| Volume 34, Number 3 |
Richardton, ND 58652
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July 2006
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 Fr. Philip Vanderlin, O.S.B. |
My Colombian Connection: II
by Fr. Philip Vanderlin, O.S.B. 1983 was a painful year. I was in the Military Hospital the end of January for a surgery done by Dr. Pedro Pabón and recovery was slow. I spent Holy Week in Girardot, a three hours drive from Bogotá, spending long hours in the confessional in a hot climate, at the invitation of Bishop Rodrigo Escobar Aristizábal, who is now the Pastoral Delegate to Colombian Migrants in the Exterior. When I returned to Bogotá, it seemed that business matters were more complicated than usual. Fr. Denis Fournier, Tibatí confrere since December of 1980, and Director of Primary, who liked to say “Stranger in Paradise,” was preparing to return to the states. He and I were able to spend a week in Cartagena basking in the sun and watching a film being made called “Banana Joe.” A note to me dated June 9, 1982 reads, “P. Philip is to preach at my funeral. P. Denis DPP.” He gave an excellent homily on the Feast of St. Peter Claver in English! Fr. Francis asked me to be Director of Primary, but I declined. One of our fourth graders, José Roberto Villarreal, died in September, and consoling his family and classmates was a challenge. Fr. Denis left Dec. 17. I was glad the year was over. Abbot Lawrence came to Bogotá early 1984 to give us a retreat and conduct the canonical visitation. During my interview with him he remarked, “Everybody is happy with your work, even those who would be inclined to say something else.” Although I was not directly affected by the events of November 1985, I was profoundly saddened. The M-19 took over the Justice building in Bogotá on Nov. 6 at 11:30 in the morning and a nightmare began. Fr. Francis ordered the evacuation of the school at noon. The tragedy ended with the building completely destroyed, half of the Judges of the Supreme Court dead along with over 40 guerrillas. For a few days it was difficult to concentrate on business matters, so I took refuge in reading the wartime journals of Charles Lindbergh. A week later Colombia was awakened again with the tragedy of Armero, destroyed by the eruption of a volcano. Reviewing my 1986 diary I discover a great year of reading: when I was not in the office balancing books, I was in my room reading books such as the letters, memoirs, recollections of Albert Speer, Bernard Shaw, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.B. White, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Conrad Aiken, Gustave Flaubert and Robert Oppenheimer. With that kind of company, who needs auditors? A trip to Medellín in July 1986 to see Pope John Paul II and the ordination of Fr. Carlos Suarez was a highlight of the year. But the following year we received communiqués in February from the American Embassy concerning reprisals that the drug traffickers were taking against American missionaries because of the extradition of Carlos Lehder. There were jokes around the monastery that the American monks should dye their hair black, wear a mustache and keep their mouths shut! I remember reading Yukio Mishima at the time and wrote down these words: “In a foreign country everything is a source of fear… you are frightened of going (any place) by yourself. All around you is mystery, so much so that you cannot tell one man from another, who is good and who evil.” I never had the problem of fear living in Colombia. 1993: Discovering Joy with Buddhists and Children´s Liturgies When Fr. Francis became Prior in 1981, in addition to work in the business office he assigned me to celebrate Masses with the fourth graders of Colegio San Carlos. This is when I began my ministry with children. In 1987 Prior Sebastian assigned me to celebrate Masses with third and fourth graders, and two years later added Junior Master to my jobs, which I held until becoming Prior in 1996. Prior Sebastian’s dictates and advice were frequently done on the run. One day he stopped me in the hall and said he was assigning Fr. Carlos Suarez as Business Manager. That one year that became seventeen was finally ending. I, of course, did not offer any objection. I became chaplain in Primary and remained so until my departure from Colombia. It was a year of change and a very good year. In May I was happy to leave the business office. It was time for an extended retreat, and I made two during the summer. The first was at the Vajrapani Institute, a Buddhist retreat center located in 70 acres of redwood and madrone forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains, one hour´s drive north of Santa Cruz, CA. The second was at the Lebh Shomea House of Prayer near Sarita, Texas, where I was exposed to Hermits Francis Kelly Nemeck and Marie Theresa Coombs. Those days were peaceful, and I remember doing walking and respiration meditation according to the style of Thich Nhat Hanah, a Vietnamese monk whose books I devour with relish. I also learned what it truly means to “do what you are doing,” but do not always practice it successfully. Benedictine spirituality remains my first love, though. I dedicated full time to being chaplain in the grade school of Colegio San Carlos. Since the early ‘80s I had been doing liturgies for groups of children. Through this ministry, I discovered the importance of story telling and wanted boys to learn to listen and tell stories themselves. I enjoyed reading a chapter in Chesterton´s book Orthodoxy entitled, “The Ethics of Elfland”; the lesson of “Cinderella” was the same as that of the Magnificat: “He has exalted the humble,” and the lesson of “Beauty and the Beast” is that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. Story liturgies became a fad in the Primary. Somebody said that “the shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story.” Parents began coming to the children’s liturgies and we celebrated Christmas and the end of the school year with a full house. We had to organize the Masses with children and parents into two groups for lack of space: transition, first and second grades one day, and third, fourth and fifth grades the next day. CSC graduates still remember this or that story heard ten, fifteen years ago. These liturgies will probably be remembered more than any other aspect of my service in Colombia, and some of these story liturgies have been told on my page in the Colegio San Carlos yearbook since the 1990 issue. The results of the institutional evaluations of Colegio San Carlos in August of 1998 were also encouraging in the section on Primary chaplaincy. On the occasion of my 25th priestly anniversary on May 22, 1995, the fifth graders wrote a treasury of original poems. They will never be published, but they are a tribute to the ingenuity of 11-year-olds. This booklet sits along side the Bible and the Rule of St. Benedict in my room. Not all the liturgies were successful. I remember one in particular: Ash Wednesday, 1996. Moments before Mass started some boys were running around the sanctuary in a disorderly fashion. I became irate and felt like Jesus cleaning out the temple. I celebrated the Mass, but all knew that something was wrong. The boys were unusually quiet during the whole Mass. There were times I wanted to walk out. It was a Mass many will not forget. Some days later I received an envelope in the mail with no return address. It contained a small booklet of about 60 pages entitled, “Trabajando La Ira” (Working with Anger) by Thubten Chodron. It was one of the best books I have read. I don´t know who sent it. A Teacher? A mother who was told of the incident? I will never know. Days later we had a reconciliation service in church which few had experienced before. |
