SISTER CAECILIUS (FLORENCE) ROTH, C.S.C. (1916-1990)

P.O.W. WORLD II

She was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1916 and entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1934.  In 1937 Sister Caecilius was assigned to Mount Carmel Hospital in Columbus, OH as a student nurse.  Upon completing her nursing program in 1940, she was assigned with Sister Olivette (Whalen) to missionary work in India.  On their way to India in 1941, they were arrested by the Japanese in Manila and held as prisoners of war with 17 other Holy Cross religious.  In Sister Olivette’s account of the imprisonment, “Round Trip to the Philippines” (1945), she recalled,  “Our first warning of disaster came on Christmas Day.  After a three-hour aid raid, the captain of the U.S. Medical Corps called the entire staff into his office to inform us that General MacArthur had declared Manila an open city.  We were informed that the Japanese were approaching in force from both the north and south. Within two hours there was a second air raid.  In order to prevent a panic, the Sisters gathered the Filipino nurses in the chapel and kept walking up and down the aisles reciting the rosary out load. Sister Caecilius was the first to catch sight of the flag of the Rising Sun, carried by a truck-load of Japanese soldiers…as we waited in anxious suspense for the first contact with the enemy. It came at two o’clock in the morning when we heard shouting in Japanese outside the front gate. We were well aware that we were now prisoners.”  

Once Sister Caecilius returned to the States and spent some time in recuperation, she became a full-time student at Saint Mary’s, completing her academic work in 1947.  That year, she returned to the missions, but this time to Jaguare and Sao Paulo, Brazil where she worked in elementary education, catechetics and social work.  Returning to the States in 1964, her nursing career was spent in various supervisory or directorship positions at St. Mary’s Convent.  She was Administrative Assistant of Nursing Services when she died in 1990.

Prayer is the time when our lives are most authentically human.  Through our fidelity to this spiritual discipline, The Greatest Commandment (Lk 10:25-28) is awakened in us:  love of God, that deep interior truth, really and truly comes into contact with love of neighbor, that complex network of attachments, memories and emotions that constantly swirls through mind and heart.  This privileged place of encounter is not only the edge of our existence, but it is our very vocation, where we serve, with Christ, as priests who mediate earthly and spiritual realities.  It is significant that the very next lines of scripture are the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37) which ironically describes how the ‘holy’ ones, on their way to ‘pray,’ fail to make the link between commitment to others and true worship. What a tragic misunderstanding of religion! Let’s therefore not be afraid to be people of prayer, who each night, in samaritan-like anonymity, kneel down and minister to our sisters and brothers who have been beaten up and abandoned on the side of the road.  Let’s “go forth and do likewise.”  Let’s be human.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

FATHER ROBERT McKEE, C.S.C. (1912-1990)

P.O.W. WORLD WAR II

Robert McKee was born in New York and entered Holy Cross in 1927 and was ordained in 1940.  His first assignment was in 1941 to serve as a missionary in India.  While he and 18 other Holy Cross priests, sisters and brothers were en route, their ship was detained by the Japanese in Manila. They were interred in concentration camps until American troops took the Philippines in 1945. 

In a 1985 History Conference paper, “Holy Cross P.O.W.’s in the Philippines – 1941-1945,” that Father McKee delivered at King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, he said about the CSC internment in Manila that “At a meeting in the morning [January 3, 1942] between officers of the Japanese Army and the Jesuit superiors, it was decided that all of us would move to Santo Tomas University, the designated concentration camp for all Americans and Europeans. All other Americans, with the exception of the Sisters [whose convents would serve as their concentration camps], were to go to Santo Tomas.” 

