During my freshman year at BC High we had an elderly lay teacher
who was sort of a Mr. Chips character. They used to call him Pop
Willis. He had taught I A freshman home room for ages, and was
still a very good teacher. He used to call us by our first names,
and was the first one to call me Frank, which my family had not
done. Naturally the boys in the class followed Pop Willis' example,
and that is how I came to be known in the Society as Frank Sullivan,
because eight of us who graduated from BC High in 1938 entered
Shadowbrook.
I had that job as acting chairman of the Institute of Spirituality,
along with teaching in the faculty of theology, for two years.
I got a nice reward for my task as chairman of the Institute when
I was included in an invitation that the rector and deans received
to have dinner with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. It was an
unexpected privilege to share a meal with the Holy Father and
to talk with him about the Gregorian and other Jesuit universities.
My participation in the Lumen Christi prayer group was a gift
of grace to me in more ways than getting me to pray. It gave me
a number of wonderful friends, both men and women, who opened
up a whole new social life for me. It also got me involved in
giving conferences and retreats for priests-a ministry that I
had not had before. A consequence of this was that I got to travel
to parts of the world I had never expected to see, such as Japan,
Australia, and Sri Lanka. It also gave me the topic for my book,
Charisms and Charismatic Renewal, in which I presented my explanation
of the distinctive features of this movement in the light of Catholic
theology. I think this book met a need, because it was translated
into a number of languages, including Japanese. It also has a
preface by Cardinal Suenens, who had asked me to be one of his
advisors on theological questions regarding the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal after Pope Paul VI had given him the responsibility for
its orthodoxy.
I do feel that it has been God's providence that has led me into
the different things that have happened in my life. Let me go
back to the day in Barcelona when I learned that I would be going
back to Rome. I couldn't think of any other explanation of my
assignment to Rome than that I must be wanted on the faculty at
the Gregorian. I knew that once you were teaching at the Gregorian
this would most likely be where you'd spend the rest of your life.
Once during the biennium I had been asked by the superior there
what I would think about teaching at the Gregorian. I told him
that I wouldn't volunteer for it. So I didn't jump for joy when
I got the news that Marty Neylon gave me. However, as I had already
planned to do, I spent the following day up at Montserrat, where
St. Ignatius had made his vigil of arms. That day was really a
gift of grace, because it gave me an opportunity to renew my vocation
and rethink what it means to be a Jesuit: you don't plan your
life, you do what the Lord wants you to do wherever he wants you
to do it. I should say that after a while I did get to like living
and teaching at the Gregorian.
