Then I had to do even that the hard way. I wrote a letter to the Polish Jesuits in Warsaw, telling them I wanted to enter the Society over there. Still, I hadn’t told anyone at the seminary or at home. After a wait that seemed like an eternity, I got an answer from Warsaw. I went to my room and opened it with trembling fingers. The letter was most gracious, but the gist of it was that I would probably find life and conditions in Poland much different than in America, and it suggested that if I wanted to be a Jesuit, I might contact the Jesuit Provincial in New York at Fordham Road.
Was I relieved? No, I was stubborn. I had decided I was going to be a Jesuit, so one morning I caught the train to New York without telling anyone. Somehow, I found my way to 501 Fordham Road, the office of the Jesuit Provincial. The brother in charge of the door told me the Provincial wasn’t in. I wouldn’t tell him what I wanted; I just asked when the Provincial would be back. He said the Provincial would return that evening, and I asked if I could see him. The brother shrugged his shoulders, and I left.
I hadn’t eaten anything, so I found a cafeteria, then spent the afternoon walking up and down Fordham Road, suffering from a delayed case of butterflies in my stomach. At six o’clock the Provincial still wasn’t home; I went out and walked around the grounds of the Fordham University campus, feeling more nervous all the time.
At 7:30 I returned to the Provincial’s residence and asked if he had returned. The brother told me to take a seat in the parlor. About eight o’clock, Father Kelly, the Provincial, came into the parlor and asked me what it was all about. I told him who I was, and that I wanted to be a Jesuit. He looked at me for a moment, then sat down. He wanted to know about my parents. I told him I was twenty-four years of age and the decision was mine to make. Then I reminded him of St. Stanislaus’ walk from Warsaw to Rome to see the Jesuit Provincial there. Father Kelly just stared at me, so I rushed on, trying to explain why I wanted to be a Jesuit.
I really wasn’t much help, I guess, because I simply kept insisting doggedly that I wanted to join the Society. About the only concrete facts he could get out of me were my marks at the seminary. After a while, he told me to wait, then left the room and sent another priest in to talk it over with me further. He was a wonderful old man whose name I’ve forgotten. He was quite deaf. He had some sort of hearing device and with the aid of much shouting we managed to get through the story again. I remember I kept shouting that I was determined to be a Jesuit.
I also talked to another priest that night, and finally, about eleven o’clock, Father Kelly returned to tell me things would probably work out all right, but that I should go home and wait for his answer. It never occurred to me that when I heard from him the answer might be “no.” I went home and began to pack, happy as I had ever been. It was more than joy—it was a deep and soul-satisfying peace. It was something more, too, than just the quiet and release from tension that follows the settling of any emotional problem—it was a positive and deep-seated happiness akin to the feeling of belonging or of having reached safe harbor, but deeper than that and a gift of God.
When Father Kelly’s letter did come, it was a notice to report on September 7, 1928, to the Jesuit novitiate at St. Andrew-on-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, New York. Still, I waited to tell my father until the very morning I had to leave. He looked at Father Kelly’s letter for a long time, as if he had trouble comprehending it, then said quite suddenly: “Nothing doing! You’re going back to the seminary.” “No, sir,” I said, “I’m going to St. Andrew’s.”
We argued then like father and son, each as stubborn as the other, until at last my father banged his fist on the table and said, “For the last time, you’re not going!” With that, I banged my fist on the table and shouted, “I am going! I’m the one who’s going, not you, and I am going to St. Andrew’s, even if I have to choose between God and you!” On that note, I took my bags and walked out of the house without a farewell or the traditional father’s blessing.
Yet, after all my struggle to reach St. Andrew-on-Hudson, I was anything but an ideal novice. I disliked displays of piety, and I looked with disdain on those novices, most of them younger than I, who in their zeal and fervor for this new religious life moderated their external actions to conform with every little rule and regulation. I preferred to keep the corners a little rough. So it wasn’t long before Father Weber, the master of novices, called me into his office one day and told me he thought I ought to leave the Society.
