To the Band of Brothers: March 3, 2021
Good morning,
My father got upset with me the other day. He had called me several times and I didn’t pick up. Not only that, but I didn’t call him back either. He got angry and let me know it as well. Amazing! I’m 51 years old and I’m still getting my wrists slapped by my father. I haven’t lived at home since I was 19 years old. I’ve traveled the world, lived in several different countries, studied at several universities, have shared meals with movers and shakers, and I’m still being reprimanded by my father.
I thought that long gone were the days when my father would raise his voice just slightly higher than mine, open his eyes wide, and shake a finger in my direction reminding me he was my father and that he demanded respect. I thought that long gone were the days he would remind me that because he brought me into the world he could just as easily take me out of it. I thought that long gone were the days he would use against me the guilt factor as a way of making me do exactly what he wanted.
I was wrong.
To this day, he occasionally reminds me that just because I’m a priest it doesn’t mean he isn’t my father. He’s right. The many years and countless hours of work and dedication he put into my formation as a man gives him the right to continue to see me as a son, as a work in progress. Even though I may have outgrown him in height and weight (especially weight), I will never outgrow him in years of experience. He definitely has a leg up on me there.
Actually, it’s not only my dad.
When I first stepped foot in the seminary, I remember the priest in charge telling us we were entering a religious order where we would always have to answer to a superior. For as many doctoral degrees we had, no matter what university we were running, no matter how many books we had written, a Jesuit will always have to answer to a superior. Even if you are elected the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, you have to answer to someone (the pope). Even if by some fluke of nature you become the pope, you still have to answer to the Church and, more importantly, to God.
Forget it, a Jesuit always has a superior that can pull you to the side and point out your mistakes and insist that you get them corrected. Trust me, Jesuit superiors are great pullers. It’s a very humbling experience, but it keeps you honest. It reminds you, that for as much as you say or for as much as you do, you can never get too big for your own britches. If you ask me the world needs more humility now than ever before and smaller britches.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.