Part 1:
He looked out of the third floor window of his office, wistfully, at the last of the students going home for the summer. The exodus had started Friday and today, Monday, was the last day they had to vacate their rooms.
Father Frank Fitzsimmons O.S.A. (Order of Saint Augustine) was the building prefect for Alumni Hall. It was the university\'s oldest building and dated back to the Civil War. It had gone through a myriad of uses over the years and was now the largest male dorm on campus.
Father Frank had a heavy heart as he watched the last of the students load up their cars and SUV’s heading either home or to one of the many beach communities along the Jersey Shore. Villanova University catered to an upper crust student body, and many had summer homes sitting and waiting for their yearly sojourn.
Watching the students leave was not what was weighing on Father Frank’s heart. For the past six months he had been having a crisis of faith, and his daily interaction with students had been a welcome distraction from the dark empty questions his conscience held.
As the building prefect, Father Frank had an office on the third floor. His job was to mentor and counsel the more than 300 students who occupied the building from September until May. He lived in the Augustinian Monastery directly across from Alumni Hall, and it was a short 30 second walk both to and from work.
Normally, Father Frank would have closed down his office and spent the summer in the monastery with the older retired priests. Many of whom he had had as teachers and professors when he had attended Villanova just 15 years before. This summer would be different …
Because of construction and renovations, his apartment was needed to house several of the older priests who had been suffering with debilitating health problems. He had been asked to stay in Alumni Hall for the summer, until the work was completed, and the students were back for the Fall semester.
Father Frank knew the first students to come back would be the football team when they arrived for summer camp in mid-August. That would be a full 3 months from now. He was the only young (under 40) priest on campus, and it would be a long and lonely 3 months dealing with the solitude and the weight of his uncertainty.
He thought about moving a cot into his office but decided to stay in the now empty dorm room next door. Sitting on its twin bed brought back memories of when he had lived in this very building just one floor below.
Frank had been a defensive back on the 1962 Villanova ‘Wildcat’ Football Team that had faced Oregon State in the Liberty Bowl. Oregon State had the country’s best player and Heisman Trophy winner, Terry Baker, at quarterback. The game ended with a score of 6-0 resulting from a 99-yard run for a touchdown by Baker. It would be the only score of the game. Frank had had one shot at tackling Baker but had missed his chance when Baker juked around him at the 25-yard line. Although 15 years had passed, the wound was still fresh every time Frank walked by the stadium and the memories came flashing back.
Frank’s favorite coach had been one of the assistants, Dick Moore, who everyone called Pappy. Pappy had a habit of saying just the right thing, at the appropriate time, to keep players motivated and moving in the right direction. Pappy was an Augustinian Brother and had been on campus since being a Chaplain’s Assistant during World War 2.
He also had a physical move that accentuated his instruction. Pappy would lower his shoulder and tackle a player lifting him up while shaking him back and forth. He did this until the player repeated what he had just told him. It became a badge of honor, on the Wildcat Football Team, to count the number of times Pappy had lifted you off the ground and force fed you the truth.
Part 2:
It took less than an hour to get his new room set up with his personal effects from the monastery, and Frank decided to go for a run … anything to try and escape the questions that became worse during periods of inactivity.
As anyone who has lived alone will tell you, after an extended period of time, the world takes on a new normalcy and the days repeat in quiet monotony. Frank still took his meals at the monastery but because of the age difference, he didn’t have much in common with the older priests to spark interesting conversations. Mostly, they reminded him of the almost great victory over Oregon State, and how if they were to play the game again Villanova would surely win. This was the LAST thing Frank wanted to hear.
Father Frank continued to say the Sunday morning 10:30 a.m. Mass at the campus chapel connected to the monastery. Other than that, the days dragged on.
It was now Friday, July 5th, and Frank had gone to bed early.
The tower clock, outside his window, showed 2:00 a.m. when he was awakened by a noise on the other side of his door. After clearing the sleep from his eyes, he decided to take a look. He knew the building was locked, and no maintenance worker would be working this late.
He walked the long distance to the other end of the hall using his hand, sliding along the left side of the corridor wall, as a guide. When he came to its end, he turned around and headed back.
To Cut Costs, All Of The Auxiliary Lights Had Been Turned Off For The Summer
Halfway down the hall, he heard the noise again and he stopped. This time, it seemed to be coming from his room. He started to walk the rest of the way but was suddenly confronted by someone or something in front of him blocking his passage. As he started to struggle, he was lifted off the ground and shaken back and forth. Conflicting and confusing memories came rushing back, and he went into full denial as to what might be happening. Before he could get one word out of his mouth, he was back on his feet and whoever or whatever had assaulted him was gone.
He took a hurried step toward his room and immediately slipped on something wet on the dark floor. Still rattled from what had happened, he rushed back, locked the door, and got into bed. Had it been a bad dream or was it possibly something more … something at face value he couldn’t reconcile?
Frank woke up early still wondering if it had all been a bad dream. He walked back down the hall and could see what he had slipped on the night before. A small puddle of water was lying in the middle of the floor. Looking up, Frank saw nothing dripping from the ceiling. He went back to his room, got a towel, and wiped up the spill before going to the monastery for breakfast.
Upon returning from breakfast, he was stunned at what he saw. The puddle had reappeared in exactly the same spot as before. Again, Frank wiped it up and went on with his day, but the small puddle continued to reappear for the next two days.
Frank decided to take a new tack….
Before going to bed on the second night, he wiped up the puddle with his towel and covered the spot with a stool to confirm it was coming from a leak somewhere above. The next morning the stool was still in place, and had not moved, but the water had reappeared again directly underneath it on the floor.
Every time Frank had wiped up the spot, he noticed that something was happening inside of himself. The water that was cleaned up was washing the conflict and doubt out of his spirit, and he felt a lightness that he hadn’t experienced since his ordination almost 10 years ago.
The water continued to reappear all summer until the first student athletes arrived back on campus. That first day, there was knock on Frank’s office door and a freshman football player was standing there with a stool in his hand. “Father Frank, does this stool belong to you? It was sitting in the middle of the hall and this small bottle was sitting under it.” “Yes, it’s mine, thanks for returning it. I used it as a marker in the dark hall this summer.”
Frank looked at the tiny cut glass bottle which was whole in its design … it had no cork or screw off top. It was solid all the way around.
Fifty years later, that small bottle sat on Frank’s night table in the monastery across the way. He was now one of the older priests having spent his life in service to the university and students he loved. Since that Summer Of Doubt, so many years ago, his faith had been as secure and contained as the Holy Water inside the bottle.
Every time he looked at it, he made a silent prayer that started with … “Thanks Pappy.’
Kurt Philip Behm: June, 2024