Circular No 727

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 10 October 2015 No. 727

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Friends,

Do not despair, I am going to get the Circulars straightened out, once my internet service is back.

-------------------------------------------------------

GEORGE

Dec 19, 2013

With all the information bouncing room, I believe we have enough for a screenplay for a Hollywood, Bollywood or Trini movie. 

Also for creating a TV series that would weekly present our adventures and misadventures.

This effort would also help Trinidad’s economy. 

This type of entertainment has been successful in past decades. 

The monks could use these $$$$$$ to resurrect the AB.

What do y’all think?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

Attila GYURIS

Dec 19, 2013

Yeah, Jan, we built some good “Dens" in the bush, but, eventually they all got discovered by the "enemy" and destroyed.  

I think that's where you got your interest in a career in Architecture, right?  :-)

As long as we are telling spooky stories.

I have another Mount story that I have never been able to explain  to this day ...

This was back in the Autumn Term in 1965, when I was still a small boy, in Form I.  

One Saturday night I and another classmate were banned from the movies up at St. Benet's Hall above the Refectory for not doing our homework or something like that.  

The other boy with me was Michael Korda, from Venezuela, who stayed only for two school years (1964-1965, then 1965-1966).   

So we were bored and sitting around the back (the east end) of the big school building, towards where the stairs went down to the Physics and Chemistry lab, next to the small boy's dormitory.

It was already night, around 8:30 pm or so.

If you all remember back then the school had a small Chapel, which was in the small East building, next to the small boys' dormitory, and right above the Chemistry Lab.  

It had white wooden doors that were kept locked. 

There we sat in the darkness talking and looking out on the lights towards the town of St Augustine and the plains below us.

The night sky was clear and starry.  

We were pissing and moaning about the big injustice and how unfair it was that we were not allowed to watch the movies. 

Suddenly, out of the blue, the ground started to rumble and shake, (like an earthquake) and the chapel doors started to shake VIOLENTLY and making a LOT of noise, like they were coming off the hinges.  

The rumbling and shaking lasted for about 5-6 seconds then it stopped.

I remember I lost my balance and I fell to the ground.  

We both were wide eyed and terrified shitless and didn't know what to do.  

So we started to run towards the little road up to the refectory.  

And just then we began to see the first few boys starting to come down the road because the movie had ended. 

We started to ask our friends if they had felt the earthquake just now, ... and NOT ONE had felt or heard anything, and they thought we were crazy ....  

We could not believe they hadn't felt anything, while we fell down from the shaking. 

Up to this day I can't explain WTF happened that night, ... but it happened.

Attila Gyuris

Mount 1964-1969

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

Gmail Jan

Dec 19, 2013

Ah Attila, you were one of the builders?

The old boy said he would be back in one hour.

So we planned to fool him.

Break down the den, put the dirt back, throw away all the materials at the other side of the hill, rub out all traces and go.

I remember him asking later where the den went to because he couldn't find it.

And an earthquake got you off balance huh?

No Holy Spirit from the chapel feeling sorry for you?

Jan

------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

Attila GYURIS

Dec 19, 2013

After you left I continued to build them dens in the most creative places, . ... 

Each one better than the last.    :-)  All that scouting knowledge really came in handy.

Attila Gyuris

Mount 1964-1969

-------------------------------------------------------------------.

Gmail Jan

Dec 19, 2013

I was good in den building, until some old boy discovered us.

Yeah, and you put in those guys who sent the basketball and volleyball way down the hill!

And I have a few cases the prefects pronounced us guilty until proven innocent with no permission to talk.

Jan Koenraadt

'63-'67

----------------------------------------------------------------------.

ANTONI MICKIEWICZ

Aug 6 at 9:41 AM

Thank you for sharing your experience and insights, Attila

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thursday, August 6, 2015 9:01 AM, gyuris <gyuris@yahoo.com> wrote:

In general, I refrain from discussing politics and religion, as all too often it leads to inconclusive and bitter arguments.  

But in this case I feel I must come out and say that I agree 100% with Nigel.  

Regarding religious education, our school was not really a "religious" school.

To me it was more like a secular school that happened to be run by priests.

My memories are not of wise, loving, thought provoking or stimulating priests but of serious, disciplinarian and mundane priests more worried about running a tight ship than "educating" catholic values.

They largely kept the religious issues to themselves, and we seldom had any serious discussions about religious matters.

Outside of the prayers before meals, and the mandatory mass on Sundays, (which were usually a boring affair for most of the boys), as far as I can remember, they seldom preached religiousness or did any pondering of the deep questions that Nigel posed below

And what's worse, I never felt the necessary openness or invitation from any of the priests to initiate a non-condescending discussion of these soul-searching matters with any of them.  

In my experience I never felt that they were approachable in that sense.  

They were always busy either running along with mundane day-to-day stuff and had little patience or time for the boys.

Our day was filled with the daily academic and school matters, then sporting matters or scout stuff or marching band stuff,  etc.

Never did I see a circle of boys having a good theological discussion group with any of the priests, and such discussion groups were not promoted, at least during my time there.

Even in the formal Religious Knowledge classes the bible was studied in a classical way, memorizing and explaining passages according to the dogma and very little interpreting and correlating its teachings to modern life and to practical issues for boys our age.

The explanations were kept at a juvenile level.    