I was stunned. Then my Polish stubborn streak sparked up and I almost shouted, “I will not!” Father Weber was startled in turn. He stood up abruptly and came around his desk toward me; I edged around the desk in the other direction. “What’s going on here?” he said, almost incredulously. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I just won’t leave, that’s all,” I said—and with that my stubbornness dissolved into tears. I had fought so hard to be here, I had done so much to get here, I had known such peace at last, and now it was all caving in around my ears.
Father Weber sat me down in a chair and waited for a certain amount of calm to descend upon us both. After that, we had a good long talk. Father Weber pulled no punches, but I could see that he respected me and liked me and, despite my failings, trusted me. He talked about my good qualities and talents, and the necessity for channeling them properly if they were ever really to be put at God’s disposal.
Early in 1929, at one of his daily talks to the novices, Father Weber brought in an important letter which had just come from Rome. It was from Pope Pius XI, “To all Seminarians, especially our Jesuit sons,” calling for men to enter a new Russian center being started at Rome to prepare young clerics for possible future work in Russia.
The Pope went on to explain how the Soviets since 1917 had continually increased their persecution of religion; how all the Catholic bishops had been arrested in Russia and sent to concentration camps; how all the seminaries—Catholic and Orthodox—had been closed or confiscated; how hundreds of parishes were without pastors; how it was forbidden to teach religion to children. Above all, the Holy Father emphasized what a great need of well-trained and especially courageous priests there would be in that immense country. Even as Father Weber read the letter something within me stirred. I knew I had come to the end of a long search. I was convinced that God had at last sought me out and was telling me the answer to my long desire and the reason for all my struggles.
This conviction was so strong that I could hardly wait for the conference to finish. I became impatient and began to get restless. As soon as the conference ended, I went straight to the master’s room. He was startled to see me all flushed and excited, and he asked if anything was wrong.
“Nothing, Father,” I said quickly, “but there is something I have to talk over with you.” He told me to sit down, then listened to me attentively. “You know, Father,” I blurted out, “when you read the Holy Father’s letter in there just now it was almost like a direct call from God. I felt I had to volunteer for the Russian mission. I knew it from the beginning, and as you kept on reading that feeling grew until at the end I was fully convinced that Russia was my destination. I know, I firmly believe, that God wants me there and I will be there in the future.”
Father Weber looked at me for a long time, and then said slowly, “Well, Walter, you must pray over this. After all, you have just begun the novitiate. Things like this require time and God’s grace. I wouldn’t want to discourage you, so keep this in mind and pray over it. After you’ve taken your vows, perhaps we’ll be able to see more clearly if this is God’s will for you or not.”
Then he sent me off, without a definite answer. Of course, I see now that my hurried declaration could easily have been the enthusiasm of a moment or an overeager and superficial desire for something new and extraordinary. But as I walked down the corridor from his office, I felt completely sure of myself. No doubt ever entered my mind, either then or at any time thereafter.
I could hardly wait for vow day, which was stil
l almost a year and a half away on September 8, 1930. Before that time, I was sent with the first class of novices to the new Jesuit novitiate of the Maryland-New York Province in Wernersville, Pennsylvania; we were the first group of novices ever to pronounce their vows of the Society in that house. It was a great day for all of us, but for me it meant the period of waiting to volunteer for Russia was over.
Immediately, I wrote to Very Reverend Father General volunteering explicitly for the Russian mission. The time it took for the letter to reach Rome and for the reply to come back across the Atlantic seemed like forever. But when it finally came, the letter was simple and explicit, and my joy knew no bounds. The General said he was happy to receive my most generous offer to serve on the Russian mission, that he was even happier to be able to accept my offer and to inform me that from then on I would be considered as one designated for the Russian mission. For the time being, though, I was to continue the usual course of studies in the Society, to pray continually for the fulfillment of this dream, and when the time came I would be summoned to Rome.
