Agape and Hesed-Ahava. David L. Goicoechea

saying of Dmitri from The Brothers Karamazov

      “I don’t want millions, but only an answer to life’s questions.”

      I mentioned this quotation to Father Ambrose and he told me

      that I already seemed to be a philosopher with all my questions.

      I,1.7 Father Anthony and the Vital

      Father Anthony was both my confessor and my science teacher.

      As freshmen he introduced us to chemistry, physics, and biology.

      We put water in a container and after a few days looked at

      a bit of it under the microscope and pretty soon bacteria began

      to appear and after a couple of weeks it was loaded with many

      kinds of little swimming critters visible only with the microscope.

      We would remember forever how quickly germs could multiply

      in water or any sort of unrefrigerated thing such as meat.

      We were each growing rapidly and he kept a record of

      each of our growth in weight, height, leg length, and even

      the size of our muscles when we flexed our biceps, and we

      each went individually to the laboratory for these measurements.

      One day as he was measuring the inside of my leg his finger

      touched my testicles and he asked me if I was missing one.

      I asked him what he was talking about and he told me that

      one of them felt diminished and I said to him: “I wonder why?”

      He asked me if I ever played with myself and he said that

      masturbation could momentarily cause the testicles to shrink.

      I said that I had recently played with myself and he said

      that I should confess that and break the sinful habit.

      I told him how in the seventh grade some eighth-grade boys

      had told me about it and I tried it and occasionally continued.

      He explained to me how just thinking about a girl sexually

      or how just touching myself for the pleasure of it was a venial

      sin but ejaculation was a mortal sin and I should not

      go to communion until I confessed it and amended not to repeat.

      He did help me to become honest and to try to stop my self-abuse.

      I did get the sin down to a few times a year and he told me

      that there was a relation between my lust and my anger.

      I never could understand what he meant but I tried to move

      from self-abuse to self-realization and to increase my vitality.

      I,1.8 Father Louis and the Physical

      When I was a first-year student in grade nine and the minor

      and major seminarians were still together in one building

      the three administrators were Fathers Bernard, Ambrose, and Louis.

      Father Bernard, the rector, primarily concentrated on the spiritual.

      Father Ambrose, the vice rector, concentrated on the intellectual.

      Father Louis, the prefect of discipline, concentrated on the physical.

      He was very convinced that a strong mind in a healthy body

      was essential if one were to live a long, happy, and productive life.

      His conviction was convincing to us and each year our physical

      exercises became more pleasant, significant, and deeply habitual.

      Down by the football field there were two hardly used tennis courts.

      Father Louis had some tennis rackets and said we could use them

      whenever we wanted and he taught a few of us how to serve,

      hit backhands, forehands, and to keep score and he said

      that learning hand-eye coordination was valuable for any sport.

      I believed him and saw a relation between the arts of fly-fishing,

      wing-shooting, and tennis playing and I looked forward to more tennis.

      However, as the prefect of discipline, Father Louis

      not only got us into the physical exercises of sports

      but we also did physical work especially on many Saturdays.

      The monks had a very large farm with acres of hops below

      the hill and various kinds of orchards and even a pig farm.

      Brother Fidelis, a saintly little monk with a white beard,

      took care of the pigs for years and we liked to help him.

      The fathers all spoke of him with great praise for his life

      of obviously sweet prayer and work and we were told how

      he prayed all the time as he was taking care of his dear pigs.

      In the seminary there was the activity of working on “The Chain

      Gang.” If someone broke a rule Father Louis would assign him

      to a Saturday morning of digging a ditch, or shoveling snow,

      or some fairly strenuous type of hard, physical labor.

      I,1.9 From Money—to Death—to Sex—to Religion

      My father had always stressed that each of his five children

      should get a college education so that we could get good jobs

      and have happy lives without all the difficulties he suffered.

      He made sure that we each did well in grade school and that

      we worked and saved our money to pay for our college tuition.

      But when I decided to become a priest the motive of money

      was put into a new perspective and was no longer a priority.

      Instead I began to move into the realm of the three great secret things.

      Sex, death, and religion became more and more the center of my life.

      Religion comes from the verb ligare, which means to bind

      and re-, which means again, so religion is a binding of oneself

      to God over and over again in the spiritual, intellectual,

      emotional, and physical ways that made up our seminary life.

      Prayer was the primary way in which we kept binding ourselves

      to God again and again and prayer is rooted in a love that is

      stronger than death, which my father learned when his father died.

      With his mother and sisters he went through the mourning process

      in a successful way by learning how to pray for his father

      and his family by asking his father to pray for them.

      He learned to converse with his guardian angel and Mary

      the Mother of God and Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit.

      When I was five he taught me to do the same and I prayed

      especially with my mother as she too bound herself to God

      over and over again in her prayer and by all that she did.

      In