Why the priest is a Carmelite.

The other day we took a field trip to this place called Holy Hill that the priest is always talking about, which turns out to be this Carmelite basilica on the highest point in Wisconsin, where his parents were married and where he professed his solemn vows, and also where his parents and his sister and many, many friends from his order are buried, in a cemetary near the foot of the hill.

In the main basilica church, the priest pointed to a picture of Teresa of Avila on one side of the altar (John of the Cross was on the other side) and explained who they were (he also pointed to a picture of Simon Stock in the stained glass window), and said as an aside that Teresa "was a really modern woman, all business and no fluff," and that it was reading her autobiography that led him to become a Carmelite.

He also explained so many details from this church, like how this wooden statue of Mary was carved in Germany and brought to the Chicago's World Fair and a Carmelite saw it and fell in love with and brought it back, and he also explained a carved altar from the 1950s, and he did it all with this delight in history like when he's explaining the set-up of the Lateran Cathedral in Rome, or what the site looks like now where we now Caesar was assassinated...

For him, one isn't better than another, and he does not see a more a authentic Catholicism or even entire civilization in Rome than in Milwaukee, and he loves both.

Later we went down to the monastery and a couple Carmelites he knew came out to meet him, these 2 old (white) guys in their late 60s, and they talked and reminisced, and the one was saying that the first time he ever heard of the priest was when he overheard this teacher in junior seminary saying that he had this Latin student who was helping out the students who were having a difficult time, and this was when the priest was back in like 8th grade.

"You were a teacher even then," the one old monk said.

They all looked so child-like, like many older people in religious orders do, delighting in such small things, and seeming so innocent, but grounded.

Later we visited the grave of the priest's parents, and he thanked the entire class, and said that he would probably never see it again, and he'd always treasure the trip... A student also read off the names of dead brothers on tombstones, and after every name, the priest would say something like, "Oh, [the guy's first name!], I remember him, such a dear person, he ran the giftshop in the basilica for years..."

After, we stopped by the lake house of some of the priest's friends, and we all went swimming and had chips and salsa and bruschetta and MGD and wine, and I talked with the wife of the couple for a bit. She taught the Bible as literature in public schools, and we had a good conversation about the curriculum that made me rethink my opposition to that way of teaching the Bible in public schools.