JOHN COOPER, OFM Cap
 Gold Coast
My father was a hero. No one doubted that. World War II had ended on the 15th
of August 1945. My father, still suffering from being a prisoner of War under
the Japanese in Java for two years, returned home on the 21st of October 1945.
It was my brother’s birthday. My mother was both surprised and distressed because
she had been told that he was, "missing in action believed killed." My
uncle, my mother’s only brother, did not come home from the war. He was an
even greater hero. He had died in France as a bomber pilot after winning the
Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery.
I was born on Wednesday the 13th of November 1946 on the Esplanade at Southport
on the Gold Coast. The hospital has long since been recycled. We lived in Ocean
St., Mermaid Beach not far from the water. My brother and I were beach kids.
We spent hours building sandcastles of titanium and rutile from the dark, coloured,
mineral sands that have long since been mined and gone into rockets and satellites,
leaving behind the squeaky-clean, white beaches so loved by today's tourists.
We were always on the beach and perhaps St Augustine's image of a little boy
pouring the ocean into a hole in the sand, is an apt description of my struggle
to understand life with its many foibles and its constant search for happiness.
The only thing I really remember about that early time was an incident in
which I learned a lesson about fraternity. My cousin, just out from England,
was about my own age. We were about three or four years old. His family lived
with us for a while when they arrived here in Australia. One day we were both
sent up to the shop to get something and we got into a furious argument. In
the middle of this incredibly huge and disastrous conflict I turned cannibal,
out of sheer frustration, and bit him on the arm. Now, you must understand,
this was no minor nip. He still bears the scar today some 45 years after the
event and points it out as a warning to the rest of the family, not to get
me riled. Both of our mothers of course went ape hysterical, with blood all
over the place. What did I learn from this fraternal incident: "When you
are really frustrated don't bite!"
Milbong
My cousins moved away from the coast and so did we. The ocean receded from
my formation and the country took over. We moved to different places: Oakey,
Boonah and Milbong. Just the other side of Ipswich out past Peak Crossing,
Milbong is a little place, which in those days of dirt roads had only one school
and a general Store - ours. It was the first school I remember. I always came
third in my class - there were only three of us. My older sister was much smarter;
there was only one in her class. My Aunty, my mother's only sister taught me
how to ride a bike by pretending to push me. She had been in the army and was
one of those no nonsense women, who lived in a tent with her husband, while
he built wooden bridges all over Queensland. At this time I was so skinny my
mother took me to a doctor to see what was the matter.
At Milbong, we came under the pastoral care of the Parish Priest of Boonah.
He came all the way to our little state school to teach us the fundamental
truths of life that all Catholics must know:
"Who made the world? God made the world!
Who made me? God made me!
Why did God make me? To know him, to love him, to serve him in this life and
to be happy with him forever in heaven!"
I remember our time at Milbong as a nightmare. My father was not coping with
the effects of having been a Prisoner of War. He began drinking heavily and
became a very frightening person to be around. I started to have asthma attacks
from the stress he cause the whole family. The only thing that could calm me
down was the gold "miraculous" medal that my mother wore around her
neck. She would simply put it on me and I would go to sleep. At times my father
would go into fits of rage. Sometimes he would simply blackout and just fall
over. I remember my mother and older sister trying to drag him inside from
where he fell over unconscious in the dirt of the vegetable garden. One very
dark night, he was in such a fury outside the house that, when my mother slammed
the glass door shut on him he smashed clean through it and began to smash up
everything in the house. My mother stayed to face him, but we kids fled the
house and hid behind a windmill tank-stand out in the paddock. The nearest
neighbour was half a kilometre away. They had to call the police to come and
find us, because we were too scared to come out from where we were hiding.
I remember as yesterday the police searching along the road with torches. The
house was a real mess. My father had smashed everything except their wedding
photograph in its large, old-fashioned curved glass frame.
It was 10 or 14 miles in any direction to the nearest Catholic Church so we
did not go to Mass very often. My father born in London was both an Anglican
and a practicing Mason. He did not approve of my mother’s devotional Spanish
religion. About that time a very old Irish Catholic lady, who drove a horse
and sulkey, came to our shop and went off without one of her parcels. My mother
told me to take the parcel and go on my bike to catch up with Mrs Casey. After
I had given her the parcel she rummaged around in her handbag and gave me the
oddest gift: a small crucifix, (wood inlaid in brass) and a medal of the Sacred
Heart as big as a penny. For me, much later on, the cross came to signify "priesthood" and
the medal "religious life." How we look for prophecy in our lives.
