PROVINCE INFORMATION
THE OTHER SIDE
OF WHITE
CHAPTER 1:
SR. MOIRA
CHAPTER 2:
FR. MORRISON |
Voices of the
Western Dominican Province
THE OTHER SIDE OF WHITE:
STORIES ABOUT DOMINICANS
I HAVE KNOWN
Chapter 2: Fr. Morrison
By Br. Daniel Thomas, OP
The
first time I met a Dominican Friar was
when Fr. Tom Morrison came to our parish to conduct a week-long mission. I got balled out
for not knowing how to serve the Dominican Rite Mass. In those pre-Vatican Council days,
there were several things that Dominicans did in the Mass that were different from what I
was trained in. As a youngster, I served Mass more by rote than by understanding. I knew
the routine but if anything interrupted the flow that I was used to, I was at an extreme
disadvantage. This Dominican rocked the boat of my liturgical understanding.
He told me that I should serve the wine and water right at the
beginning of Mass. We were to process out in the usual manner but then I was to go
immediately to the credence table and bring him the wine and water. Remember now, this was
in an era of well trained altar boys who's every movement was strictly ritualized. We new
exactly how many paces it was from here to there and we knew exactly when and how far to
bow. Here was something new. I was being asked to deviate from the trained and well known
procedure and do something that was not in my script. Still, I was an inventive and
creative person and said to myself, "Well, I know that part. He's just doing it at a
different time." So I proceeded to present the wine and water which he received
gracefully. Then I went on to get the water bowl and the finger towel. I figured, "If
he's moved this part of the Mass to the front I'll just go on from there." And so
there I was, standing at the edge of the altar steps with finger bowl, water cruet and
towel and Fr. Morrison was back at the foot of the altar ready to begin the Mass. This was
all happening in a situation that did not admit of talking to the other server or of
looking down at the congregation for a clue or hint. Anyway, the congregation seemed to be
miles away from us and even though the space was not all that large it felt like the walk
from the side of the sanctuary over to the middle was a walk from here to
Timbuktu.
Somehow I made it through the rest of the Mass even though I was in a sweat for most of
it.
I forget what exactly he called me
afterwards but I know it was something like, "dumbkoff" of
"knucklehead" and when I passed by him out in the school yard later he was not
mad at me. He was smoking a big cigar and said, "You did 'OK', pal. You'll get used
to it." Years later when I entered the Dominicans he was stationed at the Novitiate
in Ross. I learned that he had the nick name, "Hot Ashes," I guess because of
his cigars and his ability to quickly come back with a clever line. He was a "W. C.
Fields" type character who spouted "one liners" which I presumed he got from
the many books on his shelves with titles like "Toastmasters Openers" and
"One Liners for All Occasions." There was a certain style of preaching in those
days that used those kinds of helps. He was on the road giving missions and novenas more
than he was at home but when he was there I'm sure that he was seen as a kind of nemesis
since he would brake through the otherwise stuffy and ridged novitiate style and upset the
Prior and Novice Master. Most of us, though, got a kick out of his antics since he was so
different from our Prior, Fr. Thomas Gabish.
Fr. Morrison had long since forgotten some of the rituals that we
were being drilled in as postulants and novices. We would process into the Chapel or the
Refectory in very solemn fashion and he would come sauntering in slightly out of step
making little wise-cracks as he passed by where we were all lined up to begin the prayers.
When I was working in the kitchen he would often come in before dinner, drink in hand,
breaking all the rules about silence and categories, and get us all laughing. I guess that
he was so used to being in diocesan rectories most of the time that the strict lifestyle
of our Novitiate House was alien to him. I know that he was the cause of most of our
laughter and break ups and maybe that was his gift to us that kept us sane in an otherwise
strict and rigid formation training.
As I progressed in my training and moved on,
I didn't see much of Fr. Morrison. He continued his itinerant preaching up and down the
west coast giving missions and conducting novenas. As he got older he took a position as
Chaplain at the Sisters Hospital in Merced, California and he would occasionally write for
our Province Newsletters and always sign his pieces, "The Sage of Merced." None
of us saw him very much in those later years. When he was no longer able to be out on his
own he came back to live at St. Dominic's in San Francisco. When I came to be assigned
there in the summer of 1987 he was already beginning to fail. He was almost stone deaf and
couldn't get around easily. It was just a short time before he required medical attention
and had to move into a skilled nursing home. I remember seeing a photograph of him that
has stuck in my memory. He was sitting in a wheel chair in the community room of St.
Dominic's, surrounded by the fathers and brothers with Mother Theresa standing right next
to him with her hand on his shoulder.
As I look
back, I can so vividly see an image of him the first time I met him at our Parish
in Oakland, California when I was only a teenager. And I remember his antics when I was a
postulant at Ross and the way he kept us all from going crazy by breaking through the
stuffiness of Novitiate life. But the image I think is most touching is the one of
him with the friars and Mother Theresa when he was so close to the end of his life.
Fr. Morrison was 87 years old when he died on December 27, 1989.
At the time of this posting, Br. Daniel Thomas was the
Director of St. Benedict Lodge, a Dominican Retreat and Conference Center in McKenzie
Bridge, Oregon. This is his second chapter in the series "The Other Side of
White." He can be reached at bdtop@efn.org.
This series will be continued as Brother talks about other Dominicans in this series,
"The Other Side of White." |
