A Friend Goes On Vacation

Emails from the Desert...A Friend Goes On Vacation
Reprinted from the Asian Journal

Around 1990, Lucie and I visited the Blessed Sacrament at St. James Church in Solana Beach. The parish kept a selection of books for those interested in reading while keeping vigil in the chapel. She picked a small volume from the stack, entitled “Opening to God” by Thomas H. Green, S. J., and handed it to me.

We were both fascinated by the author’s bio on the back cover, which in part read: “Father Thomas Green is a native of Rochester, New York...has advanced degrees in education and physics from Fordham University...and a Ph. D from the University of Notre Dame...is presently the Spiritual Director of San Jose Seminary, Manila, Philippines and Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Ateneo de Manila University.”

It was an engrossing book on prayer. Fr. Green had a unique way of lucidly explaining the “Our Father”, as I had never heard or read before. Consequently, I began to pray the “Lord’s Prayer” with a better understanding since I first recited it in kindergarten. I tracked down the books that Fr. Green had used as references for his work. That research opened up a wealth of classic works on prayer and spirituality.

Faithful to his Jesuit upbringing, Fr. Green blended the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola which I was familiar with and Carmelite spirituality which I was interested in but found difficult to decipher. The collected works of the famous Carmelite poet, St. John of the Cross, are fascinating but tough to grasp. Fr. Green, however, made it easier to understand St. John’s mystical theological concepts.

Fr. Green, I found out, was a very popular retreat and spiritual director in Manila (his conferences were standing room only). He had written many popular books. I understood why he was so well-loved by his audience as I read all his books: When the Well Runs Dry, Darkness in the Marketplace, Weeds Among the Wheat, A Vacation with the Lord, Drinking from a Dry Well, Prayer and Common Sense, Come Down Zacchaeus, The Friend of the Bridegroom.

I learned that Fr. Green’s manuscripts were published by Ave Maria Press of the University of Notre Dame and that his books were so well received that they were published in several languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, and Indonesian). Later, I had the opportunity to meet with Frank Cunningham, editor and publisher of Ave Maria Press. It was delightful to learn how Fr. Tom and Mr. Cunningham worked together to develop so many popular books.

Soon after I read his first book, “Opening to God”, I wrote Fr. Green a short letter to let him know how much I enjoyed reading the book. To my surprise, he promptly sent me a postcard, acknowledging my letter and informing me that he was on a trip to several Asian countries to conduct retreats and conferences, as was his practice during his summer vacation.

Thus started a series of letters (emails when the internet later became available), which culminated in my visits to San Jose Seminary to chat with him. He returned the favor by spending time with our family in San Diego, celebrating Mass at home and giving a lecture at USD.

I always knew when Christmas was around the corner. Fr. Tom’s newsletter was always the first to arrive, usually around the first or second week of December. My family newsletter, on the other hand, usually got to the post office after Christmas or the New Year, and in some extreme years, at Valentine’s!

It was an honor and a privilege to have known Fr. Tom. He made my day when he sent me a personal copy of his book as soon as it got published. He reviewed the manuscript of my first book and suggested the title: “From Mt. Krizevac to Mt. Carmel” because, as he pointed out, it was two books in one. Last year, even as his health was failing, he reviewed and wrote a blurb for my second book, “Virtuous Healers: Models of Faith in Medicine”.

It was a very sad day, when I received an email from Fr. Khing Vano that Fr. Tom Green had passed away. His last Christmas letter had indicated that his health was deteriorating and that he was waiting to see what the Lord had in store for him.

It is a gift to get to know a dedicated missionary, a famous author and a living saint fairly well. I am grateful for the communications and conversations we had over the years. Fr. Tom taught his students at San Jose Seminary and his retreatants many valuable things. Faithfulness and trust in Divine Providence was one of them. As a young missionary, he had been directed to start his missionary work in Japan. Due to a drastic change in circumstances, however, he ended up in Manila instead. He did not understand why that happened, but he never questioned the Lord’s plans for him. And thus he flourished where he was planted.

The lesson I like the most was his insistence that spending time in prayer (even in “dry prayer”, as when “the well runs dry”) was not a waste of time because spending time with the Lord never is. He said not to worry if we did not feel like we were progressing spiritually. He offered the example of an operation, for instance an appendectomy.

Prior to the operation, the patient would experience abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. During the operation, when the patient was under general anesthesia, he or she would obviously be unaware of the extent of the surgeon’s technical efforts to correct the problem. After surgery, in the recovery room, the patient would wake up, still experiencing abdominal pain from the incision and nausea or vomiting from the anesthetic drugs. For the patient, nothing has changed. His condition remains as dire as ever.

As in the spiritual life, only God knows how much work has been done inside us. We remain clueless.

Fr. Green encouraged everyone to set aside time for a retreat, or what he called “A Vacation with the Lord”. I truly believe that Fr. Tom Green is now spending a grand vacation with his Friend.

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more E-mails from the Desert

Dr. Gamboa is also the author of the book "Virtuous Healers", a collection of essays that offers a timely, insightful, and often personal look into healing and spirituality, life and death, in everyday encounters.- AJ

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