For ten minutes before noon, the boys gathered in the chapel for a daily examination of conscience, kneeling in earnest soul searching. During lunch, one of the students read selections from a pious book in the refectory; no one was allowed to talk or visit over their plain, but healthful, food. Afternoon classes were followed by an hour of recreation. The boys gathered again in chapel to recite the Rosary and for spiritual reading before supper. Just as at lunch, supper was eaten to the accompaniment of more pious reading. After a final hour of recreation, the boys studied until night prayer and lights out at nine.
There was no daily contact with life outside the seminary. These young teenagers aspiring to the priesthood led a life of study and contemplation. No newspapers or magazines were allowed, no one left the grounds without permission, and the sports were intramural. It was a hard life and must have been difficult for the boys who came from large and loving families. Undoubtedly, many tears of homesickness were shed in the dark of the silent dormitory at night. School lasted from September to the end of June. For the five years that John studied at St. Lawrence, he only returned home during the school year once. During Christmas of his first year, his six-year-old sister Effie died, so John was allowed to visit with his family during this time, and to attend her funeral.
For John, far more daunting than the rigorous schedule at St. Lawrence was the fact that most of the instruction, and almost all of the textbooks, were in German. His grandfather spoke German, but John had never studied the language. Although the task seems almost impossible to modern students, John not only learned German, but also Latin, French, and Greek at the same time. At times, the hours he spent preparing for class seemed hopelessly inadequate. John would wake in the darkness and, stumbling to the washbasin, splash his face with the frigid water, hoping to clear the mists from his brain. At night, he threw himself on his bed, exhausted.
Daily he struggled through his course in Classics. He read and studied the works of Nepos, Caesar, Livy, Cicero, and Horace, in Latin, and Xenephon and Homer in Greek. He also studied Ovid and Virgil and the great philosophers like Augustine, Aquinas, Abelard, Peter Lombard, and others, and the Christian spiritual classics.
The young seminarian
Proof that his efforts paid off is the fact that he finished his five years of preparatory seminary as an honor student with near perfect marks in all subjects. In his final year there, 1892-93, John took courses in Christian Doctrine, Latin, Greek, English, Rhetoric, Geometry, Physics, History, and French. He received all I’s (very good), and graduated third in his class.
Like most of the boys at St. Lawrence, John became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis. With them, he regularly recited the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin during the day. Because of this, he learned many of the breviary prayers by memory. Following the Mass with the Latin missal, he also was familiar with the entire Latin text of the Ordinary of the Mass before he entered major seminary at the age of nineteen.
The hardships of minor seminary served as a test for the students’ vocation, and John Noll passed with flying colors. Later, he treasured the fact that he had been forced to learn German and French, as both languages helped him in his work as a parish priest. The Indiana immigrants from these countries were much more comfortable making their confession in their native language, and young Fr. Noll often said a few words at Mass in these languages.
Chapter Four
Major Seminary — Closer to the Goal
At last, it was time to go to Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, to complete his studies for the priesthood. With happy anticipation, John and his family began preparing the things he would need to take with him. He was fitted for a tailored cassock, made of heavy serge, with deep cuffs and pockets in all sorts of mysterious places. He also ordered a clerical vest, biretta, and a dozen Roman collars. His second mother, Mary, sewed his surplices by hand. His family delighted in seeing young Johnny, dressed in the clerical garb he would wear as a major seminarian, on his way to the priesthood.
John entered the seminary on September 14, 1893. After the hard years at St. Lawrence, the atmosphere of the seminary seemed much more relaxed. Although the discipline was strict, each seminarian had a private room, and on free days students were allowed to go sightseeing in the city with fellow students.
The “first five,” John’s oldest siblings
All of the theology lectures were given in Latin, and the students were required to answer their questions in that language. Here John’s thinking, speaking, and writing became concise and powerful, and he developed a clear and logical way of thinking. At the end of his second year of philosophy, John won the class competition and received as a prize a six-volume set of St. Thomas’ Summa Philosophica.
During his study of theology, John became devoted to apologetics — proving the logical position of the Catholic Church. His studies were intense, but interesting, and the weeks seemed to fly past as the young seminarian matured from boyhood to manhood.
Out on the Farm
During the summers, John often spent his vacation time at the Herman Schnelker farm near New Haven, or visiting at the Besancon rectory with his friend Fr. Francis LaBonte. (It was common for seminarians to find hospitality in a parish or private home for the summer.)
John and friends
By the second summer break, John was exhausted from his strenuous studies and physically spent. He wrote his friend Ed Schnelker and begged him to ask his parents if he could visit for a couple of weeks to drink a lot of fresh milk and build himself back up. The answer, of course, was “yes.” But, unfortunately, the Schnelkers didn’t realize how run-down the young man was. Since John had been there before and would remember his way to the farm, the boys didn’t bother hitching their horse, “Old Tom,” to the buggy to go and meet him at the Wabash station.
The entire family was shocked when John finally knocked at the door. After the long walk from the station, he was so exhausted that he couldn’t speak over a whisper and immediately asked if he could lie down for a short rest. Scolding her sons for not meeting John, Mrs. Schnelker immediately began to bustle about to find ways to help build the young man’s strength back up.
The Schnelkers had a windmill and pump for the well in back of their house to draw up fresh, cool water. At first, while the Schnelker boys greedily drank several cups of the refreshing water from the old tin cup by the well, John could only slurp a tablespoon or two. And when he tried to help the boys with their harvest chores, he was still too weak to do much. As Mr. Schnelker operated the self-binder on the hay, the boys would gather up the golden sheaves of grain, stacking them into shocks. The Schnelker boys cheerfully hoisted two or three sheaves at a time, while poor John was barely able to lift a single one.
But soon, the loving care of his friends began to show, and he regained strength rapidly. By the end of the summer, his health had returned, and he was able to help saw down an old pine tree in the front yard. Then, with saw and ax, the boys chopped the tree into kitchen-stove-length pieces and kindling, and hauled it to the wood shed in a wheelbarrow.
As John’s strength returned, so did his voice, and he began to practice his preaching to the trees in the orchard. John talked so loud the Schnelker brothers worried that someone might notice him and think he had gone daft, so they suggested it might be better to practice in the barn, preaching to the walls instead of the trees. John readily complied, and the