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| Fr. Philip is pictured with a young first communicant at Colegio San Carlos. He has always enjoyed pastoral ministry, and is now working in the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. |  |
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| 1995-97: Some Unusual Letters My life began to take on some unusual excitement and uncertainty from November, 1995, to May 1997. God works in mysterious ways. In November, 1995, a letter arrived from Anscar Chupungco, one of my teachers during the 1980 theology course, and with whom I kept up a regular correspondence. He wrote: “The Abbot Primate, Fr. Francis Rossiter, asked me to write this in the hope that you would consider the request to come over and give us a hand. Your experience and expertise in financial matters are sorely needed here.” Abbot Patrick called me from Richardton on Jan. 13, 1996, and told me that he had received a letter from the Abbot Primate making the request. I told Abbot Patrick that I was interested and he also manifested enthusiasm, but said a lot would depend on my work and the community in Bogotá. I talked to Prior Sebastian, and while he was less sanguine, a few days later he told me I could go to the Italian embassy and get my visa! I was enthusiastic and began studying Italian. Abbot Francis Rossiter sent me a fax on Jan. 22 thanking me for my willingness to work at Sant´ Anselmo. Abbot Patrick came to Bogotá on Jan. 24 for the canonical visitation and we talked about ending my work in Bogotá. I was to leave Bogotá Feb. 21 and be in Rome on March 1. However, Abbot Patrick said a final decision would be made at the end of January after talking with the members of the community at Tibatí. On January 30 Abbot Patrick and Fr. Oscar Rivera, a Benedictine from Puerto Rico who was assisting the Abbot with the visitation, after conducting private interviews with each member of the community, informed me that the community unanimously voted for me to be Prior and asked me if I would accept. I repeated attraction to the request from the Abbot Primate and hesitated for a few moments. I thought if my community in Bogotá wants me, how could I abandon them? It was a dilemma for me, but I now feel that the Holy Spirit guided me in accepting the responsibility of Prior. |
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| 1996-2005: Prior of Tibatí I was appointed Prior for a three-ear term beginning July 1. However, Prior Sebastian asked to be relieved earlier and I began my administration on April 6. The first thing I wanted to do was to remodel the school chapel, I did not receive sufficient support. It was my first unsuccessful attempt at change and not the last. Fr. Lawrence told me a few times, “You´re the right man at the right time.” I´ve never been able to understand that equation. Maybe someday, removed in time and place from the scenario where the events happened, I will. When I became Prior there were seven solemnly professed monks, two in simple vows, two novices and one postulant (Diego Echeverri). Two of the monk-priests asked and received permission to work outside of the monastery. Two monks professed solemn vows and were ordained priests. One monk professed vows for one year, renewed for another, then asked for dispensation. Our postulant was killed in his hometown under mysterious circumstances while visiting his mother. I mention them to remind myself of the responsibility I had for their spiritual and corporal welfare, and to pray for them the rest of my days as compensation for the negligence I may have shown toward one or the other. We spent much of 1998 wondering whether to build a monastery away from the school. We visited many places around the savannah, but ended indecisive in the matter. With nine capitulars in the community we formed the first Senior Council. I allowed the six Colombian solemnly professed monks to meet away from the monastery in November of 1998 to discuss their needs, aspirations and solutions to problems in the community. This meeting was documented and came to be known as the Fusa Document. It was revised later. Some of the protagonists are no longer in the community. Some issues were resolved and others are no longer relevant. My second term began with a community of nine monks in solemn vows, one in temporary vows, three in initial formation. Formation and liturgy were priorities at that time. The formation of young monks has been a concern for many years. Good liturgy is Benedictine tradition and style. We struggle in these two areas. We hosted Abbot Primate Notker Wolf for two days in January, 2001, and construction of our new monastery began later in the month. We organized ourselves into groups to study the Tibatí Book of Customs, the Fusa Document, and Formation Program. Br. Manuel Cely went to study theology at St. John´s Abbey (where I studied philosophy 1964-1966) and returned three years and four months later with excellent results. In August we began Lectio Divina in common every Friday and this has become a source of weekly prayerful unity. My third term began with seven monks in solemn vows, four in temporary vows, one postulant and two exclaustrations. Vocations were on the rise. Concluding my third term the community consisted of eight solemnly professed monks, one in temporary vows, six novices and two postulants. Some worry that during this period five professed members left, all for different reasons, some inexplicable. This is the history of every monastic house. We prepared ourselves for the canonical visitation with group study around three themes: A) Prayer/Work. B) Rest/Personal Relationships. C) Formation. I considered them priorities in forming a holy, good, lasting and true community. In 2005 Tibatí began a new phase in its history with the naming of the first Colombian Prior. The future is in their hands. Forty-five years ago a group of four Americans arrived to build a school and a monastery. Hopefully the Colombian monks will pick up what we started and carry the torch. May they be supported as we were. |
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