“Of course, you have no idea right now of what these exercises might be. But Ignatius asks you to pray for the willingness to try to perform them as best you can. And that, my dear brothers in Christ, will be your first exercise.
“During tomorrow morning’s meditation period, I want you to pray for the willingness to work hard for these next four weeks. Pray for a mind open to the ideas of Ignatius Loyola. Pray that you will start his exercises without fear, but with confidence and trust.
“Ignatius says you should meditate on the Good Shepherd, picturing Him in your mind’s eye, and dwell on the words of the Psalm:
“‘He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name’s sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ Think about that tomorrow morning. And then, conclude by asking the Good Shepherd to give you the grace to participate willingly in these spiritual exercises and the humility to listen to Saint Ignatius with an open mind.
“Try to keep your thoughts simple. Don’t try to anticipate what is to come. That is fruitless and futile. What will happen will happen. There is no understanding it, I think, until it does happen, day by day. There is no need to try to rush forward. Pray instead for the calmness and patience to take each step, one step at a time.
“Before we retire for the night, for what I hope will be a restful, untroubled sleep, allow me to say one word about silence and modesty of the eyes. Your silence throughout this month is absolutely essential. Resolve to keep perfect silence. Saint Ignatius deemed it vital to the successful completion of the Exercises. There will be three break days, roughly a week apart, when you will be allowed to speak and recreate and let off steam with hikes and games. But while the Exercises are in progress, I ask you to maintain silence, speaking only when absolutely necessary.
“Something is about to happen between you and God, my dear brothers in Christ. And it happens best in silence. If you feel yourself tempted to break the silence and indulge in idle conversation, try to consider your companions and what they may be experiencing. For all you know, the Holy Spirit might, at that very moment, be illuminating them. Would you dare to interrupt?”
Having said all that, the Master of Novices stepped down to the floor of the chapel and knelt on the altar steps to lead the novices in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Then he stood up to dismiss them.
“Sleep soundly tonight, my dear brothers in Christ. Put your trust in God, and sleep well. Tomorrow morning, we will begin.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Charley Coogan followed Father Samozvanyetz into the sacristy.
“Do you have any questions about tomorrow?” asked the priest.
“No, Father, I don’t think so.”
“Very well, then.” Father Samozvanyetz turned away, frowning.
He walked across the darkened room to the window and stood there, apparently deeply concerned about some private matter. Then he turned to face Charley.
“Was there something else?”
“I was just wondering if you think it would be all right if I made the Exercises? I mean, on the level? Like everybody else? Would that be okay, do you think?”
The man who played Father Samozvanyetz shook his head.
“Leave it alone, Charles,” he said. “Stay detached. Don’t let yourself get caught up in all this. Just do the job you were sent here to do. The rest is for the others. It’s not for you.”
C H A P T E R • 16
At the Naval Photographic Intelligence Center, Navy technicians worked through the night, editing and titling the U-2 pictures, preparing them for the photo-interpreters. It was tedious, time-consuming work. Early in the morning, duplicate positive prints were processed, placed on spools, and packaged in film cans. By nine o’clock, the film was ready for shipment to the National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington, D.C.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was five minutes past nine o’clock in the morning at Milford Novitiate. The autumn sun poured streams of amber light through the stained glass windows of the Novice Chapel. The man who played Father Samozvanyetz knelt before the altar and led the prayer to the Holy Ghost. Then he stood up, smoothed his cassock and turned to greet the novices with a broad smile.
“Good morning, my dear brothers in Christ.” He clasped his hands before him. “I trust that you have all enjoyed a good night’s sleep.”
He looked slowly about the small chapel as the young men sat down on their chairs, inspecting each one of them carefully. “Excellent,” he said at last. “I can see that we are ready to begin.
“You have made your morning meditation. You have attended Mass and received Holy Communion. You have eaten your breakfast. You have made your beds and performed your ablutions. And you have done your manualia chores. There is an air of excitement and anticipation, is there not? You can feel it, can’t you?” He rubbed his hands together. “Well, then,” he said, “your hours of idleness are over! It is time to get to work!”
He waited until the nervous laughter died down. Then he walked up the altar steps to the table and chair Charley had placed there earlier that morning. Seated there, on the Gospel side of the altar, he could be seen from all parts of the chapel. He had space enough to get up and walk back and forth if he wanted to make a point.
For most of his morning’s talk, he sat behind the table, fingering the pages of his black loose-leaf notebook. His strong voice and dark eyes were compelling enough to hold the attention of the novices. They listened to his words attentively and copied some of them down in their own notebooks.
Charley Coogan, sitting at the end of the first row, tried hard to not pay attention.
