Fifty Years Ago at Childs

Aug 12

This August marks the fiftieth anniversary of my entering the Oblate novitiate in Childs, Maryland. Fourteen other young men joined me in discerning religious life in the mid-1970s. Five decades later, five of us remain. I won’t name names because I am bound to forget someone, maybe even myself. Childs is holy ground to me. I have always considered it the land of my spiritual birth, the home of my Salesian identity.

Novitiate was the time and place where I first recognized that my true vocation was to the Brotherhood. And as a budding artist, the lovely landscape of Childs called me to embrace visio divina as a meditation practice with the same passion I held for lectio divina-passions which still thrive in me five decades later.

Childs is a very different place these days. It is now home to our retired and infirm Oblates. Like me, it has evolved and grown and had its self-identity and main purpose altered. But it remains one of my go-to places for prayerful reflection. To me, it represents rebirth and moving forward. It was where I went on mini-retreats to sketch in the days following my parents’ deaths; where I discerned leaving the teaching ministry which no longer brought me joy; where I sat with and sketched my friend Angelo Maraldo as he lay dying; where I have attended too many funerals of confreres and friends; and where to this day I occasionally visit Annecy Hall at lunchtime and walk the grounds with my rosary in hand.

In these very unsettling times nationally and globally, as the two American Oblate provinces come together, my love for Childs and all its spirit and memories urge me forward with hope and optimism…just as St. Francis and Blessed Louis would have me do. Live Jesus!