The Salesian Field 1

The Salesian Field 1

Chapter Two

The Salesian Field 1946 – 1969

Peter began his Novitiate at Rupertswood, Sunbury at the end of January, 1946. His mother, though dying of a painful cancer, insisted he begin his studies for the priesthood and not stay with her to the end. She was content to die, now that she knew her prayers about the future of the once unexpected child in her womb had been answered. In the first week of February, her suffering ended.

The year of Novitiate and the three years as a student of Philosophy and Education passed quickly and enjoyably. He had a considerable amount of spare time for his own private study. The timetable catered mainly for his companions who were stillcompleting other subjects for tertiary qualifications whilst his PharmacyDiploma from AdelaideUniversity was deemed sufficient. This free time was generally spent in reading whatever classics of spirituality he could find in the Library. There were several good lives of Christ and many lives of Saints which interested him.

What drew his reflective attention and study most were books like The Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Avila and the classic works of all the other great mystics of the past who had described their experiences in writing. He was gratified to find confirmation of what he himself was progressively experiencing.

The transforming union of the SeventhCastle was new to him as a concept in Mystical Theology but not now as a quasi-permanent perception within his recollected consciousness. He did not discuss these matters with his spiritual director nor with any other religious superiors. His intuition told him that he was different from most others in the way he realized there was a divine presence within him. It seemed best to keep as hisown secret, such unitive realizations with anindwelling Trinity whose divine sphere of three person-terms in one unity of centre, surface and volume was becoming less and less an obscure mystery of mathematical logic as the years went by.

His reasoning made him determined to submit his progress as a Salesian religious to a new interpretation of Grignion de Montfort's slavery to Mary. Though he put the heading Per Mariam on all he wrote, in his own mind he conceived things otherwise. Theology's Incarnation, when the postulated divine and human natures became a biunity or a two-in-one in the person of the physical Jesus, had taken place in Mary's womb. The historical Jesus was wholly and solely grown and born of woman's flesh and blood. There was more now to him than his once physical body. He also had an evolving psychical mystical body. Physically he was ex ovo, from an egg, conceived in, born of and nourished by a human placental mammal whose primatial order-and-class status was the summit of animal physiological growth complexity and the crowning glory of biological evolution. The latter would continue now in the psychical sphere.

There is a very meaningful analogy between the activities of the physical and psychical spheres. Though it would be many years before Peter finally understood and comprehended the ovoid nature of the psyche, he was aware of it as a counterpart of the womb of the female body. It also conceived new life which gestated in recollection and sooner or later a brain child would be born. Using his own adaptation of the Stanislavsky Method he would discipline his mind and body to creatively re-enact the role of Mary, the Mother of God, the mother of the mystical body of words-again-made-flesh within human consciousness. Though he used inscribe Per Mariam as his motto, he himself was resolved to live, As Mary, in order to continue theevolutionary work of theIncarnation.

His theatre training also bore other fruits. As an altar boy he had been obliged to hurry with the Latin responses at the beginning of Mass due to the priest's abbreviated pauses between verses. This had led to a slight nervous stammering of certain sounds in his speech. The voice training he received in the theatre not only helped him overcome this, but was an asset in teaching, public speaking and later in preaching. He also taught himself to play the flute.

He found no difficulty in combining a contemplative life with the active Salesian vocation. His father had written a few novels and several travel books and Peter was now slowly developing his own literary talents. During his triennium of practical training he found time to write and produce a number of short plays and pen countless humorous verses to recite or sing about people on Feastdays.

He was grateful to his superiors in allowing him to do his four years of theological studies in Italy at the Salesian Pontifical Athenaeum. In those days it was in Don Bosco's hometown of Turin in Piedmont, not far from the Alps. Years later it would be transferred to Rome. All his life Peter loved learning but hated the pressurized formal study needed in order to pass examinations. He was selective in what could motivate his mind's dedication and he was never able to summon enough enthusiasm to become proficient and fluent in Latin or Italian. He eventually gained his Licentiate of Theology with a modest Cum Laude.

He enjoyed his four years of Theology immensely and though he was not an outstanding student, he made a reasonably good and adequate impression on his teachers and was generally held in high esteem by his superiors. He was able to reveal something of his interior life to his Rector, Fr. Peter Broccardo, who was both piousand learned. He gave Peter every encouragement to keep progressingalong the way he was being led and also gave him some wise counselsfor the future.