I remember old Fr Peter, who was a nice old priest who taught Religion to the Prep A students.

Nice and benevolent as he was, his teachings were more like an art class, making beautiful and ornate colour drawings of religious scenes on the blackboard that we all copied with crayons.

But I do not remember him posing religious questions appropriate to our level and stimulating discussions in class.

He taught the bible "facts" in a gentle and artistic way, but that's it.

Sort of like a cathequism class.

Even during the time I volunteered as an altar boy in Mass and did learn all the proper responses in Latin by heart, I did not feel the welcome or encouraging warmth from the officiating priests, so after a while I quit.

In other words, even in the higher Forms, I don't feel we were taught any critical religious thinking, nothing was dared to be questioned, and therefore no difficult answers were needed.  

There were no explanations of any correlations of everyday mundane things to religion. 

They kept it very simple, separate, and dogmatic.

That was my religious experience at the Mount.  

In other catholic schools, each student gets assigned a priest who is like a "mentor" to them in religious matters, a sort of like a personal "father confessor", ... someone to bounce off the hard religious questions one-on-one, in confidence, without fear of ridicule or condescension.

Someone who could advise and explain how our tribulations correlate with religion, and how religion can provide comfort to our angst.

Unfortunately I did not get any of that, and I suspect I was not alone.

It is not that I was trying to be a deeply religious person, because I am certainly not one, but I feel that the window of opportunity for teaching us critical thinking about religion was lost.

This is strictly as far as my personal RELIGIOUS education was concerned at the Mount.

This is not a general indictment of the school, which was a good school in many other ways.

The general life experience, the academics of the hard sciences, and the language education were excellent. 

Attila Gyuris

MSB 1964-1969

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------.

On Aug 5, 2015, at 4:51 PM,

Nigel Boos <nigelboos@gmail.com> wrote:

An interesting question, George, and one that deserves a serious answer.

I speak for no one else but myself, but what I say is sincerely meant.

I am quite disappointed in the religious education given to us at MSB.

A wonderful opportunity has been lost, when, instead of concentrating so much on the extension of buildings and the addition of yet more, the monks of our day could have and should have spent time with us, impressionable young men in the prime of our lives, in discussing the most important questions which affect every single human being. 

So far as I can remember, never once in my 5 years at MSB did a single priest ever sit down with me/us to discuss questions such as:

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

Why am I here?

Who made me? Who gave me life?

Why was I given life?

Where am I going?

Evolution - what’s it all about?

The existence of God - what proof do we have?

Who really was / is Jesus Christ?

Why do we believe that he is God / God’s Son, co-eternal with the Father?

Why should I follow Christianity? Catholicism?

Church History?

Worship. Sacrifice. Eternal life. Prayer?

And so on and so on. The list is endless.

Opportunities of this sort have been squandered, and I see around me the sad results of this lack of formal religious training, in that so many of our OB’s no longer practice the faith in which we were baptized.

I doubt that most of our OB’s today can carry on anything but a mixed-up, confusing discussion on any matter concerning prayer, worship, Jesus Christ , eternity, etc.

We seem to think that merely by having attended school at MSB, our understanding of our faith is secure and correct, but from my discussions with some of our OB’s I believe that our religious education is hopelessly lacking - I’m sorry to say.

I am no better than any of my OB friends of my boyhood.

But I have been fortunate, either because of my personality, my family, my parents or my associates and friends or whatever, to have been able to meet these questions head on and to develop my understanding of my faith.

And I thank God for the insights he has given me. 

I thank God for my Catholic Faith, and I hope to persevere in it until the day I close my eyes.

I recognize that my Church is led by fickle, faulty, sinful human beings, but I take solace in the fact that we are nothing but a group of sinners trying to become saints, and we often fall while on the way.

Thank God too, for the gifts of Reconciliation and of the Blessed Eucharist, his own flesh and blood.

I am privileged to say that Jesus is my Lord and my God, my Saviour, and I’m impressed that he died for me because he loved me.

Because he has conquered sin and death and rose from the dead - the ultimate proof of his divinity - I am convinced that he is God himself, and that, if he is God, then all that he has taught us is true.  

I am only a weak human being in his service and I shall continue to try to be true to him for the rest of my life. 

Nigel

--------------------------------------.

Glen Mckoy

Aug 3 at 3:01 AM

My Dear Sir George, 

This question is tempting faith. 

As a brotherhood, we hope for honour, loyalty & respect.

Example the French Legion, what does country, race or religion, have to do with it. 

We all came from the same school; we have volunteered to share this living reunion,

Many of us share the same faith, it was a catholic boys school, however there were a few, from other religions that attended the school.  

They can tell you their stories, and it was not pretty.  

I don't care what your ideology is; I think your actions speak loader than words. Cheers Glen.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------.

George Mickiewicz

Aug 1

Where are we today in our beliefs and practices? 

Did attending Abbey School help or hinder our formation?

(Can anyone answer these questions, EDITOR)

------------------------------------------.

EDITED by Ladislao Kertesz  Kertesz11@yahoo.com

----------------------------------------------

Photos:

Bandit p46 The Early Times

66WK0002SWIMMING, Group of kids ready.

64JK0011BENET, Unknowns with mountain background

59NB0001PTATAS, Paul Tadros, Any one knows his wellbeing??