My continued study of grammar helped me with reading and
listening so that if I heard any incorrect grammar I would
silently notice it unless it were from my brothers whom I corrected.
In certain classes such as English we would be called upon
to read out loud and being able at once to spot sentence structure
with its phrases and clauses helped me to be a good reader.
Constantly working with grammar gave me a familiarity with
language and that familiarity became an affection for speaking,
which encouraged me to always speak with affection to all,
as Father Ambrose and the other monks would always speak to us.
Before Father Ambrose became a monk his name was Joseph Zenner.
Perhaps he chose the name Ambrose partially because of the way
Ambrose helped Augustine not only by teaching him about the
four senses of Scripture—the literal, moral, mystical, and typological—
but also advised Monica that a child of so many prayers and tears
would never perish and thus helped Augustine become celibate.
Father Ambrose was a great rhetorician and as a public
speaker he had a sense of presence plus a well-argued
message that enabled him to be a truly inspiring teacher.
If we think back to Plato’s Phaedrus at 245c and following
and that first great example of erotic sublimation it seems that
the power of Father Ambrose’s creative speaking and writing
fits right in with that creative enthusiasm and divine madness.
I,3.4 Nourishing Agapeic Friendship with Logic
Father Gerard Marx went out to Notre Dame and studied
symbolic logic with Bochenski and in our sixth year
we had a great time learning traditional logic and mathematical
logic in the notation of Whitehead and Russell and the Polish logicians.
But, of course, from year one on we were always learning the logic
of practical consequences for if I did not confess my sexual sins
then my conscience would harden and not grow in sensitivity.
In our third year a happy-go-lucky Irishman Father Brendan
was teaching us religion and Pat Carney from Boise, Idaho knew him.
As a joke we hid a pillow under each of our desks and as he
was lecturing we pulled them out and put our heads on them as if
we were going to sleep and Father Brendan sent us to Father Ambrose.
Father Ambrose got a laugh out of it but said that we were being
insulting to Father Brendan by suggesting that he was boring.
Father Ambrose told us that for our penance we should each write
a thousand-word paper and Father Brendan would correct them.
The title of mine was “My Last Night with a Renegade” and
when Father Ambrose read the title he got a great belly laugh but
really it was only about fishing with my dad and using renegade flies.
So by our third year we clearly saw that any unkindness and
lack of friendliness would have its consequences and we
were learning from the Benedictine community that any act
of friendly agape would have its logical consequences for now
and for the future and that acts of love built the kingdom of love.
As we grew in experience we learned more and more about the logic
of opposites for there could be exclusive, inclusive, dialectical,
and mixed opposites and we were always told about loving enemies.
We were told that even a terrible criminal would have much good
within him and that we should reach out in loving prayer to enemies.
In the seminary we came to see the transcendental logic that any being
is beautiful, good, true, and therefore worthy of affirmative love.
I,3.5 Nourishing Agape with the Quadrivium
In the seminary the spiritual life and the intellectual life fit
together and promoted each other in natural Benedictine harmony.
We learned about the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire
and we came to see how the only light burning was in the monasteries.
The Benedictines always taught the Trivium with its grammar,
rhetoric, and logic, and the Quadrivium with its mathematics,
music, science, and history, and we were constantly trained in both.
After algebra in my third year all my grades were in the 90s,
except for trigonometry in which I received a final grade of 83.
I do not understand why but I always had a difficult time in math.
One time in our first year Father Method had me up at the board
working on an algebra problem in front of the rest of the class.
He kept asking me this and asking me that and I just wasn’t getting it.
Finally, I slammed the chalk into the board and started working out
the answer and he said, “Good, Goicoechea, get mad, maybe you
will wake up and see that this isn’t so difficult after all.”
I did get angry quite easily but did it really wake me up and
did sexuality also awaken me from some lack of passionate energy?
Father David was the Gregorian Chant Master for the Monastery
and the teacher of chant to the seminarians and I did learn
to sing but I never made the choir, for others sang far better.
Science was also greatly appreciated by the monks and after
general science in year one with Father Anthony we then had
chemistry and a wonderful full year biology course with Father Mark.
We learned about the scientific method and did many experiments.
But most of all I really liked history and we learned Roman
History when we studied Latin and the history of music and
also of science as we learned of Mendel, Copernicus, and Galileo.
All of this learning was a way of more deeply loving all of being
with an agape that appreciated more and more all of nature.
I,3.6 Nourishing Agapeic Affection with Mathematics
No matter what the monks taught us they did it with that
universalized affection for which their celibate lives prepared
them so that they truly were fathers to us their adopted sons.
My father as a professional gambler