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Death In The Monastery
BY FATHER P. A. DORA
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Father Peter A. Dora
sends this personal account of an experience
last week while on retreat at the Trappist
Monastery of the Holy Spirit near Conyers.
Father Dora is a former editor of the
GEORGIA BULLETIN.)
I was just starting Mass when the
bell began to toll. I knew immediately
what had happened, but I wanted to
make sure. I turned around from the
small altar at the side of the church and
there was Father Francis giving me the
message in Trappist sign language:
“death.”
So, old Brother Ambrose had just
left this life. I was offering Mass for the
intention of his happy death. I now
began to pray in thanksgiving that it had
been accomplished.
Brother Ambrose was well-known
to me while I was living with the monks
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Strike Up The Band
The century had just begun. It was
hot in New York that summer. School
was out and long, lazy days stretched
before non-productive boys at play.
The Gershwin Brothers, George and
Ira, stood on the street and watched the
belchy, chugging truck rattle to a stop
outside their door. Silently, but with
curious summer interest, they observed
the actions of the non-caring delivery
knights.
A large, obstinate piece of
mahogony was
yanked from under
the stubborn tarp.
The grunts and
groans of the
complaining
handlers went
unnoticed by the
rising excited
chatter of the
ecstatic pair. Look
at it. Just look at
it. It glistened in
the streaking
reflective sunlight right there in the
middle of the street. With reverence
they reached out and solemnly touched
its glazed surface. It was their very 7 own.
Their first living room upright piano.
Mrs. Gershwin had worried about
her George. His missing hours of study
were being spent at the corner music
hall. Within that smokey dungeon he
could be found wistfully dreaming
beside a piano, making music in his
drifting mind.
The budget was at ebb tide for this
imigrant Jewish family, but her decision
was firm. George would have a piano.
She and the world of imaginative
musical potential would never regret the
decision. History was being made on
that turn of the century, hot humid
afternoon.
George Gershwin was an Alley man.
He graduated from his living room
ivories to that glorious White Way called
Tin Pan Alley. There he crafted his
genius. The Alley was alive with song -
newborn ditties constantly in demand
for the nearby stages of packed
burlesque houses. George joined the
busy swarm of creators, flooding the
nation with the new found sound called
The American Musical.
Gershwin carefully nurtured that
sound. At 19 his hame was already in
lights. An old minstrel man called
Jolson wooed the world with the lilting
“Swanee.” But one night, one song
success was a limit the young Gershwin
could not tolerate. Classic shows
brimming over with rapturous
I* melodious fresh sounds productively
raged from his flowing pen.
From Broadway to the new
appetites of Hollywood his genius was
in demand. With brother Ira racing in
his steps as wordsmith, his memorable
shows took root in musical winds
everywhere.
“Strike up the Band” was one of
the first. Its created beauty was quickly
overshadowed. “Lady be Good,”
“Embraceable You,” “Bidin’ My Time,”
“Love is Here to Stay.” On and on
Gershwininia raged. And his mastery
reached further. The only American
Folk Opera, “Porgy and Bess” was his,
along with the curiously beautiful
“Rapsody in Blue.” His spell was
supreme.
George Gershwin died in July,
1937. He was 38. A brain tumor took
him but not before he wrote “true
music must repeat the thoughts and
inspirations of the people and the time.
My people are Americans. My time is
today.”
He was wrong, of course. His time
is forever.
a year earlier. When I returned for a
week’s retreat I learned that he was
dying.
My first night back, the abbot took
me to the monastery infirmary to visit
the dying monk. It was unlike any
deathbed scene I had ever witnessed: no
frantic crying, no nervous conversation.
Brother Francis Michael was sitting in
the room praying silently while Brother
Rod, a physician, checked the dying
man’s heartbeat. The abbot gave
Brother Ambrose his blessing and left
the room. I prayed silently for a short
time and then blessed him and left.
I had the opportunity to visit once
again the next morning. Brother Rod
said that he would die soon. This time I
became even more aware of the simple
peace in that infirmary room. Monks
were stopping by in two’s and three’s to
pray for their brother as he was
finishing out his natural life.
Because I had overslept that
morning, I missed the concelebrated
community Mass, so I decided to offer
Mass that afternoon with two priests
who were visiting from Atlanta. We
began at 4 p.m. Brother Ambrose died
10 minutes later.
As I read the Gospel for the Mass I
could think only of the beautiful
Christian death of this holy monk. The
last line of the reading was: “The
harvest is good but laborers are scarce.
Beg the harvest master to send out
laborers to gather his harvest.”
These were just the right words to
accompany the death of a Trappist
monk. If only people could realize the
importance of this silent, hidden life. If
only they could see what a powerful
ministry it is. If only they knew how
crucial is the contemplative life to the
activity of the Church. I prayed that
many others would be sent to replace
Brother Ambrose in the labor of God’s
harvest.
Brother Ambrose gave praise to
God throughout a lifetime of nearly 90
years, but his service was not always as a
monk. In his earlier years he was
married and raised a family of six sons
and two daughters. Three of the sons
entered the priesthood and one
daughter became a nun. In 1947 his
wife died and two years later he
followed his son, Father Philip, to the
Trappist monastery of the Holy Spirit in
Conyers, Georgia. He was 60 when he
entered and he gave the last 30 years of
his life to God as a monk.
Father Paul has been at the
monastery for many years and was
Guest Master when Brother Ambrose
arrived. “He really gave two lives to
Cod,” he explained, “the life of a
husband and father and the life of a
monk.”
In the era when Brother Ambrose
arrived it was customary to spend two
days in the guest house before actually
entering the monastery proper. Father
Paul related how the aspirant monk had
arrived with a hugh box of expensive
cigars (he had been a cigar manufacturer
for most of his life in Burlington, Iowa)
and how he managed to smoke nearly
all of them during the two days. At the
end of this trial period he gave the
remaining stogies to the Guest Master
saying, “Get rid of these for me,”
whereupon he tossed out the butt of the
one he was smoking and walked into the
monastery.