“Consider this, my dear brothers in Christ: you have not brought very much of your own to this novitiate. Not very much at all. But you arrived here filled with other people’s ideas. That is not to say that those ideas are wrong. Most of them, perhaps all of them are correct. But they are somebody else’s ideas and convictions. Not yours. And, I dare say, not those of Saint Ignatius either.”
Charley Coogan watched his Master of Novices walk slowly across the front of the altar and sit down behind the wooden table. After he arranged the folds of his cassock and turned the pages of his loose-leaf notebook, he picked up the small green volume containing the Spiritual Exercises, opened it, found the correct page and sat silently. He did not seem to be reading. He seemed to be trying to decide how to resume his talk.
Finally, he looked up. “So,” he said, “let Saint Ignatius say where we should begin. On this page.”
He held up the book for all to see.
“It is headed: Principle and Foundation. Twenty-one lines. Simple and direct, logical. Just what you might expect from a soldier. Don’t open your own books now. Just sit and listen. I will read his words to you:
“‘Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.’
“That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” said the priest.
“‘And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.’
“It is as if Ignatius merely copied the words from the Baltimore Catechism you all learned by heart when you were school children.”
Holding the little book in one hand, he raised it, half closed, to his chin and gazed out at the novices for a long moment.
“Disappointing, isn’t it?” he said. “We all knew that, didn’t we? Nothing new there at all. We learned that while we were learning our numbers and our alphabet. Just something that, as Catholics, we all accept. Man’s job on earth is to save his soul and God created everything else to help Man do just that.
“But what about these other creatures?” He opened the book and read on.
“‘From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.’
“No
w, that makes sense, doesn’t it? If you have a job to do, you use the tool that best helps you accomplish your task. You don’t use the ones that make your work harder. You would not use a saw to hammer a nail, or a hammer to cut a board in two. And, if you needed a man to help you get your job done, you would hire a man who was willing to work, not one who only wanted to play.
“Are we all of one mind so far? Good.” He closed the book and placed it on the table.
“Let’s go no farther for the moment,” he said. “Spend the next hour at your desks thinking about what I have just read. This afternoon, we will be drawing some conclusions from all this. But, before going on, we should be sure that we agree with what Ignatius has said to us.”
He clasped his hands together and looked around the chapel.
“Oh, I’m sure we agree that it’s wise to employ tools, people, creatures, and so forth, that help us achieve our goals. I’m sure we agree that it is most unwise to use those things that hinder or hurt. That’s only common sense.
“But the first statement Ignatius makes, upon which all this is based: what of that? That God created Man to praise, reverence, and serve Him? And, by this means, to save his soul? Well, of course, we all believe that,” he said, standing up and moving to the center of the altar platform again.
“But do we understand what we believe? Isn’t that one of those things we learned by rote when we were children and never looked at closely? Well, you had better look at it now, my dear brothers in Christ. Before you take the next step, make sure you have no quarrel with Ignatius on his first, basic point.
“Why did God create you? Didn’t your catechism tell you that God created you to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next? Isn’t that the way it was put? But Ignatius is saying something a bit different here, isn’t he? Think about that.
“Enough,” he said at last. “It is time to go to your rooms to meditate. Ask the Holy Ghost for the enlightenment that comes to an open mind.”
∗ ∗ ∗
In Washington that morning, Mitchell Sloane’s taxi was stalled in traffic. “I’ll get out here,” he told the driver. “You don’t have to make the turn. I can walk the rest of the way.”
When Sloane turned the corner, he saw the gray U.S. Navy panel truck blocking traffic on 5th Street. It was double-parked directly in front of the Steuart Building which was his destination.
Two armed Marines were standing with their weapons at the ready while a Navy officer and an enlisted man, both wearing side arms, were pulling a large wooden box from the rear of the truck. Sloane, following the men with the heavy box, saw the security guard pass them through the turnstiles.
Why not hang out a sign and let the whole world know what really goes on here? The Navy was going by the book and if that let any cats out of the bag, there was nothing he could do about it. Sloane kept his thoughts to himself. He flashed his credentials and passed through the turnstile.
Sloane checked his watch: 0950, as the Navy says. This morning’s phone call had said that keeping this appointment was urgent, but he soon realized that he had arrived way early. Once upstairs, Sloane found a stool and watched the man whose job was to keep track of all the films and files in the National Photographic Interpretation Center, fill out the appropriate forms, write library control numbers on the cans of film from the U-2 mission, put them in a wire basket and send them on their way to the work stations.
Looking around, Sloane saw that there were six photo-interpreters assigned to the Cuban project that morning. He watched them emptying the cans and spooling the film out over the glowing surfaces of their tables.