Maryborough
In 1955 we moved to Maryborough and I went to the Marist Brothers Catholic
School for one year. There I learnt to play marbles in the dirt of the playground
and to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament. In my memory I always think that
there were 74 kids in our class, but it must have been my imagination. When
my parents split up and divorced, my father took my brother and I out of the
Catholic School and we continued our State School Education. In 1956 we saw
the Olympic flame as it passed through Maryborough on its way to Melbourne.
Then after about half a year, my brother and I went to live with my mother
in Brisbane.
Milton
I went to Milton State School and was fortunate to have a 39-year old Catholic
lay-teacher called Miss Birmingham teaching my class. She taught me to write
properly by holding my hand and doing a sort of Copperplate. More than this,
she used to get me to carry her bag over to the Tram, because I had to go home
in that direction. It was on one of those afternoons, as her personal porter,
that she asked me if I had made my first Communion. With her guidance, lots
of homework and the cane on numerous occasions I went from bottom of the class
to about the middle. In her class everyone sat according to their ability,
the smartest kids sat at the back left-hand corner. That way she could give
each the attention they deserved. Miss Birmingham never used the cane herself,
because she had a bad heart. Instead she sent us to the headmaster, who had
a fine collection of those educational instruments. Many years later I went
looking for Miss Birmingham to thank her for all she had done for me, but they
said she had died when she was about forty. As a family we did not practice
our religion very much and the years passed with all sorts of family confusion.
Wynnum/Manly/Lota
I had been to seven schools by the time I reached High School. There I found
many of the classes a waste of time, totally stupid and boring. I also found
that having a number of different teachers gave the impression that no one
cared anyway. We had a really cute female teacher for Chemistry and I topped
the class in the first term, but then the mathematics got too much for me.
I hated Algebra and could not see any reason to learn it. In fact I was not
interested in Maths A or B. As a result I fell further and further behind.
I left school at 16 and became an apprentice Carpenter.
It was my grandmother who caused the great spiritual crisis in my life. She
told me one bright sunny day, that my older brother was only my half brother
and that he had been born during the war to an Australian Army Tank Driver.
By this time I had not lived with my father for some time and I had lost all
respect for him. Now I became really confused and lost respect for my mother
as well. I followed that with my own emotional logic and lost all faith in
God. "How could he have allowed such a thing to happen?" I decided
that God was useless, and even the idea of God was stupid. I do not say this
to shock anyone only to tell it as it was.
I joined the local library and began to read the pagan philosophers. My favourites
were Socrates, because he was fearless in asking questions about everything;
Marcus Aurelius, because as a Stoic he did not let any thing get to him; Confucius,
because he said the "superior man" is not happy, nor is he sad, but
always serene. Then a friend of mine gave me a book to read. The book was called, "The
Martyrdom of Man" by Winward Reade written in 1887. I was fascinated by
it and its theme of how man evolved through calamity and disaster to become
what he is today. It argued that suffering was the way to become a noble creature.
I decided that I was going to be a noble atheist. One who does not do good
things because they get a reward in heaven, but because doing good was a value
for me and doing bad things was stupid, destructive and no value to me. It
was simple and sensible.
During this time I retired into my self and read mostly non-fiction books
like Encyclopedias and works on science, art, history and philosophy. In the
end I came to realise that if we don’t get off this planet we are surely doomed.
This sense of disaster was heightened by my denial of God. There was no one
to protect us from such a fate. As a teenager, I considered most people to
be basically stupid and I had no time for religious people. I thought that
most of them believed that the earth was the centre of the Universe. After
all most people at that time had never heard of Alpha Centauri, other Galaxies
or the ‘Big Bang" theory of the universe. Most people did not know the
speed of light and had no idea just how big the universe was. They were all
living in a false world of their own ignorance. I was about seventeen and knew
it all. Then one day I realised that everything I knew was meaningless unless
there was a God. It was all doomed to pass away some time in the far distant
future. Scientifically, with everything wearing out, it had to end and then
- nothing! My life, as a "good and noble atheist" meant nothing.
I looked deeply into that place of emptiness, that has no meaning - and I cried.
Later I came to call it the well of non-existence.
The worst of it was that I was alone. There seemed to be no other kids my
age who knew what I was talking about. No one in my family at that time understood
me. No one in our family went to Mass. I remember saying over and over, "Oh
God if you do exist I need you now!" I do not fully understand what happened,
but something changed inside me and everything changed with it. To some extent
it was a recognition that I needed something to love. Up to that point I had
found nothing that wasn’t flawed, except the idea of God. I didn’t understand
God; I think I just capitulated. Nothing else made sense of everything, if
you know what I mean.
But it wasn’t that easy. Although I accepted that there was a Supreme Being.
