason, my memory has been coming alive while my body is fast falling apart. I can now recall, in minute detail, choice episodes of my time "in religion." I can remember thoughts, words, and deeds which occurred more than half a century ago. Perhaps I am dead and I am in Purgatory. All this stuff, after all, is written in THE book. Perhaps I am being urged by some ministering Spirit to put my side of things in writing before I am called to appear before some sort of preliminary hearing in a higher court. Whatever!
What I write is true – as I recall it, but what I write is certainly not the WHOLE truth. What's really nice about writing electronically is I can easily change my words and readily alter what you are permitted to read. Sooooo . . . what you are reading right now MAY be different within seconds. This thing is alive and, maybe, a little interactive. My email address appears elsewhere within this web site.
If I write something dreadfully libelous, I can change it with the flick of a finger.
Sooooo . . . what you read here NOW may be different the next time you see it. My memory is alive and, apparently, well. Well . . . . . Challenge me, if you will!
I propose to share my recollections of my four years at the motherhouse of the Order of the Holy Cross in West Park, 90 miles north of the Borough of Manhattan of the City of New York in the State of New York, in the United States of America.
Some of my recollections are hilariously funny. Some are not. Some are hearsay evidence that life in a monastery can be anything but holy. Some are poignant, some are pretty, some are pathetic, some may be a tad prurient. I propose to tell about the good, the bad, and the ugly at Holy Cross.
For instance, let me tell about the time the Father Superior failed to return from his triennial visit to the Holy Cross mission in Liberia's bush country. Suddenly we got a cable from Paris telling us he had been called "to other work."
It seems Father Leopold Kroll OHC, a very tall and dignified religious, had gone to the mission and while there discovered that Sister Una, a medical missionary doctor from an Anglican religious order in England, who was serving in our hospital in Bolahun, Liberia, began to act strangely. She was suspected of having become involved not in the practice of medicine but in the practice of the black arts. Father Kroll attempted to exorcise the dear woman and decided to escort her back to her convent in England.
Well, it seems he did indeed exercise the reverend doctor who also wore a religious habit. On their way, Father Kroll and Sister Una reached a common decision to tour the wider world. A year afterward we monks at Holy Cross received word that Father Kroll and Sister Una were spotted in the Union of South Africa. It was reported that Father Kroll was selling sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica! By then, of course, we had written him off.
Some of us monks at Holy Cross, including stout-hearted churchmen of varied ages, eventually followed Father Kroll's example. It is written: "Many are called; few are chosen!"
As reported in the Monday, Mar. 02, 1936, issue of Time Magazine
A hellhole for most white men is the black Republic of Liberia on Africa's west coast where the temperature averages 80°, and 100 inches of rainfall year in, year out. Nevertheless, Liberia is a missionary district of the Protestant Episcopal Church, entitled to a bishop. Its Episcopal communicants number 5,680, its clergy 42.
When the Episcopal House of Bishops held its annual meeting in Houston, Tex. last November, it accepted the resignation of Liberia's Bishop Robert Erskine Campbell (Also a member of the Order of the Holy Cross), whose health had been wrecked after ten years on the job. Said Bishop Campbell: "Someone else should have a chance at it." The someone else whom the Bishops elected, after seriously considering withdrawing entirely from Liberia, was Rev. Leopold Kroll. (See bottom of article for reference to the younger Leopold Kroll, Jr.) This tall, hearty, deep-voiced churchman of 61 has missionized among men of many colors: red Wisconsin Indians, brown Hawaiians, black Haitians.
In Manhattan's Cathedral of St. John the Divine last week Bishop-elect Kroll was consecrated by an exceedingly noteworthy company of his Episcopal colleagues. Presiding Bishop James De Wolf Perry was the consecrator. Co-consecrators were retiring Bishop Campbell of Liberia and Bishop William Thomas Manning of New York. Bishop Robert Emmet Gribbin of western North Carolina was the gospeler; Suffragan Bishop Charles Kendall Gilbert of New York, the Epistler. Bishop Paul Matthews of New Jersey and Suffragan Bishop Arthur Selden Lloyd of New York presented the candidate for consecration. Bishop Ernest Milmore Stires of Long Island preached the sermon.