Years .later Father Paul asked him if
he ever missed smoking cigars. He
replied that he had never given it
another thought.
I heard many similar stories which
testified to the Brother Ambrose’s wit.
Just hours before his death, two of
Brother Ambrose’s children arrived at
(Continued on page 5)
BROTHER AMBROSE serves at a Mass celebrated by his son, Father
Philip, at Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers. Although he was 60
when he entered the monastery, Brother Ambrose served nearly 30 years
as a Trappist monk.
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 16 No. 26
Thursday, July 20,1978
$5 Per Year
POPE PAUL
Unjust Sentence
CASTELGANDOLFO, Italy (NC) -
Pope Paul VI said July 16 that the
sentences “inflicted with great severity”
on Soviet dissidents were unjust and
violated the 1975 Helsinki accords.
being talked about in all the papers,
obliges us as well to express our pain -
not out of polemical passion, but in
order to confirm our trust in the
consistent and progressive maturation of
SWEET TOOTH? -- Father Francis Hamilton
MS, newly installed pastor of St. Lawrence in
Lawrenceville, served as the official judge for the cake
I-THE CATHOLIC
baking contest at the recent parish picnic. Father
commented that the experience taught him, “You
can’t have your cake and eat it too!”
Speaking to crowds at his summer
villa in Castelgandolfo, Pope Paul said
that “political opinions or the
revendication (legal recovery) of one’s
own rights cannot, as such, be
prosecuted and punished as a crime.”
The promotion of human rights is
“not subversive,” he declared.
The pope was referring to heavy
sentences given to three leading Soviet
human rights activists after partially
secret trials. The dissidents - Alexander
Ginzburg, Anatoly Shcharansky and
Lithuanian Catholic Victoras Petkus -
were given sentences ranging from eight
to 15 years on charges of anti-Soviet
agitation or espionage.
“The end of the trials, which are
BY MICHAEL MOTES
If there lives today a walking
encyclopedia on the Catholic Press,
and particularly this very special type
of news media in the State of
Georgia, it is John E. Markwalter.
John has the unique distinction
of being associated with both the
GEORGIA BULLETIN and the
SOUTHERN CROSS, the two
Catholic newspapers in Georgia, as
well as the CATHOLIC BANNER,
official weekly publication of the
Diocese of Charleston.
How does one man represent
three newspapers? The story dates
back a number of years to an
agreement between the Georgia and
South Carolina dioceses to share
certain expenses in publishing a
newspaper for the Catholic
population of the two states.
And it is John who is responsible
for the final product delivered
throughout the two states.
Officially John has two titles
with the three newspapers: Managing
Editor of both the BULLETIN and
the BANNER and Editor of the
CROSS.
At the office of publication for
all three papers in Waynesboro,
about 30 miles south of Augusta,
John oversees the operation from
start to finish. He and his assistant,
Linda Wilson, devote Tuesday and
Wednesday of each week to the
BULLETIN and have similar
schedules for the other two
publications.
All news copy is edited in the
BULLETIN office in Atlanta and on
Monday sent via Greyhound bus to
Waynesboro. Layout sheets indicate
how we want our finished product to
look and John makes sure that we
get what we want!
But “our man in Waynesboro”
does not end his day wokring on the
BULLETIN in Waynesboro. To
assure the accuracy of the
typesetters, John carries the final
“paste up” boards home with him to
Augusta and reads them far into the
night. (A recent change in the date of
printing due to a holiday found John
still reading BULLETIN copy at 4
a.m.!)
(Continued on page 6)
The Newspaperman
A VETERAN OF NEARLY 30 years with the Catholic Press, John
Markwalter is responsible for the weekly diocesan papers of Georgia and
South Carolina.
mankind’s moral sense,” said the
vacationing pope.
“We feel obliged to do this,” he
continued, “because of the sentences
inflicted with great severity on those
accused, as is commonly believed, of
ideological rule-breaking, as well as
because of our commitments
undertaken at Helsinki to call one
another back to a spirit of human
feeling to which we are all bound.”
(Continued on page 5)
Official
Appointments
Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan
announces the following appointments,
effective Sunday, August 6, 1978:
REVEREND THOMAS J.
CARROLL, M.S., presently Pastor of
Saint Francis of Assisi Church,
Cartersville, as Pastor of the
newly-established Bishop’s Lake Parish
in Marietta.
REVEREND PHILIBERT J.
O’HARA, M.S., presently in residence at
Most Blessed Sacrament Church,
Atlanta, will succeed Father Carroll as
Pastor of the Cartersville Church.
REVEREND FRANCIS L.
HAMILTON, M.S.F.S., formerly
Assistant Pastor of Saint Lawrence
Church in Lawrenceville, has been
appointed Pastor of the Lawrenceville
Parish. This appointment was effective
Saturday, July 1,1978.
*** **
Archbishop Donnellan announces
the appointment of Reverend Henry C.
Gracz, Pastor of Saints Peter and Paul
Church in Decatur, as Dean of the
South Metro Deanery. The parishes of
the South Metro Deanery are: In
Atlanta - Most Blessed Sacrament, Our
Lady of Lourdes, Sacred Heart, Saint
Anthony, Saint Paul of the Cross,
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception;
Saints Peter and Paul, Decatur; Saint
John the Evangelist, Hapeville; and
Saint Philip Benizi, Jonesboro.
Father Gracz replaces as Dean
Reverend Richard B. Morrow whose
term of office was to expire November
21, 1980 but whose recent appointment
places him in the Northwest Metro
Deanery.