noted every detail: the San Damiano cross on the wall; the small, unobtrusive statue of St. Francis; the picture of St. Clare on a plain wooden table. Yes, I thought, this was exactly the right place. This is going to work out well—perfectly. I was very excited, for I was certain my life as a Capuchin was about to start. There would be no turning back now. My journey into holiness had begun in earnest.
But, in case you don’t know it, God has a sense of humor, one He likes to display at odd moments. Perhaps He especially likes to display it when people (even young people) are taking themselves just a bit too seriously. In other words, things turned out very differently that day from what I expected, so differently that I find myself chuckling as I remember what happened. My father and I were led to a little room that was set aside for interview purposes.
The friar who spoke with me was kindly, but after a short talk about the Capuchin life he started to approach things from an angle that absolutely mystified me. At one point he stroked his beard and looked long and hard at a piece of paper on which was written, among other things, my name. “Groeschel,” he finally said, after what seemed to be a period of inexplicable and rather inappropriately timed meditation. He then looked up at me expectantly. “Yes,” I answered, realizing that some kind of response was needed. “Groeschel,” he repeated more softly, this time while shaking his head almost (but not quite) imperceptibly. He seemed to intone rather than merely say my name, and I realized he had the ability to make it sound like it was comprised of much more than just two short syllables. In fact, he seemed able to make it go on forever.
“This is a German name?” he half asked and half stated. “Alsatian,” my slightly indignant father corrected. The friar smiled apologetically at my dad and then turned to me again. “Do you like spaghetti?” he inquired out of the blue. Was this a trick question? I stared at him blankly for what was probably too long a time. “Ah … no, not really,” I finally responded. He pursed his lips and nodded gravely. “Ravioli?” he asked, making the word sound round and full of vowels. “I … I don’t think so,” I stammered, not willing to admit that I had never actually tasted ravioli. (It may be difficult for people to believe, since Indian and Thai food are commonplace and sushi is consumed by everyone these days, but in the very early fifties in suburban New Jersey ravioli was considered only slightly less exotic than marinated larks’ tongues.) “Lasagna?” he inquired. By now I was a little flustered. “What’s …? I’m not sure I … I … I don’t really know what it is,” I finally admitted.
He raised his rather bushy eyebrows in mild amazement. Apparently my ignorance of the nature of lasagna was the final straw. The friar shook his head vigorously. “You have made a mistake. We are the Italian Capuchins. You must go to the German Capuchins. If you do not, you will starve!”
And that was that. Soon my father and I were on the road home to Caldwell, and I was completely deflated. I had expected to be asked about my spiritual life. I had been ready, willing, and able to expound on my breathtaking understanding of Francis, of Bonaventure, of Clare, of the Franciscan charism. I had been prepared to talk of the spiritual life, of prayer, of my desire to work with the poor. I could even name a decent number of papal encyclicals! But I had never expected to be asked about food. Could my entrance into the Capuchins really have been derailed due to a difference in gastronomic temperament?
“Lasagna,” I kept saying on the ride home. What could it be, and why was it so important?
The Tales Father Wasn’t Given the Time to Tell
God didn’t provide Fr. Benedict enough time to discuss what happened next in his attempt to become a member of the Friars Minor Capuchin, but it is very clear that this first rather disappointing attempt was not his last. He obviously did follow the advice of the friar from the Italian Capuchin province, and he quickly located the German Capuchins. The nearest ones turned out to be not far away at all, which must have been a relief to Pete Groeschel. They were headquartered in New York City, at St. John the Baptist Church, which was on 31st Street virtually across the street from Pennsylvania Station. The location could hardly have been more convenient for a boy from New Jersey. He just had to step off a train and he’d be there. Knowing Fr. Benedict and the determination of which he was capable, I have no doubt that he encountered his second Capuchin within a very few weeks of meeting his first.
Entering a religious order at the time was neither a casual nor slapdash affair. In fact, it could be rather grueling. A young man who had hopes of doing so would have to meet first with the vocation director of the order, whose job was (at least in part) to size him up quite thoroughly. A visit from the vocation director to the candidate’s home to meet the young man’s family was frequently a part of the process. Such visits were often unannounced, catching people off guard, and completely flustering quite a few unprepared families. A candidate would not be considered without a strong recommendation from his pastor and the unqualified support of a spiritual director. In all probability Pete Groeschel’s spiritual director at the time was Fr. McCarthy, the senior curate at Immaculate Conception Church. (It is also probable that Fr. McCarthy was Pete’s informal coach in preparing for public-speaking competitions.) Pete would certainly have been able to attain a glowing recommendation from Fr. McCarthy, who thought highly of him and was doing all he could to further the young man’s vocation. And a recommendation from his pastor would have been just as forthcoming.
A few weekend visits of the candidate to the religious community’s nearest house would be a common part of the process for a potential candidate, as well, and it is almost certain that Pete made these visits to the friary on 31st Street. There he would have gotten his first glimpse of friars in their daily life and began to grasp a bit of what being a Capuchin really meant.
It should be remembered that in the early fifties religious orders could be quite selective. They had many applicants, usually more than they wanted, and they were not slow to send a candidate packing if they deemed him inappropriate. A small misstep made by a candidate or even by a member of his family could result in a polite suggestion to begin investigating another religious community. Apparently Pete Groeschel made no such missteps, and equally apparent the Capuchins he encountered in New York were reasonably sure they had found a good candidate in him. There is neither a record of any problem, nor does anyone who recalls that time in Pete’s life remember any difficulty that he encountered in entering the religious order of his choice.
So it seemed that despite his lack of knowledge of Italian cuisine, Pete Groeschel was on his way to living the life he dreamed of.
3 Hall, Belief, 53
Chapter IV
Flinging Myself Against the Sky
The Tale As Father Told It
My great aspiration was to be a priest, but it was not just to be priest; it was to live out my priesthood within a religious community—to be a friar. As I look back at my boyhood after such a great number of years, this fact gives me a kind of quiet satisfaction. It also gives me one of the many things for which I am thankful to God. So often the dreams of one’s childhood must fade, evaporating into vague and sometimes even melancholy memories. Far too frequently the harsh realities of the world eat away at the goals of one’s youth like a corrosive acid until there is nothing left of them.
Of course, as people grow up, practicality must play an ever-greater role in their lives. Please understand that I am not saying there is anything wrong with that. What is wrong is that many people assume that being practical means they must lower their expectations. They believe that they must accept less than they did when they were young enough to “dwell in possibility.” The boy who yearned to become a pilot spends his life as an accountant who stares longingly at the sky. The girl whose dream was to be a ballerina grows up to become a lawyer. Yet only when she sits in a darkened theater watching others do what she no longer has any hope of doing does she feel fully alive. Such experiences are common; they may even be the norm. Yet they produce lives that are always tinged with regret, haunted with thoughts of what might have been, of what should have been, if only things had worked out differently … properly.
I have been