Week before in Manhattan had met the Church's National Council, bothered as usual by the money troubles which proverbial Episcopal wealth never seems quite great enough to down. This time it was $127,000 that was needed, to balance a missionary budget of $2,700,000. The National Council decided that if the difference is not contributed by March 31, missionary work will just have to be cut. Gloomed Treasurer Lewis Battelle Franklin: "We should go directly to the people of this Church and tell them that the missionary work of the Church is dying on its feet."
This was too much for Bishop Stires, who preached last week: "Today we consecrate another bishop in the Church of God, and send him to Liberia. . . . Can it be possible that people calling themselves Christians are content to accept Christianity for themselves but are unwilling to pass it on to others?"
In Liberia whither Bishop Kroll starts this month he will meet his son Leopold Jr., who now labors in the jungle as a missionary member of the Order of the Holy Cross.
original Time magazine article
Bishop Robert Erskine Campbell OHC, wearing his episcopal skullcap, showing novices of the Order of the Holy Cross how to say Holy Mass in the chapel of the old guesthouse. The two novices in white habits who became life professed members were, left, Father Lee Stevens OHC and, middle, Father Lincoln Taylor OHC, elected superior of the order some months before I departed to swim the Tiber over to Rome.
About the time when
Our dearly departed member, Father Parker OHC, got a broken nose, posthumously, as he lay in his pine coffin. The funeral Mass had already begun and there was no time to make adjustments to the straw beneath his head. Brother John was told to jump atop the coffin lid while Brother Charles nailed it shut. "Crunch" went the poor monk's beak of a nose . . .
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About the time when
A terrible rainstorm soaked the burial ground so another coffin bearing another deceased monk could not be lowered into a freshly dug grave. It had filled with water. Solution: load a bunch of stones into the box to sink poor dead Brother Dominic OHC . . .
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During one of my later incognito visits to Holy Cross, I seem to be wearing a round collar, a black one, at that. I have vivid mental images of the grounds of the monastery over which I meandered meditatively many, many times. I recall watching Father Whittemore OHC walking up and down the roadway leading to Route 9-W wearing a cruppled old hat. I don't recall any others out strolling about. I once climbed over a fence on the south side of the property to visit the grandson-in-law of the famous naturalist John Burroughs (a man named Kelly who had been a member of the order but left to marry the neighbor who came often to the monastery chapel to hear the young religious chanting Vespers).
About the time when
Brother John OHC was dispatched as a substitute speaker for the Father Superior to give the commencement address at South Kent School. Brother had planned to talk to the youth about the sin of planned obsolescence. He spotted the rector of Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City, in the front row of his son's graduation . . .
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About the time when
Brother Aiden COHC, a companion of the Order who was also from one of those Boston families whose members speak only to God, had reached the age when old men excuse themselves in bottles at night. The only problem was the proper Bostonian collected bottles and forgot to dispose of them. At one point, thirty bottles of urine were found within his cell and . . .
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About the time when
Father Hawkins OHC, a monk twice, from the early '20s, actually pulled Brother John's nose during afternoon tea . . .
One of my duties as a junior professed member of the order was to conduct retreats and quiet (anything but) days for youth up and down the East Coast. I recall one of my more dramatic lines in my final spiel: "'Send me!' cried young Tarcisius. 'Let me carry the Blessed Sacrament to those to be martyred!'" I had those kids crying in the pews of every church I visited.
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About the time when
Father Harrison OHC, author of authoritative volumes on the exegesis of Holy Scripture, greatly enjoyed in his dotage ice cream sandwiches. His problem was he swiped them from the freezer in the monastery kitchen and stored them in the deep pockets of his habit. He was leaving behind him not only a persuasive trail of theological reasoning but little puddles of milk wherever he wandered about the cloister . . .
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About the time when
New sturdy shelves were needed to replace older, failing ones in the monastery's cellar. A set were ordered from a metal worker who came highly recommended. Only problem, he did a terrible job, until it was discovered the metal worker was an alcoholic. "Could he please drink while on the job?" Brother John OHC supplied him with bottles of whiskey from the . . .
