Very Tree (verse)
Kunitz, Stanley J.
47 ~ THE COMMONWEAL September 1I, 1929 Father Charles Sewall (a descendant of Major Henry Sewall, connected by marriage with the Calverts) built the present church in 1798. It too is...
...Since then nearly one hundred years have passed and the work goes on the same, day after day and year after year, in the old manor house...
...If one is thoughtful it is easy to bridge the centuries and see Father White's little boat come silently around the bend of the river...
...Father Meurer, tall, aquiline and silver-haired...
...It too is built on the site of the old chapel, and like it is connected with the residence of the priests...
...A portion of the original chapel does duty today as a sacristy...
...When His Holiness Pius VII, by a brief dated March 7, I8OI, granted to Father Francis Kareu and his colleagues residing in Russia, power to form themselves into a body of the Company of Jesus and to resume and follow the rule of Saint Ignatius Loyola, approved by the constitutions of Paul III, the former Jesuits in Maryland applied to His Holiness for the same power...
...STANIr-Ey J, KUNITZ...
...The older chapel was so built that it might be considered a portion of the priest's house, in accordance with the law prohibiting public places of Catholic worship...
...There was none to supplant them as the Revolution prevented England from sending others...
...There was gentle Father Wiget, quick and active in mind and body...
...from the gardens and the graveyard beyond the church one may look down on the point where the first little chapel stood and out over the Potomac to the far Virginia hills...
...Pictures of some of the most colorful personalities must linger in the memory of many still living...
...At the time of the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773 there were twenty priests in the American missions, all of them Jesuits...
...When the time came for the restoration of the Society of Jesus, Saint Thomas's was the principal seat of the preliminary proceedings in this country, and held a prominent part in the consummation of the work...
...Today the old house stands in quiet dignity on its hilltop...
...Accordingly, in I8O6, this was granted them, subject, however, to the father-general in Russia...
...Father Molyneux then transferred his residence from Newtown to Saint Thomas's, which became the first community of the new Society and was its headquarters until the bull of Plus VII, issued August 7, I814, completely reestablished the Society of Jesus throughout the world...
...it was a significant conference which was held in the parlor of the old manor house that May morning in 18o6, when Bishop Carroll and his coadjutor, Bishop Leonard Neale, met with five of the Jesuit Fathers who had petitioned to be received in the new Society, to appoint Father Robert Molyneux the first superior...
...Earth's absolute arithmetic Of being is not in the flowering stick Filled with the sperm of sun, But in a figure seen By second eyes when we close Slow petals of the brain At evening like a rose...
...Father Scanlon, red-haired and militant, and aristocratic Father McSwyney...
...Colors pour in and out: Here is a timeless structure wrought Like the candelabrum of pure thought, Stripped of green root and leaf, Getting no seed to sprout, Yet lovely, lovely, God's Very Tree, Form of whose intense inner life Abstractly branches to attain What glory, Tree, what pain...
...Father John Carroll was selected for the position...
...The lives of many of them would furnish interesting biographies...
...The same day Father SewaU renewed his vows and Father Neale, who had been only a novice at Ghent in the old Society, pronounced his vows for the first time...
...The years have brought to Saint Thomas's a mellow personality, and the extent of its influence would be hard to estimate...
...During the whole time of the war there was no communication between the priests in America and their bishop...
...Very Tree Forget the tube of bark, Alliterative leaves, Tenacious like a hand Gnarled rootage in the dark Interior of land...
...Father Molyneux came up from Newtown in Saint Mary's on August I8 of the same year, and renewed his vows in the manor church in the presence of Father Sewall and Father Charles Neale...
...Thus the Jesuits were able to retain their possessions and to continue their ministerial functions under Father John Lewis, who had been their local superior and was now vicar-general to the bishop of the London district...
...Afterward, when these conditions were brought to the knowledge of the authorities in Rome, measures were taken for the appointment of a local bishop...
...47 ~ THE COMMONWEAL September 1I, 1929 Father Charles Sewall (a descendant of Major Henry Sewall, connected by marriage with the Calverts) built the present church in 1798...
...Bright incidental bird Whose melody is fanned Among the bundled sheaves, Wild spool of the winding word, Reject: and let there be Only tree...
...Another decade will start the old mission on its fourth century...
...Father Vicinanza riding his sorrel pacing horse...
...Thirty years later, when Father William McSherry was made first provincial, he likewise made Saint Thomas's his dwelling-place and the provisional headquarters of the province...
...The names of the men who have lived under its ancient roof, or there laid down their work to rest on the hill beyond the church, march through the pages of its history like a procession of faithful crusaders...
Vol. 10 • September 1929 • No. 19