On July 8, 1944, Fathers McKee and Jerome Lawyer and other male religious were loaded into a covered truck under the cover of darkness and taken to Los Banos, an internment camp 40 miles south of Manila, because the Japanese had discovered that the foreign missionaries were at the root of the guerrilla activities in the Philippines.  They were stationed in a barrack with 96 other persons.  He recalled that fending off starvation was a daily grind.  “We received two cups of watery boiled rice per day, one at 7:30 AM, the other at 5:30 PM.  In our cubicle we augmented this with so-called cheese made of fermented shredded coconut and garlic or with deep-fried banana skins, at times with grass said to have vitamin value.  One morning I found one of the Canadian brothers frying something.  He told me it was grub worms found beneath the plants.  Several times he invited me to a plate of these gritty but deliciously fatty worms.”  

As the time of this final internment was coming to an end, McKee continues, “Many persons died of starvation.  Our little cemetery was gradually filling up.  All told, at least 150 persons were buried there—victims of starvation and malnutrition [and two by execution].”  On February 23, 1945 he writes, “Suddenly our lives were completely changed.  [Nine planes of the 11^th Airborne Division were coming from the north] …on the fuselage of one of the planes was the word RESCUE in big white letters shown against the dark green background.”

After returning to the States to regain his strength, he was appointed the assistant editor of the mission publication The Bengalese. In 1946 he retuned to Dhaka and was the first full-time language student for the study of Bengali.  He then joined the faculty of Little Flower Seminary, just outside Dhaka.  In 1948 he became rector of the seminary and was appointed Holy Cross superior of the Dhaka District in 1958.  During the twelve years he held this position, he built Notre Dame College in Dhaka. After his term as superior, he remained in Bangladesh until 1983 serving in the business office of Notre Dame College as the chief organizer and director of the Renewal Program for priests in East Pakistan, and later in Manila as manager of business affairs of the Asian Pastoral Institute. When he returned to the States, he briefly served as chaplain to the brothers at Flushing, NY and a few years later as the spiritual director for the Sisters of the Holy Cross at St. Mary’s in South Bend, IN. 

“You can either die now or die on your deathbed” is an existentialist’s approach to the human condition, but is it really possible to die before the literal parting that must take place on our last day?  Clinging to material objects, memories, emotions, ideas or any number of things constantly leaves us dry and empty. When, however, we start to see these attachments and our identification with them – my boyfriend, my career, my house, etc. – as antithetical to the life that our hearts deeply desire, we become willing to undertake that interior work of separation that is in fact a spiritual death.  Indeed, we slowly learn to purify our motives and detach from each and every thing that comes across our radar screen. Through this process, we discover a secret and sacred place within ourselves where our hearts experience deep peace akin to the “rest in peace” we wish upon our loved ones who have passed on. This state of ‘dying to self’ gives off Eucharist in all that we say, think and do, and, as such, nourishes others as they face their own need for death and journey into new life. Let us, therefore, answer this call to be true existentialists, prophets of the Cross, who call the world to encounter its glorious end not at some ambiguous future time, but right here and now in these very circumstances of our lives.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica!

BROTHER REX (CHARLES) HENNEL, C.S.C. (1918-2008)

PRISONER OF WWII

Brother Rex was born in Evansville, IN and graduated from Reitz Memorial High School.  He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross as a Brother in 1938 and graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in 1941.

He was selected to join a group of 20 Holy Cross missionaries to work in India (East Bengal).  They all sailed from San Francisco and arrived in the Philippines.  But World War II had broken out, and the Japanese invaded the Philippines and all Holy Cross Missionaries were placed in an internment camp for the next four years.  In his memoire of that time, “Our Expedition to Manila,” written in 1951, he states that “I had my first experience of eating trees at this time. To supplement our diet, we began the practice of cutting down papaya trees, skinning them, and boiling them.  The pulp was rather soft, and three hours of boiling made it possible to chew the pulp sufficiently to swallow.  While the results were neither tasty or nourishing, they did at least fill up the empty space in our stomachs.” Upon his return to the States he writes that “It seemed strange to be home. No lines to stand in.  Parents of boys who were serving in the Philippines came for news of their boys.  Most of them I could not help.  One mother called to ask about arranging for having the grave of her son cared for.  He was killed in India and buried near Dacca.  As the time passed, I realized more and more what had brought us back. It was the prayers of our community, our families and our friends.  God had heeded their pleas: we could truly say, ‘Blessed be God’.”

