(To a friend in Quebec)

July 21, 1959.

....You may have noticed on the top of this letter my change of address. When I wrote the last letter they published in the Darjeeling diary, I was Superintendent of Bellarmine hostel in Darjeeling city (and loved it!) I was also teaching 25 periods at Saint Robert's High School. Then my superior dropped an atom bomb in my lap. He made me Headmaster of St. Al's -- a high school for some 550+ boys -- and the parish priest of St. Paul's in Kurseong. I feel like Daniel the morning they told him he had to go into the Lion's den -- and I mean scared! God's ways are full of mystery -- and it must be true that He can write straight with crooked lines because He surely has himself a crooked line in me! Pray that despite that He will be able to write straight at St. Al's and St. Paul's Parish...

(To a friend in Halifax)

July 21, 1959.

“…....I was just getting used to my job at St. Robert's -- and the kids were just getting used to me! -- When I was given a new job. Now I'm back in Kurseong where I am to be the Headmaster of St. Alphonsus' High School -- about 550 boys -- and parish priest. You can imagine how I feel. I am like a very little David going out to meet a very big Goliath, A very little Daniel going into a den full of very big lions. Honestly I am frightened stiff. I have so little experience, and to learn two jobs at once.... the lord of course can make up for short-comings and doesn't ask us to do things without giving the help we need to get them done. I do have 'Faith' but even at that, I'm still plenty scared!....

As I've probably told you before, Kurseong is lower than Darjeeling. Darj is about 6,500 feet in altitude, we are 5,500. Down here it is much warmer and much wetter! right now we are in the middle of the monsoon. It starts in May and goes until September. Last night as i was trying to go to sleep, I could hear the incessant rumble of rain pounding on our tin roof and the frightening roar of a mountain torrent nearby. Lots of people I know would find the four months of mist and downpour unbearable, but fortunately I am not bothered at all – some saying that's my Halifax background! …. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your letter and how glad I was to hear about the whereabouts and doings of all my old friends at the C.P.T....

(To an Indian friend)

July 21, 1959.

.....I know you and Cecilia will be praying for me and my new work .....I'm as scared of my new job as Cecilia would be in the middle of a graveyard on a night of thunder and lightning and how-w-w-wling winds!  Really I will need all the prayers you can spare and also share in the sacrifices you will be making daily in your new role of mother and father.

 

I ran across some words in St. Paul the other day that I couldn’t help applying to myself: ".....and now god would make use of foolish thing ...God has chosen what the world holds foolish, so as to abash the wise, God has chosen what the world holds weak, so as to abash the strong..." Do pray that in the place of my foolishness and weakness, God will use the wisdom and the strength of Christ....

P.S. I still pray daily that your little one will put some more ounces -- though it does somehow seem a betrayal of the fairer sex to pray that they put on more weight!

(To a Jesuit friend)

July 21, 1959.

....At present I am confused, bewildered, hesitant, something like discouraged and certainly afraid. As G.K. says God proves his power by revealing to us 'the things that cannot be, but that are!' Certainly my dreams of the future of St. Al's are full of a plethora of things 'that cannot be'. Pray that by some miracle of God's grace (starting first of all in me!). We shall be able to say someday in wonder and gratitude: 'the things that could not be, now are!!'

(To a Jesuit friend)

July 21, 1959.

....I found it tough to leave Eric and Mac. My six months with them were happy for sure. Mac is an education in charity and cheerfulness. Eric is an education in adaptability and patient, plodding work.

     Mac is still settling in at St. Robert's high. He finds the place without enthusiasm and too much stress on 'Eejit' (reputation) and a conviction among the teachers that their public enemy no.1 is anything called a 'boy'. Attitudes like that- subtle, but real and detrimental- staff. Should they throw their lot with this laughing, bouncing, boy-loving, boy-trusting headmaster? or should they show him by non-co-operation that after all it is dignity that counts? a funny dilemma. I lay money that Mac will win out sooner than seems possible now. He has the irresistible friendliness of a wet pup and only the stuffed shirt can hold out against him and who wants stuffed shirts on our staffs, anyhow?

Mac's St. Al result were excellent...78% clear pass as against St. Robert's 49%!!. Those results will of course hasten Mac's victory over the stuffed-shirtism at St. Robert's..