For two years, therefore, I remained at Wernersville for the period of studies in the humanities known in the Society as the Juniorate. After that, I went to Woodstock College in Woodstock, Maryland, to begin the course in philosophy. Before I left the Juniorate, though, I wrote again to Father General—just so he wouldn’t forget me and hoping that he just might call me to Rome to study philosophy there.
The General’s answer was brief but cordial. He assured me I hadn’t been forgotten and mentioned that conditions in Russia were hard and that working there would not be easy. He therefore exhorted me again to pray constantly and prepare myself for a difficult period of study at the Russicum and the even more difficult work in Russia.
I needed no encouragement. I still kept up, almost religiously, my practice of forty-five minutes of calisthenics every day, a practice I had started as a young “tough.” Although by this time I was finally learning to ask advice and guidance—and to do what I was told—I also continued my practice of going without certain things and of undertaking annoying jobs, just to condition myself to do the harder thing and to strengthen my will. And with this in mind, I wrote my thesis required for the degree in philosophy “On the Training of the Will.”
Toward the end of my second year at Woodstock, I received the overwhelming news that I was to go to Rome that fall to begin the study of theology and to start my work at the Russian college. I sailed for Rome that summer of 1934, a very happy young man.
Like all the Jesuit students of theology in Rome, I lived at the old Collegio Santo Roberto Bellarmino on the Via del Seminario, and studied theology at the Gregorian University just off the Piazza Pilotta. At the same time, I was studying the Russian language, liturgy, and history in the Collegio Russico, or Russicum, on the Via Carlo Cattaneo, not far from the basilica of St. Mary Major.
The years of theological study, for those of us at the Russicum, were pretty hectic. But, as a sort of sideline, I also studied French and German during those years and acquired enough mastery of the languages so that, when I was ordained three years later, I was able to hear confessions in the French and German parishes around Rome.
The greatest hardship for me, in fact, during those years of study was the Oriental liturgy. Those of us assigned to the Russicum had Mass every morning in the Oriental rite, and I couldn’t stand it. But since I had made up my mind to work in Russia, I hung on grimly, trying to learn and appreciate it.
The man who did the most to help me come to love it was a big bear of a fellow named Nestrov. He was a native Russian with a fine bass voice, rich and deep, who loved and served the liturgy as only Russians can. We became close friends, not because of the liturgy, but because of our shared enthusiasm over the dream of going into Russia. Everyone in the newly founded Russian College, indeed, shared this dream of going into Russia to help the faithful who were now, in our Lord’s metaphor, like sheep without a shepherd.
It was a very mixed and international group. There was a Belgian, Fr. Paul Mailleux, who became head of Fordham University’s John XXIII Center for Ecumenical Studies, formerly called the Russian Center. There were three Englishmen, three Spaniards, two Italians, Nestrov the Russian, a Pole, and a Rumanian. I was the only American at that time, although there had been several before and there were many who came after me.
Yet of them all, there was no one who could match my conviction or Nestrov’s enthusiasm for going into Russia. The others, in fact, used to kid us about it; we were on fire with the idea. We studied everything we could about Russia, the customs of the people, their habits, the Russian character and culture, the nature of the land itself, and its history. We talked of it all the time—to the real or feigned dismay of our fellow theologians—hoping, scheming, planning, and dreaming about Russia.
Another almost constant companion was Fr. Makar, the Pole. “But my mother was a Georgian,” Makar always added, and he was a mischief-maker by profession. A great schemer and practical joker, he could keep the whole crowd laughing for hours, and big, easy-going Nestrov was often the butt of his jokes. Yet the three of us got on so well together that we were nicknamed “The Three Musketeers.”
After three happy but hectic years, I was ordained in Rome on June 24, 1937. Like almost all the men at the Russicum, I was ordained to say Mass in the Oriental rite, although we also had the privilege of saying Mass in the Latin rite whenever it was necessary. And so I said my first Mass as a priest in the Oriental rite, in the basilica of St. Paul, at the altar over his tomb.