Until 1957 Brother Rex worked in high schools in Chicago and Biloxi, Mississippi.  When Holy Cross returned to Africa, Rex was the first superior and headmaster of the new school in Sekondi, Ghana, St. John’s.  In 1963 he was appointed the headmaster of Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, OH, and in 1967 was appointed the assistant provincial of the Midwest Province of Brothers.  He returned to Ghana in 1975 to serve as the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Cape Coast.  When he returned to Notre Dame, he spent fifteen years working for the Holy Cross Mission Center and serving on the provincial office staff.  He was a mentor to all he met—the “definition of compassion.”  His former students at Biloxi honored him saying, “Because of you, many of us are different—more Christian, more human.”

The famous Dr. Freud, in a very insightful analysis of the human psyche, described the psyche as a composite of the ego, the superego and the id.  While there are all sorts of theories out there about the dynamics of these three distinct elements of our personalities, our faith tradition offers us a clear, exciting and coherent understanding of how they actually do work together:  The superego is like the Father who constantly calls us, in love and mercy, unto himself through the oftentimes confusing and altogether short-sighted circumstances of our human journeys; the id is like the Spirit, who, from the beginning, is our truest and deepest self and cannot but rejoice in the presence of the Father; and the ego is like the Son who becomes flesh because of how desperately he wants to share with others the joy of being a child of God.  We all know that this psychological system can get jammed up and distorted for all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of ways, but we can take solace in the fact that Jesus, a thinking and feeling being just like us, revealed this glorious triune balance throughout his earthly life.  Let us therefore not be afraid to go to the divine psychologist whose methods of spiritual alignment are guaranteed to lead us to peace of mind and fullness of life.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica!

Sister Mary Olivette (Charlotte) Whalen, C.S.C. (1907-2001)

She was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas to John and Ellen (Hogan) Whalen, one of five children.  After moving to Missouri, she attended grade school and high school, and for three years took classes at Fontbonne College, Missouri University and the St. Louis School of the Fine Arts.  Upon reading through a copy of the Bengalese, a Holy Cross publication on the missions in India, she decided to enter Holy Cross and work in India. She entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1933 and her wish to serve in India was granted in 1937 when she was sent to Mount Carmel School of Nursing to prepare for mission health care work.  

In the fall of 1941, Sisters Olivette and Caecilius (Roth), along with Brothers Rex Hennel and Theodore Kapes and Fathers Robert McKeen and James Lawyer, sailed from San Francisco for India.  Her nursing was put to use not in India but in the Philippines because the 20 CSC religious on the ship were captured by the Japanese and interred in a prisoner of war camp in Manila. They were not liberated until February 23, 1945 and were back in the States on May 3.  Sister Olivette told her story to Pauline Peyton who then wrote an extensive account “Round Trip to the Philippines.” After recuperation from the privations of prison camp life, she finally got to India in October of 1945 with her superior general for the visit.  She stayed but a month, never to return. 

Back in the States, she earned an MA in Sacred Studies from Saint Mary’s College. Along with another Holy Cross Sister, she worked unsuccessfully to establish the Federation of Holy Cross Women.  She was sent to Brazil in 1947 to work in health education, but found a greater need for elementary and secondary schools. She loved her work in Brazil, but in 1961 she was called back to Saint Mary’s to serve on the general council as missionary procurator and director of vocations.  While serving on the council, she personally opened the first Sisters’ school in Uganda, and in 1967 she was elected superior general. One sister commented: “So the Sister elected to lead the community in serious renewal had experience as teacher, nurse, graduate student, administrator and foreign missionary.”  She was neither a “rabid liberal” nor a “foot-dragging conservative,” yet there were members of the Congregation who saw her as one or the other.  Another of her sisters commented: “She seemed to be the perfect choice for those years of renewal.  In retrospect we realize that not even Christ himself would have been considered the perfect choice.  He suffered contradictions and so did she.”

