Goa, Saint Francis and Me

McLeodganj, Himachal Pradesh, India

April 7, 2014

Dear Toby,

On a Sunday during one of my first visits to India, Ashish and I went to the English mass at the Basilica of Bom Jesu in Goa. People venerating Saint Francis Xavier wind through the courtyard of the Jesuit residence and pass his shrine, a small Baroque style altar where what’s left of his body is encased in glass. We were initially directed towards that queue, but after some negotiation, we found our way to a back pew in the main church.

I began to feel very much at home with the Jesuit ceremony, and was trying to pay attention. The priest’s sermon was not easy to follow, but that was not unusual, even for Jesuit preaching. Most sermons are done extemporaneously, a vague attempt to connect the day’s gospel reading to something from the Jesuit explication of texts. Revisiting old themes, like an old cow returning to a familiar barn at the end of the day, the Indian Jesuit was struggling to connect Xavier’s religious enthusiasm to martyrdom, comparing the Saint’s remarkable life with the current situation of Christians in India. I was missing something. Xavier died a natural death and, though they might feel persecuted, Christians in India are generally well accepted. In fact Catholics in Goa are a majority and pretty much control everything. 

I gave up on following the Jesuit’s exhortations, and drifted off, studying the congregation, mostly Indians, and certainly, as English speakers, well educated. They were not paying much attention to the sermon either, women looking after crying children, men closing their eyes and nodding, in many ways similar to the Irish American parish of my childhood.

The sermon and the ceremony were also disconnected from what was happening at the side altar where men, women, and children, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, pushed their way forward towards the barely visible body of the saint. I’d seen almost identical scenes at the many temples, mosques, shrines, gurdwaras we’ve visited across India, people seeking healing, relief from suffering, forgiveness for a personal transgression, blessings for a marriage, a prayer for a child’s good fortune, or perhaps even a superstition that touching his statue would produce a child. It felt disconnected from the Catholic, Jesuit saint I thought I knew, but it was real.

I turned my attention back to the altar and suddenly felt deep compassion, even kinship with the Indian Jesuit. He was obviously a competent, educated, thoughtful, even a devout, spiritual man who was sincerely trying to connect our messy lives with another dimension. With any luck, I might have turned out like him, but in that same moment, I also realized why I’d left the Society.

After I graduated from Dartmouth in 1966, over the objections of my parents, I entered the Jesuits, and stayed for more than a decade. When time came for me to be ordained, I took a leave of absence and extended it for 2 years before I asked to be relieved of religious vows. I had of course done the spiritual exercises of Father Ignatius many times. The experience was rich. During that exclaustration, I undertook them again as well as trying to recreate some of that experience. I signed my papers with Bill Russell in his office at the Jesuit School in Berkeley. I gave up any connection to the Society, and they released me from my religious obligations in exchange for indemnifying themselves from any further obligations to me. No money was exchanged, not even a bus ticket to nowhere. My feelings were equivocal. For more than three decades after that, I either wore the designation “ex-Jesuit” as a badge of honor, and disavowed any value in my religious training except on the rare occasion when I ran into someone from that era.

Today my experience in the Society of Jesus grows dim, like a series of events in a very distant land, but what remains is a sense of intimacy that feels indelible and timeless. Most of the struggles of my youth, coming out in an unaccepting culture, finding a spiritual expression that suited me, have faded into the background. I no longer seek the kind of answers that I demanded years ago.

I regard spirituality as reflecting on the questions that life presents squarely. I value seeing things through to the end, even things that did not turn out well. Most of the ordinary language of spiritual conversation feels inadequate. If I describe my particular path as a series of transitions, I feel I’m being melodramatic. Speaking of a path or a journey sounds like I just bought some nifty running shoes to train for a marathon at my unlikely age.

That morning in Goa, I didn’t feel distant or unconnected, but rather like I’d just grown up and realized that even if my life amounted to only a brief second, in that time I could leave things better than I found them, that I was not alone, and that the universe is vast and awe-inspiring.

Xavier came to India to plant the traditions of European Christianity. He was somewhat of a fanatic. I came to shed the imprints of my early training and examine the residue. Fanaticism is optional.

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