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About the time when
Self starters were used to light charcoal in the incense pot to burn sweet-smelling rosin to fill the sanctuary during celebration of Holy Mass. Too many of the gunpowder-impregnated bricks, somehow, got loaded into a censer. "Holy smoke!" Father Turkington OHC cried when the pot he was swinging exploded as he ascended the steps to the high altar and . . .
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About the time when
Brother John, OHC, who had been assigned to cook for the community, decided to serve meatballs and spaghetti. The devil entered him. He dyed the spaghetti blue. The red tomato sauce and the blue spaghetti turned black, but it was too late. The dinner bell had already rung . . .
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About the time when
As the monks of Holy Cross chatted charitably during what was called "recreation," a ritual observed in the summer after the dinner meal on the cloister leading to the chapel, They watched as a freighter plied the waters of the Hudson River. "How enjoyable a cruise might be!" a monk said. And all of a sudden, the freighter turned, heading straight for the western bank of the river upon which the monastery rested. It was a terribly loud crash and the sailors . . .
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About the time when
Father Whittemore OHC, known early in his life while a student at Williams College as "Smokehouse," was, perhaps, among the most highly respected "religious" in the entire Anglican Communion. He also was an avid reader of English mystery stories by Evelyn Underhill. Every young monk at Holy Cross sought him out for spiritual counsel because . . .
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About the time when
At Christmas time, we monks were often invited out for dinners at the homes of the many friends of Holy Cross. At one such dinner Father Smith OHC and Brother John OHC happened to sit down upon a particular wood settee. "Will it bear both our weight?" Brother John inquired of the other. "Sure, it's sturdy!" Father Smith OHC uttered. Ever try getting up from the floor wearing the equivalent of a long dress, surrounded by splintered maple . . . ?
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About the time when
The lone telephone in the monastery began to ring in the middle of the night. It was in a little booth near the bursar's office on the second floor. I know, my cell was nearby. Brother George OHC, the bursar, whose cell was also nearby, finally picked up the jangling instrument and the ringing ceased. By then, of course, most of us brothers were wide awake, and wondering. Shortly, brother came out of the booth. He saw me standing in my sleeping habit. "Go get the Father Superior!" he instructed me. "We have a problem! Herbie, err Father Bicknell, is in jail down in Baltimore!" . . .
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About the time when
While I was the assistant guestmaster, a seminarian from Yale Divinity School came to make a retreat. The devil entered me, yet again! This poor, impressionable soul had no way of knowing I possessed secret knowledge of who he was (His name: Walter "Wally" Baker) AND that he was recently engaged to be married to one of my previous girlfriends down in Austin, Texas (Her name: Joyce Colston Allen, also a student at Yale Divinity School, of Kingsville, Texas). (Monks do keep up correspondence with friends out in the wider world.) Well, it seems that Wally, who thought he was sharing intimate bits and pieces of his life with a holy monk he had never met, was somewhat taken aback when I, Brother John OHC, so serene and sensitive to vibrations from the spiritual world, said to him while we were sitting outside in the summer breeze: "Wally, I'm getting a vision of the girl to whom you are betrothed!" "Tell me, Brother John!" "Well she is certainly a pretty girl! Hmmmmm! Oh, she's a twin. (Joyce Allen had a twin brother.) She has a lovely complexion. Ohhhhhh! This young lady went to a religious college!" (She had been graduated from Southern Methodist University.) Ohhhh! And she drives a pink and blue Chevrolet, doesn't she?" I asked Wally. "Why, yes! She does!" Wally said, almost in disbelief. "Hmmmmmmm! Wally! This girl has had many, many former boyfriends! Some with whom she has been a bit intimate, Wally! I really think you had best be VERY careful in marrying this . . ."
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About the time when
The guards at New York's Sing Sing Prison wouldn't let Brother George OHC leave the locked cellblock he was in "Until," they said sternly, "you produce the recorder you declared upon your entry!" Brother played the quaint musical instrument quite well. Father Harris OHC and I went there once a month to celebrate Holy Mass. Brother accompanied us one time to entertain "our congregation." Ole George had one hell of a time educating the guards about the variety of musical instruments. (I recall I had one hell of a time cozying up to one of our acolytes who I discovered was in for murder. It seems he had chopped up his girlfriend and sent her parts back to her mother, in a box, marked "express," but then he seemed so very sincere and reverent!") . . .
