Ordination and Ministries

I made my Solemn profession with perpetual vows at Ottawa, on the 4th of August 1940. I was well on the way to the great day of my priestly ordination. I received the priestly anointing in the Cathedral Church of Fall River, at the hands of Bishop James E. Cassidy. Another Dominican, Joseph Fulton, who had taken theology with me at Ottawa, was ordained with me to accommodate his mother and other acquaintances who lived in the New York area. That was the 27th of June 1942.

I shall never forget the graciousness of Bishop Cassidy on this occasion. As we returned to the sacristy after the ordination, he told me: "Father, don't give your first blessing to anyone before you have blessed your parents; not even to your bishop."

After completing my basic course of theological studies, I was assigned to teaching. I had been asked to write a thesis on the liturgy to prepare for my teaching. Normally, when a religious was destined to teach, he was sent to some university, usually in Europe, for complementary studies. But it was wartime and it was out of the question to cross the Atlantic. That is how I became a professor with no further preparation.

I taught a course on pastoral liturgy. At that time, the liturgy that was taught in seminaries was often little more than the study of ceremonies and rubrics. What was asked of me was rather to explain in the light of history, the meaning and symbolism of the actions and words that make up the liturgy. The course taught me by Father Richard Tremblay, O.P., prepared me to look at the Liturgy in a pastoral way as the worship of the people of God, the public worship of the Church. That is how my teaching career began (from September 1944 to January 1956).

At first, preparing classes was difficult. I had no textbook to guide me, so I had to put my thoughts together to present a 50-minute lecture worth hearing. One hardly realizes today the scarcity of books available at that time to a young professor in the field of the Liturgy. To be sure, there were a few big books on the history of the liturgical rites, mostly written in German. These were especially useful for scholars, but not very practical for a young professor who wants to prepare a course of initiation to the liturgy.

Besides that, we had several worthy reviews published monthly on pastoral liturgy that kept us abreast of the new "Liturgical Movement" that was growing with youthful enthusiasm in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and in the U.S.A. with Dom Virgil Michel and Dom Godfrey Diekrnann and the Benedictine Abbey of Collegeville, Minnesota. I organized my classes around the experiences of the Liturgy made in Europe and in America, seeking to bring out the benefits of "active participation" of the people of God in the divine worship: the Mass, the Sacraments and the Divine Office. This active participation of the people in the liturgy would be facilitated by the acceptance of the vernacular language in the liturgy, one of the major thrusts of the liturgical movement. The first notable fruit of the liturgical movement was the restoration of the Easter Vigil.

Other subjects I taught

After the Sacred Liturgy, I was asked to give a special series of classes to serve as "An historical and doctrinal introduction to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas." Later on I was entrusted with Dogmatic treatises on subjects like God: His existence and attributes, His work of creation on the angels, and man. I also taught a series on the Sacraments and one on Mariology. In another context, I gave a course on "Grace," at the Superior Institute of Religious Sciences at the University of Montreal. This course was addressed especially to men and women religious, and laypersons having a certain religious culture.

In my teaching of theology I was always concerned with showing how to relate theology to actual life. Theology speaks to us of God. It should therefore help us live our life of faith and charity and encourage us to serve the Lord in the Apostolate. A true theologian is never a pure intellectual. St. Thomas Aquinas, like St. Augustine, his illustrious predecessor, was also a saint, a contemplative. We are all called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ.

Other ministries during my years at the House of Studies: Series of Spiritual Conferences on the theme: "Seeking God," given to the Joan of Arc Sisters in Westboro, Ontario. Reflections on the hunger and thirst for God we should have.