The specialists began scanning each frame of film with high-powered magnifying devices. Sloane knew that they were looking for anything that seemed out-of-place or unusual. The photo-interpreters were, he could see, engrossed in their search for clues, like bloodhounds trying to catch a scent. But it was boring to just sit and observe the hunters.
Just before lunchtime, two men who were examining the pictures of the Cuban countryside waved Sloane over to their table. They had spotted some military vehicles and several tents along a fence line. Maybe it was the start of work on a SAM site, but there was no sign of radar or missile launchers.
“What’s that over there?” asked Sloane.
“Don’t know. But there’s six of them. Covered with canvas.”
“How long, would you say?”
“Fifty, sixty feet. Maybe longer.”
“Any idea of how to label this?”
After a short discussion, they settled on “Possible Missile-Associated Installation.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Shortly before eleven o’clock that morning, Charley Coogan entered the Novice Chapel to make sure that everything was ready for Father Samozvanyetz’s second lecture, if it could be called that. On the Ordo, it was listed as Puncta: Points.
He was glad that the first meditation period was over. Somehow, he had made it through the hour without falling asleep. With nothing else to do, he had reviewed the points the Master of Novices had made during the morning’s first session. It had all made sense and it probably applied to his own life, Charley had decided, but only in a general sort of a way.
He was, after all, just a high-class eavesdropper. He had to remember that Father Samozvanyetz had appointed him to be the DUX to make it easier for him to slip out of the retreat’s routine whenever he thought it necessary.
After he squared away the table on the altar platform and aligned the eight rows of chairs and kneeling benches, Charley went out into the corridor and rang the big brass bell to summon the other novices. He joined in the recitation of the opening prayer, and then settled back to listen to what the retreat master had to say.
To keep himself awake that morning, Charley had read a few pages ahead in his copy of the Exercises, so the words Father Samozvanyetz now read aloud were familiar to him.
“For this,” read the priest with a gesture indicating that Saint Ignatius was referring to all that had come before, “it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it.”
He put the book down and looked about the chapel.
“What Ignatius is saying here needs some explanation, I think. Obviously, there are actions, which are prohibited by the natural law, by the Ten Commandments, by the laws of the Church. Obviously, Ignatius knows that to save our souls we must do good and avoid evil. That is every Christian’s obligation. Every human being’s, in fact. Here, however, he is pointing to something beyond that. He says: ‘We must make ourselves indifferent to all created things.’ And the key word here is indifferent.
“Ignatius is not advocating the indifference exhibited by idle young men who loiter on street corners. That is not true indifference. It is boredom, apathy, passivity, a lack of interest. No, Ignatius is talking about an active indifference: the kind exhibited by a judge in a court or by a baseball umpire. They decide what is legal, what is safe, what is out. They make their decisions without bias, without concern for their own personal advantage. They are—or should be—impartial, disinterested or, as the word is used here, indifferent.”
He picked up the book again and read aloud.
“‘It is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.’”
He closed the book and squared it away in the center of the tabletop. “Don’t rush to accept that,” he said. “Think carefully about what Ignatius is saying before you continue.”
After a few moments, he pushed himself up from his chair, seemingly with great effort.
“Most people,” he said, “are not able to become indifferent to the concerns and creature co
mforts of the world. That does not mean that they are evil, or mean spirited, or in some way inferior. It simply means that they just can’t do it.
“That is why they build houses and buy cars and go to restaurants for dinner and to the theater for entertainment. That is why they have bank accounts and life insurance policies and investments.
“Now, none of that is wrong. It is, in moderation, neither right or wrong, good or evil. It is, if you will allow me to play with words, a matter of indifference. For most people, it doesn’t make much difference, one way or the other.
“But Ignatius is saying that it should make some difference to those of us gathered here in this chapel. Somehow, we have been brought here and given an opportunity to look beyond the minimum requirements for salvation.
“He is telling us that, in order to go farther, to press forward, we must make ourselves indifferent to all the other things on the face of the earth, all the creatures, all the situations of life, everything. All our choices, he tells us, should be based on this simple test: will it help me achieve my goal in life, my purpose in life, which is to praise, reverence and serve God and thereby save my soul? That’s hard to swallow, is it?
“But I want you to think about all this for a while. Read the ‘Principle and Foundation’ over to yourselves a time or two. It’s less than a page. Then, think about the rich young man in the Gospel story. Remember him? He stood where you stand now, my dear brothers in Christ.
“‘Good Master,’ he had asked Jesus, ‘what good should I do that I may possess everlasting life?’
“There he stood, waiting for an answer, a young country squire perhaps, a young man of wealth and social standing who probably lived up to his responsibilities, who probably cared for those who depended upon him. But he was a man of the world, and Jesus did not try to push him beyond his personal limits.
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