Brother George OHC on a visit to my parents' home in Houston, Texas, in August, 1958. I only learned of his visit from my mother who sent me this photograph. Perhaps he was checking out my origins before I was voted into junior profession. My mother told me he played a pretty good rondo on his recorder. She was on the board of the Houston Symphony Orchestra for many years.
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One of my responsibilities at Holy Cross was to establish and maintain an amateur station in the monastery to conduct radio contact with the Holy Cross Liberian mission. "K2OFB (my call sign) calling EL6E (the station in the African jungle): come in, please! EL6E, this is Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York, calling, K2OFB, K2-One-Fine-Brother, calling!" And then I would hear the voice of Father Joseph Parsell OHC, the prior in Bolahun answering from West Africa. It was all very exciting back then! That was back before transitors!
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About the time when
Oh, yes! I did go back to Holy Cross every so often over the years when I was in the vicinity. I had been "deposed" from the order for "Going to Rome!" (That's a whole other story which I will tell elsewhere in this chain of tales!) I sort of had the same fever Cardinal Newman suffered after he wrote his "Apologia." He said he would go back to sit in the last pew of Saint Paul's, London, "just to listen to the choir." I went back to Holy Cross, just to sit in the chapel and to meditate upon the life-sized corpus upon the crucifix afixed to a wall. The figure of the crucified Christ always stirs my soul. But my soul was deeply troubled once when I rang the bell on the front door of the monastery over which there is inscribed in stone the order's motto "Crux Est Mundi Medicina." A woman emerged from what had been the monastery's enclosure. She said to me with an enthusiastic welcome, "What can WE do for you?" I lost my wind. This cloistered "babe" was wearing slacks and a tight T-shirt with the words
Holy Cross
emblazened across her enormous breasts. Can anyone with a knowledge of the order's past imagine what a profound ruckus Father Shirley Carter Hughson OHC might make if he were re-embodied and he came back, knocking at the vestibule, seeking re-entry to that sacred space? That Shirley was certainly no Shirley Temple! . . .
Waiting in the snow outside Holy Cross Monastery's front door during one of my many visits. I recall shoveling snow off the front steps while I was a novice. It beat the time we novices had to dig a ditch through very rocky soil for Father Turk's (that's Father William R.D. Turkington OHC) greenhouse. The mail order building was constructed by our handyman more than two hundred feet to the south of the main building. We dug the trench for electrical wiring to heat the greenhouse in the wintertime. We were NOT skilled labor. We dug; our handyman screwed the structure together. Father Harris OHC was given the chore of raising hothouse flowers and herbs.
Looking up the nave toward the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City. On another occasion, I looked up that aisle as I was in procession to reach a stall within the choir for the ordination of a priest. I cannot recall the ordinand's name, but I shall never forget the experience, the most sensuous moments of my long life. In an earlier life, I must have been a member of some medieval cathedral choir. The cathedral's organ was in full voice. I also recall I was among several members of the Order of the Holy Cross who were in the procession of clergy and religious. We monks were wearing, for the final time, our black wool habits worn only when we traveled outside the monastery. Our photograph, crossing the threshold of the cathedral, appeared in the centerfold of the New York Daily News. I can't remember the date, probably in 1959 or 1960. It was a classic photograph. So, I, Brother John OHC, otherwise known as Tony Hearn, made it in the feature photograph of that day's Daily News. I haven't thought of that photo for many years. Golly! I was in the center of the picture, and, . . . Gee! I was in full drag . . .
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Monks wearing the white habit of the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross in Saint Augustine's Chapel at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, Ulster County, New York, 90 miles up Route 9W from Manhattan. Tony, who took the name in religion of Brother John, is pictured in the middle, front row, in 1957-1961.
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Go To More Monastic Tales +
Go To Memories of Manhattan, Part One
(also better known as Tony Hearn in the secular world)
with another kind of punch in his hand
Monastic Tales
Continuing Memories of My Months in Manhattan
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Part Two –
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MORE STORIES ARE IN PROGRESS
Hellhole Bishop
Monastic Tales
Monastery
in My Memories of Manhattan, Part Three