Larry's Blog

THE TERTIANS

It was “the third trial”.
Turned out to be a trial alright -
parsing sentences of rules.
“Societatis Jesu Constitutiones”.

It was “the third trial”.
Turned out to be a trial alright -
parsing sentences of rules.
“Societatis Jesu Constitutiones”.
We were grown men at the term of training.
Now we were to be renewed
with the fire of Ignatius and Xavier.
But on sunny winter mornings
here I was decoding line by line
cold statutes of a dead text.

He would probably kill me for saying it
but I think our intelligent director
had himself lost belief in the enterprise.
But then again, who could believe
in this day and age.

In our bright little classroom
filled with winter sunlight
he led us from code to code
as we read and analyzed.
But I scribbled pictures of airplanes
as the spirit of young Jesuits
slowly died.

I balanced trips to Amsterdam
teaching young minds truths
from the Catechism,
with long walks
through autumn fields
and glorious blizzards
in the valley of the Mohawk,
Fonda and Fultonville.

The fire of dreams was still there.
I walked 32 miles to Sacondaga Lake
(a distorted replica of Jogues
and the martyrs marching)
as I came back late with bloody feet
(we had no sneakers then).

The young Jesuits were at an age
of dreams and the flower
of their fire. Maybe some
escaped from “the trial”
and spread the fire of Jesus
in the years to come.

For me, I guess, it was the beginning
of the end. I would soon
relight the fires of my mind
with all the wonders, passions,
loves, thirsts for the universe
in which I had been born.
I would start over again
somewhere as a young boy
walking the streets of Brooklyn
on a Saturday morning.

Larry Keegan