I still had great difficulty with Jesus. My acceptance of him took longer.
The idea that this man was my Supreme Being incarnated was a great problem.
I had to begin reading the Gospels to see if he was just crazy. At first he
seemed like one of the great teachers, except that he seemed to be emphasising
love rather than Stoicism, love rather than Social Etiquette, love that leads
into dying to self - to death. That’s what struck me most about Jesus, he did
not make sense unless you believed that there was more to life than death.
But after I had accepted him and allowed him to be part of my life, he challenged
me by being so emotional. He got angry - the clearing the temple bit. He joked
with people - the woman at the well. He teased people - as when he called the
Canaanite woman a "house-dog." But worst of all he cried. He cried
over Jerusalem and he cried over the death of his friend Lazarus. It seems
really odd to say it now, but it was Jesus who gave me permission to be human.
Though I still tend to be fascinated by the Vulcan logic of Spock in Star Trek
and his struggle to become like a robot and the efficiency of the robot Data
and his desire to become human.
God speaks through Mary
After I accepted Jesus, Mary became important. I was praying one night in
front of a small statue of Our Lady that I had in the room where my brother
and I slept. I was telling Mary that I loved her and that I was glad that she
was my mother. Then I heard a voice in my head, like a sort of response to
that prayer. It said, "The proof of your love for me will be when you
are able to love your own mother." I was completely stunned. There was
nothing else, just silence. The words challenged every aspect of my relationship
with my own mother.
In the weeks that followed I challenged my mother on many different levels.
I did not think she would have any answers - but she did. I asked her what
was the most precious thing she had? I thought she would give me some sort
of mother’s baby talk by saying "you." But she was inspired; she
said, "My life!" Wow! I tried again to see if she would fall into
the trap she had just made for her self. I ask, "And what would be the
most precious thing you could give to someone?" She did not falter for
a moment, "My love!" She said. I was not completely convinced that
she knew what she was saying, so I asked, "Why not your life?" She
said, "Because it belongs to God!"
It was a moment, in which internal intuition was confirmed by an external
word, sign or event, in this case my mother confirmed the words that I attributed
to the Blessed Virgin. In that moment I knew that I had to work also on my
relationship with my father. It became impossible to say, "Our Father,
Most Holy, who art in heaven, I love you" if I did not love my own father
also. In time, with dialogue, my relationship with my parents improved. I began
to understand that the War had caused the real tragedy in our family and that
both my father and my mother had been caught up in events, which they could
not control. My mother believed that my father was dead and she was trying
to get on with her life amidst the uncertainties of War. She intended to marry
my brother’s father when the war ended, but my father’s unforseen return deepened
the tragedy and no one really coped at all. They just lived out the consequences
of it. The moment I understood this I also understood the redeeming love of
compassion, the greatest of all the virtues and my family was restored to me
better than ever and richer by far than anything I could have imagined. From
reflecting together, over the years, on our lives we built the foundations
of the great family we have today. But back then it was not so easy.
The Carpenter’s Apprentice
I had been going to Mass on Sundays for some time, when one day at work another
Carpenter’s Apprentice and I got into a heavy conversation about religion.
I explained the Eucharist so well that he said if I really believed that God
came down upon the altar every time a priest said Mass, then I should be going
to Mass each day. It was a challenge that struck home and I began to get up
earlier and walk to Mass each morning.
In the beginning it was easy and quite a thrill to get up early, but after
a while I noticed that it became a struggle. One morning as I was walking to
Mass I was considering just how much effort it sometimes took to go to Mass,
when I suddenly had another of those internal insight that said: "A person
can struggle against the Spirit or with the Spirit and that makes all the difference." I
decided that I would try to say "Yes" to the Spirit. It was not easy
and I had no idea where it would lead.
The Pious Bogie
The young priest in the Parish began to notice that I was coming to Mass each
morning and although he considered me "a pious bogie" (his words)
he asked me to join the Young Christian Workers group in the parish there at
Manly where we were then living. It was during my time with the YCW that I
met my best friend. It is not a title I bestow lightly. He was so quick minded
that it was the first time I had met anyone capable of dealing with my mental
gymnastics. He was one of those odd products of a Catholic education, who although
he went to Mass on Sunday and attended the YCW group, kept insisting in the
most annoying way that he was an agnostic and that the whole God thing was
just too much for the human mind to fathom. At times he declared he was an
atheist, but it seemed mostly to be for effect. He absolutely despised dopey
religious ideas, and was the bane of the group, but he loved people with a
rare passion. The real gift to our Youth Group was his parents. We all called
them "Mother & Father" because most of us were always at their
place literally eating them out of house and home, while sharing with them
all our most complicated teenage problems.