My father and mother had died during my years of study, so they never had the consolation, after all they had suffered through with me, of attending the first Mass of their priest-son. None of my brothers or sisters were able to come to Rome either, but they wrote me letters of congratulation and joy at my ordination. In their stead, I was joined on the occasion of my first Mass by Father Vincent A. McCormick, SJ, the American Assistant in Rome to Father General, and by Mrs. Nicholas Brady, the foundress of Wernersville. The three of us had breakfast after Mass and, flushed with the joy of ordination, I chatted happily for hours of my dreams of going to Russia and my conviction that I would be there soon.
Fathers Nestrov and Makar were members of the Polish Province of the Society of Jesus, with headquarters in Warsaw. During their final year of theology after ordination, they were told that it was impossible for anyone to enter Russia at that time, so they would return to Poland to work among the Oriental-rite Catholics there. Nestrov was especially downcast at the news. Yet I was still convinced that I would go to Russia, and I had great hopes, somehow, of being sent there immediately.
Then one day I received word that Father General wanted to see me. I was startled; I knew that Father General Ledochowski had always taken a personal interest in the Russian mission ever since he had been asked by Pope Pius XI to assign young Jesuit volunteers to the work, but this was the first time I had a chance to talk to him personally.
Father Ledochowski, as I remember him that day, was a small, frail man with a thin, ascetic face, sunken cheeks, high forehead, and the most serene eyes I have ever seen. He was a man who radiated peace and quiet, impressive in his simplicity and dignity. He had a decisive, almost abrupt, way of speaking, yet he was most charming and easy to talk to. He welcomed me warmly and listened attentively while I spoke of my hopes and my ideals and my dream of working in Russia.
We talked together for over twenty minutes. He told me how much he appreciated my hopes and shared my dream, but for the time being it was impossible to send men into Russia. As he spoke, he got up from his chair and paced the room somewhat restlessly. “Conditions as we know them,” he said, “would make it imprudent to try to send men into Russia now. I know you must be disappointed, but the mission in Albertin, Poland, needs men right now and the work there is very fruitful. The mission is flourishing and is a great source of vocations for the Oriental rite and the Russian College. I would like you to work there,
if you would, for the time being. But I want you to keep your dream of going into Russia, and perhaps someday God may grant us both our wishes.”
He could read the disappointment on my face, I guess, and he was very kind. At least, he asked me to keep him informed of my work on the mission at Albertin, spoke fondly once again of our joint hopes that the day would come when I might go to Russia, and gave me his blessing.
I agreed with his decision, of course; I had finally learned something of that spirit of obedience that makes the Jesuit. But to say I wasn’t disappointed would be far from honest. I had dreamed so long of Russia, I had given up so much and trained so hard, that I couldn’t avoid the emotional let-down when Father General told me that my entrance into Russia might be impossible for some time to come. Yet even then, in that moment of disappointment, I never for a moment doubted that I would one day be in Russia.
“TO RUSSIA IN THE SPRING!”
MY WORK IN Albertin was two parts pastor and one part teacher. I taught ethics to the young Jesuits who studied at our Oriental-rite mission there and catechism to the children in the school. Most of the time, though, I was a horse-and-buggy priest who went around visiting the families of Albertin and the small villages nearby, advising them, chatting with the old grandmothers and the sick, doing the thousand and one things a small-town pastor does anywhere. Since the community at Albertin was small—just three priests besides the Superior, Father Dombrowski—and since I was the newest member to arrive, I inherited all the chores which traditionally fall to the youngest curate.
Albertin itself wasn’t much of a town. In fact, it wasn’t a town at all. The real town was Slonim on the Shchara river, a manufacturing center on the main rail line from Moscow to Warsaw. From the bridge over the Shchara, you went east about 3 miles over a winding dirt road to the village of Albertin. The railroad also ran to Albertin, but the village was just what we would call a whistle stop on this line to Moscow. And about Albertin’s only claim to historical fame was the fact that just beyond it, to the north, was a wide swath cut through the forest known as the Napoleonski Tract—the remains of the road built by Napoleon when he invaded Russia.
With God in Russia Page 2