One of the requirements in his Third Year Theology was the writing of an Exercitatio, or written investigative exercise of some fixed or approved topic. It was a kind of mini-thesis. Peter was given permission to write his on Union with God through Mary. It was a study of mystical aspects of De Montfort's Secret of Maryand earned him one of his rare 30 out of 30 marks. It represented his first attempt to formally put into writing his own theological intuitions and experiences. Almost forty years later he would look back at what he had written then and realize how far Mary's Secret had led him.

The Theology taught at the Athenaeum was strictly in accord with conservative Vatican policy. It was traditional and there was little scope for innovative or original thinking. There were some very good professors, but whatever they may have thought privately they did not dare get out of line publicly. Peter, who had always been something of an intellectual opportunist, had special admiration for two members of the Faculty, Fathers Camilleri and Quadrio. He often chatted in English with them and learnt something of their private speculations. Father Camilleri had written his doctoral thesis on the nature of the Beatific Vision and though it was based on some very subtle philosophical distinctions, nevertheless Peter gained quite a few useful insights for his own writings from its study.Relation in Mathematical Logic and also Theology’s relatio could both benefit from understanding each other.

With Fr. Quadrio, he had propounded some of his own theories in regard to the nature and institution of the Sacrament of Matrimony. It was this same ever amiable Fr. Joseph Quadrio who was the chief examiner at his final oral examination for his Licentiate. Smilingly, he asked the nervous Peter to expound his views on the Sacrament of Matrimony. As a friend, he too gave Peter useful advice for the future. He warned him that Salesians were not supposed tospeculate on controversial sexual matters nor even write about sex.He died whilst still quite young and his memory was cherished by all who had known him. Later, Peter would sometimes dream of him and Fr. Camilleri and be encouraged.

Peter was ordained a priest in the Basilica of Mary, Help of Christians, Turin on July the first, 1956 and offered his first Mass the next day, the Feast of the Visitation. That Feast had special significance for him. It summed up the gift he would like to possess, that of efficacy of word and speech. At the sound of Mary's voice the infant John the Baptist had stirred in Elizabeth's womb. On his Ordination Souvenir cards, he quoted the Epistle to the Hebrews 5/1, chosen from among his fellow-men and made a representative of men in their dealings with God. With hindsight, ithas an awesome ambiguity and more meaningful echo than he had ever intended or conceivably imagined then.

Just prior to Ordination, Peter resolved he would decree a kind of everlasting testimony, written and sealed in his own blood. He does not remember now the exact words that he had used then, but the general idea was that he formally renounced his personal existence as the singular Peter Lock, an I-me-mine, in order to live as the Mother of God and to make real within himself the We-Us-Ours of the Trinity. In his own mind, the use of the possessive pronoun mine wasand always would be anathema. He wrote out a rough copy, improved it here and there and finally the wording was ready. He deliberately cut his finger and with a pen he committed to writing in his own blood what he would always consider as an irrevocable decision. When the red ink was dry the document was folded and put inside his wallet. During the next twenty years he would sometimes open it out and re-read it. He never bothered about noticing whether there wasanything strange happeningto the writing and never reflected on its changing colour.

It was some years after he had been obliged to seeklaicization for mental health reasons, that in a brooding moment of bewilderment and uncertainty about his past priestly vocation, he decided to put the past completely behind him. He destroyed all photographs of himself both as a religious and as a priest. He took out his precious document, read and kissed it and put a lighted match to it. As it burnt, a confused Peter had observed that what he had written was not in its original reddish colour. Emotionally disturbed and with his thoughts disorientated, he was not in a reflective state of mind to appreciate anything out of the ordinary. He was not repudiating his testimony. That had been written in his own blood and was irrevocably programmed into his brain. It was just that the world of the past was gone and that he now had to make his future life evolve in the world towards an as-yet unknown destiny.

Later he would recall the incident and tearfully remember in detail what he had seen. Whether it was just a natural phenomenon or not, he did not know, but the writing had glistened as of the finest burnished gold crystals which remained behind even after the paper was rendered to ashes. He never told anyone, not even his understanding wife. Later on, after both she and he had witnessed other extraordinary scenes, he acquainted her of what had happened. They both kept their own counsel and said nothing to anyone.