The Young Christian Workers
YCW opened up the Gospels for me in a systematic way with very intense discussions
each week. The Gospel became the criterion for every attitude. It was at the
heart of the YCW Method of SEE, JUDGE, ACT. The YCW also taught me how friendship
could influence young people. It struck me as the key to evangelization. After
a while I was elected President of the group at Manly. Then in 1967 I had to
put my name in for National Service Training. I was very worried about going
to Vietnam and having to shoot people. On a YCW President’s Weekend held at
Southport I went to the Surfers Paradise Church on the Gold Coast and before
the big crucifix there near the confessionals, promised God that I would do
2 years of work with the YCW if I did not go to Vietnam. I was asked that very
weekend to join the YCW Executive. For me it was my interior/exterior/sign/event/word,
challenge at work again. I was on the state executive for two years.
At that time YCW was a powerful organisation with a number of football teams,
a Debutant Ball, Swimming Carnival, Retreats, and an Athletics Carnival. I
was involved with lots of young people and made some lasting friends. My 21st
birthday party was a surprise party put on by my YCW friends. I had to borrow
my brother’s car three times that night to drive three girls home. Those three
girls strained my emotional capabilities. One in particular, very beautiful,
and much older than me, remains to this day an icon of spiritual, love. Her
high ideals and her very special love and understanding save me from embarrassment
in thinking about her these many years later. Knowing that I had a decision
to make, she left me free and in that freedom I chose Religious life and set
her free to get married and have a wonderful family of her own.
I had been reading the lives of the Saints during these two years and because
I was called "Francis" in baptism and also by my family and friends
I picked up The Life of St Francis of Assisi by Elizabeth Gouge. It’s not such
a great book, but the opening paragraph has always remained a powerful piece
of writing for me. The personality of St Francis electrified me. His struggle
with his parents spoke to my struggle with mine. His struggle with the lepers
challenged every relationship I had experienced. His bittersweet joy in overcoming
each challenge by dying to self challenged the very way I related to people.
His ecstatic response to the crucified Christ made the Christ of the Gospel
utterly transparent and allowed his love to flood into and challenge every
aspect of my life.
The Capuchin Friars
During that time the YCW State President organised a weeklong retreat in the
Capuchin "Monastery" at Wynnum North. We went to work each day from
the friary and returned in the evening. The Capuchin "Monks" staying
there at the time were Br Felix de Candia OFM Cap and Br Claude Moscatelli
OFM cap. They said Mass for us each evening. It was my first real introduction
to the Friars. Their grasp of the Gospel, in a simple way of daily living,
amazed us all. We had three retreats over the two years for the YCW at the
friary at Wynnum North and it was there that I first heard about Padre Pio.
He made the difference for me.
St Francis of Assisi and his love of the crucified Christ had impressed me
and I was fascinated that he became the first saint in the history of the Church
to receive the marks of the stigmata - the mystical wounds of Christ. I had
begun to think seriously about being a Franciscan and it surprised me to find
that in our time such miracles were still occurring. As I learned more about
Padre Pio, who was the first priest to receive the stigmata, I felt a strong
desire to join the Capuchin Order. It was in some ways very simple, I knew
that God was calling me to come closer to him, from the many signs in my life,
but I was not quite sure how. Making the final decision was difficult. I spoke
with Br Andrew Hrdina OFM Cap, the parish priest of Wynnum, and asked if I
should join the Third Order of St Francis instead, which is made up of lay
people. That left open the possibility of marriage. He suggested that I go
to night school and study English and prepare my self to be a friar. The big
question, for me, was would they take me. My family background wasn’t so good
and although I was by then a Carpenter, my lack of education did not recommend
me.
Fortunately, Br Charles Bugelli OFM Cap was the Vocation Director at that
time and he accepted everyone who applied. He was a veritable "sheep dog
of God" and chased us up all the time. To me he wrote, "The fruit
is ripe and ready to be offered to the Lord." His spelling was interesting,
but I recognised again my internal/external spiritual bell going off and I
said, "Yes!"
Eleven of us entered the Postulancy that magic year of 1969, when trams stopped
running in Brisbane and the Apollo Space Mission landed on the moon. Br Joseph
Oudeman OFM Cap had to cope with the chaos of our formation as Postulants,
but along with the stress there was also a great deal of humour and the making
of those many special memories that go into building real fraternity.
I do not regret for one moment my decision to join St Francis and follow his
way of Gospel Life. It has been a challenging way of life, but it is the way
of seraphic love and it leads to him, who has become my sorrow and my delight.
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