In 1973, Sister Olivette was liberated from the generalship. She then spent eleven years in the Holy Land along the Sea of Galilee where she was instrumental in opening a center for ongoing formation for African and Asian religious.  These were the highlight of her days as a Sister of the Holy Cross. Failing health brought her back to the States in 1985.  Once recuperated, she travelled to the Far East ending up in Brazil for the golden jubilee of that mission.  While she spent several months in Brazil, she assisted in the organization of an archive.  Her final years were spent assisting in the Congregational archives at Saint Mary’s until she no longer had the strength nor eyesight for the job.  She died on May 16, 2001 and is buried in Our Lady of Peace Cemetery, Saint Mary’s.  (Shortened from a biography written by Sister Campion Kuhn, C.S.C. May 18, 2001.)

Codependence is such a common trap for us human beings. Unlike substances such as alcohol or drugs that have taboo connotations in our society, this addiction appears to be absolutely normal, all the while the person inside is drowning in feelings of inadequacy and desperation. This fear-based orientation, inherited from our first parents (cf. Gen 3:5), is rooted in the core belief that we are not good enough, that we are incomplete, that we need and absolutely must have this other person in our life in order for us to be ourselves. And while society balks at such behavior and such interior attitudes, all of its own versions of “healthy relationships” either mask the neurosis with euphemistic language or propose styles of relating that simply do not offer real commitment. Let us therefore look to Jesus who perfectly images for us the posture of right relationships. Fully secure in the awareness that he is a beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased (Mt 3:17), Jesus does not cling to or grasp at other people. Rather, grounded in trusting faith, he invites others into that same security, forming a partnership where old habits die (cf. Jn 19:30) and the truth about healthy relationships sounds forth: “Perfect love casts out all fear” (1 Jn 4:18). Ave Crux, Spes Unica!

Brother Neil (Francis Xavier) Müller/Miller, C.S.C. (1835-1919)

The Regulator and Lamplighter

In the Midwest Province, Brothers of Holy Cross, archives, in a file half hidden in the back of a cabinet is the information about this brother who led a “hidden life.”  Francis Xavier Müller, now and then, referred to as Miller, was misfiled for nearly 100 years. The file is rich in photos but sparse in information about his life.

He was born in Salzstatten, Wertemberg, Germany in 1835.  There is no record of when he came to the States, yet he entered the juniorate at Notre Dame in 1856 and took final vows of obedience and poverty in 1861.  Until his death in 1919 he had but three jobs: he was the ‘regulator’ who rang a bell to call the religious to wake in the morning, go to chapel or meals, or be called to a “special” convocation by some superior. Secondly, he mended old clothing; and third, he was the campus lamplighter.  There are no other records in his file save a short obituary in an unnamed newspaper.

“A man whom St. Francis would have loved on account of his simplicity, unworldliness and spirit of poverty was the venerable Brother Neil, of the Congregation of Holy Cross, who after receiving the last aids and blessings of the Church, departed for heaven last week at Notre Dame.  For more than half a century he was the community’s bell ringer and mender of old clothes.  Only that! But how wondrously well he performed his humble service—ringing his bell with unfailing regularity, and plying the needle until the end of his life! A more guileless soul, or one more meek, we have never known.  By some special grace, he seemed to be protected from all the world’s sordidness and exempted from all fret.  Never to lose the presence of God, to do His will in all things, to keep himself unspotted from the world, and to be ever ready for the summons to depart from it—this was his only solicitude.  In the Ages of Faith there were many Christians like Brother Neil; but “truths have diminished” since then, and the “fine gold has become dim.”

“The Work of Resurrection” for Holy Cross Educators, Ave Crux Spes Unica!

March into the new month with Blessed Moreau!