I was seventeen and ready to leave home. Many of my friends had gone before me. I wanted an experience of a new life with new challenges. The war was winding down in Europe, the Battle of the Bulge was over, and, though we were still at war with Japan, it seemed to be just a matter of time. I was curious about what I could learn through my Navy training and some of the benefits I would get as a result of my joining up.

I was also looking around for what I wanted to do for life. I made a lot of friends and tried a lot of different jobs. I thought of marriage as a not too distant future event. But also it was about this time while my brother Joe was at Shadowbrook that I thought I would experiment with making a retreat under supervision, so I could ask some questions about the future. In 1951 I decided to join the Jesuits at Shadowbrook as a Brother.

I did a lot of snow plowing during the winter. At times that meant that I got up well before dawn to start before the snow got too hard to manage. There were also two laymen who did the shoveling. But I joined them and used the machines with which I had been familiar during all of my Jesuit life. Because of this, on many mornings I had to go to my room to warm up before going out again to deal with the heavily falling snow. The cars took up a lot of time, because not only did I drive but I had to look after their condition, to make sure that they would be ready to be driven

Yes, I did sense God was always working in my life. He has been very present to me for as long as I can remember. Everything I did I liked. Some people have jobs, but never seem satisfied and happy, and are always on the lookout for something else. But all my life I was happy to do what I was doing. God's presence worked for me. It's been good! And its still happening.

Due to death or sickness some of these selected readings have been read by someone other than the author. This page contains one such replacement.