Agape and Hesed-Ahava. David L. Goicoechea

at the time of mother’s birthday

      on September 6, Father Heeren came to our house for dinner.

      After dinner he would begin the 500-mile drive to take me

      to Mt. Angel, near Portland Oregon, where I would enter

      the Minor Seminary with the Benedictine Monks where for

      the next six years I would begin my studies to be a priest.

      As we sat there for dinner in our humble little kitchen

      daddy knew that mother and Father Heeren greatly loved each other

      in an agape that sublimated affection, friendship, and eros.

      And he knew that mother could think of nothing better for me

      than that I become a priest like the priests she had come to know.

      He could see how I had identified with my mother’s values

      and how I had received a vocation to become a priest and

      to serve God and others by greatly admiring Father Heeren.

      So we drove a third of the way, stayed at a motel, and

      arrived at Mt. Angel in the middle of the day on Monday.

      Fr. Heeren who had grown up in Ireland had gone to

      the Minor Seminary there and then he came to Mt. Angel

      when he decided to be a priest for the Diocese of Boise, Idaho.

      He knew Mt. Angel and the monks very well and he and

      Father Bernard, who was rector of the seminary, had been classmates.

      As we drove, Father Heeren told me about the Benedictine Monks.

      He said that their motto was “Ora et Labora” and with them

      I would learn “to work and to pray” and most of all I noticed

      the spiritual atmosphere of the monastery and the seminary,

      which at one time had been sacred to the Indians as Topalamaho.

      I was familiar with the world of the spirit since my father

      lost his father to that world when he was five and my mother’s

      mother and father both learned of it when they lost a parent when young.

      I,1.2 Our alma mater’s Intellectual Nourishing

      As we drove up the hill a flood of feelings came over Father Heeren.

      He pointed out to me the Stations of the Cross there among the trees.

      Father Heeren was coming home to his nourishing mother whom

      he loved so much and he was happy and proud to be bringing me.

      We parked in front of the seminary, went in and found Father Bernard

      who was so glad to see Father Heeren and so welcoming to me.

      We were taken to the first- and second-year dormitory with my bags.

      Father Heeren said goodbye to me, went with Father Bernard, and I

      would not see him again until I went home for Christmas vacation.

      From day one we got into the routine of seminary life arising

      as 5:30 a.m. each morning and going to bed each night at 9:30 p.m.

      We had the great silence from 7:10 each evening until

      breakfast the next morning and we did not even look at each other.

      There were many spiritual exercises beginning with daily Mass

      each morning in the crypt where we would receive holy communion.

      Then there was the sung Mass after breakfast with the monks.

      During the day we recited Lauds, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.

      We had spiritual reading each day before lunch and Father Bernard

      gave us a spiritual talk five days a week in the evening.

      But the intellectual life was just as important as the spiritual life

      in terms of the time we spent in classes and in the study hall.

      In our freshman year we had seven courses: Religion I, English I,

      Latin I, General Science, World Civilization, Algebra I, and Chant I.

      From Monday to Friday when we were not taking classes and during

      the evening we had study hall and would work on our assignments.

      Learning all the vocabulary and the grammar for our Latin class

      was the most difficult task and it really trained our memory.

      Father Louis was our first-year Latin teacher and learning grammar

      helped us not only with English but with all the liberal arts

      of reading, writing, speaking, and listening because we came

      to reflect upon all the grammatical ways of our language.

      I,1.3 Our alma mater’s Vital Nourishing

      “I came to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly.”

      Those words of Jesus were the basis of our life at the Angel Mount.

      Spiritual love, intellectual light, moral life, and physical logos

      all fit together in such a way so as to contribute to each other.

      Like tributaries of the same stream that contribute to living waters

      theological, intellectual, moral, and physical virtues were forms

      of excellence nourishing the fresh seeds in that seminary seedbed.

      Those moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance

      were very important for future priests for they would have to be

      excellent examples of those virtues that their people might imitate them.

      The exercise that was most focused on growth in moral virtue

      was our practice of weekly confession with our own confessor.

      The virtue of temperance or self-control was central to confession.

      Week after week I would tend to confess the same vices or sins,

      of getting angry, swearing, or indulging in uncharitable thoughts,

      words, or deeds and I just did not have consistent self-control .

      We learned of a self-realization ethic that we could be happy

      if we were virtuous for virtues are means to happiness.

      This self-realization ethics for seminarians also aimed at

      an other-realization ethics for priests loved as good shepherds

      attempting to bring their flock to a healthy, happy, holy life.

      We had to grow in vitality that we might help others do the same.

      People tend to be so incompatible that they cannot be happy

      and be at peace together and living closely with one another brought

      many opportunities for disgust at each other’s strange tastes.

      We were often told about the battle between the flesh and the spirit

      in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which he wrote:

      You cannot belong to Christ Jesus

      unless you crucify

      all self-indulgent passions and desires.

      We