Boot Camp

I only applied to two colleges during high school: Penn State and West Point. I didn't really want to go to college at all (I wanted to be a carpenter), but it was a concession to my parents.  I got through the application process up until the physical exam at West Point, and then decided it wasn't for me (though the physical exam wouldn't have been an issue) and ended up going to Penn State.

But I think back from time to time at having even applied in the first place. What was the attraction? Would I have even been a good fit for military life and service?

I've always been kind of anti-establishment. I don't follow orders that well, and am not especially structured. I did want to commit myself to a higher purpose, but more on my own terms. And yet so much of that--chain of command, structure, devotion to a greater good--is what characterizes the life of an officer. Maybe my lack of those things was the attraction itself.

Strangely enough this attraction re-manifested itself a few years later during college in a gnawing, persistent desire to join a monastic community. The chaplain at Penn State invited myself and a few other men to St. Vincent's Archabbey in Latrobe for a vocation-weekend to explore the priesthood and religious life. It was a great, memorable weekend. I loved the monastery, the monks, their work, schedule of prayer, and the balance and rhythm of Benedictine life. I spent the next ten years visiting different monastic communities across the country and requested to be received as a postulant at a contemplative community in New Mexico, but was told I was not a suitable candidate. I think it was probably God's hand at work, and that it may not have been a good fit or my true calling in the long run. But, again, the attraction was strong.

I ran across the schedule that Mother Teresa's nuns, the Missionaries of Charity, kept in their day-to-day life:

Daily Schedule for the Missionaries of Charity

4:30 – 5:00: Rise and get cleaned up
5:00 – 6:30: Prayers and Mass
6:30 – 8:00: Breakfast and cleanup
8:00 – 12:30: Work for the poor
12:30 – 2:30: Lunch and rest
2:30 – 3:00: Spiritual reading and meditation
3:00 – 3:15: Tea break
3:15 – 4:30: Adoration Prayer
4:30 – 7:30: Work for the poor
7:30 – 9:00: Dinner and clean up
9:00 – 9:45: Night prayers
9:45: Bedtime


Very regimented and structured, and every moment accounted for. Mother Teresa was known to be very demanding of her sisters while making clear that they draw their strength from the Lord and not their own power, which necessitated much time in prayer. They were like the Navy Seals of service to the poor. They are committed to the goal and the work. When you have big things at stake (national security, salvation of souls, greater good of the whole), it necessitates the need to run a tight ship.

Lent is a good time for us lay people to work on disciplining our body and spirit, and a schedule helps with this. In true military fashion, Lent is a "spiritual bootcamp." Admittedly, I'm not great at keeping a consistent schedule, especially when I don't have a superior or trainer keeping me in check. This isn't trying to earn salvation or work our way into Heaven. It's training, this spiritual exercise, and its biblical, as St. Paul reminds us:

"Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." (1 Cor 9: 24-27)

Let's run the race, and not grow weary!