The Gospel story portrays the Apostle Peter as being somewhat impetuous. The newly ordained Fr. Lock had a goodly share of similar indiscreet zeal. He could hardly wait to begin his ministry of the word. He had volunteered to preach the forthcoming spiritual Retreat, which was due to begin at Sunbury soon after his arrival back in Australia. On board the boat on the way home he had contracted a touch of fever and when he finally arrived in Victoria he felt incapable of fulfilling what he had given the undertaking to do. It was humiliating in the extreme to have to admit this and what hedeplored more was the fact that someone else would be inconvenienced in having to substitute for him at such short notice. Thereafter, in his ordinary human affairs he would make his own the rule, Ask for nothing, refuse nothing. He would readily and happily do whatever obedience or any person's real need or request demanded but he would not try to anticipate or to force the hand of divine Providence.

He would always have his dreams of changing the world and never ceased offering himself unconditionally to the Spirit-Power within as an instrument to renew the face of the Earth. His pious ambitions were not restrained by any false modesty or fear of becoming proud. It was the Otherselfin his inner space who dictated the terms of partnership. During the Marian Year of 1954, he had read somewhere, whilst researching his Exercitatio, that the ultimate book about Mary and her Motherhood of God, had yet to be written. An intuition made him meekly determined to pursue that challenge for the honour of his Queen. One day, her page boy would pen what she inspired and The Woman would have the last word.

Peter Lock was one of the founding fathers of the SalesianCollege, Chadstone. It had humble beginnings back in the late nineteen fifties. It is very well appointed now and has become a much respected educational establishment. For the best part of ten years, he taught Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry as well as taking a big share of Religious Instruction. At weekends he would help out in various parishes, often hearing confessions on Saturday nights and generally celebrating two Masses on Sundays. He never wrote out his sermons, but spent considerable time preparing a series of pertinent points which he would develop in the pulpit, as the spirit moved him. He rarely looked at the people in the congregation and facetiously insisted that he preached a foot above the heads of the people at the back of the Church. There was never a sermon without reference somewhere to HER.

He was active also in such professional organizations as theMathematics and Science Teachers' Associations. He had been given time off from teaching to complete his Bachelor of Science Degree andreceived it formally at Melbourne University on April 1st, 1967.

Hismain interests had been Pure Mathematics, Mathematical Logic and thePhilosophy of Science. Set Theory had been introduced and was beingtaught in all classes in both primary and secondary schools, as wellas being given a fuller treatment at the tertiary level. Peter learntas much as he could of this new mathematical approach. It gave promiseof shedding an extra and always eagerly sought new light on his owntheological speculations about the mathematical nature of The InfiniteTrinity.The Cantorian Logic of Infinite Sets also greatly intrigued him.

Peter had a prior acquaintance with Scholastic Philosophy from his teenage reading of books like those by Jacques Maritain. It was probably in one of them that his curiosity had been aroused by a statement that Philosophy had yet to explore the real nature and meaning of Unity.

A satisfactory understanding of unity and infinity is as equally important to the philosopher and theologian as to the astrophysicist and the molecular biologist. The childlike enquiring mind of a natural philosopher can neither wander nor wonder in a metaphysical void. No Theory of Everything can be complete without a rational and comprehensive solution to the age-old questions concerning the nature of that which has neither beginning nor end, yet in whose continuum there is infinite provision for both retrogressive change and progressive evolutionary growth. In this quest for the Holy Grail of Philosophy and Science, a modern restructured and consistent Set Theory of Unity and Infinity can provide a simple, non-technical and yet most meaningful revelation of this basic human intuition of infinity's beginningless past and endless future in the field unity of the Cosmos.

Set Theory is a relatively modern topic in Mathematics and provides both fresh insights and also the terminology necessary for the formal logical analysis of self-reference systems. Known simply as The New Mathematics, it has a unique and vital role in cultural evolution. Little children in their first years of Primary School are taught that a well-defined collection of distinct things is called a Set, like the set of children in the class or the set of chairs in the room. Such a collective whole is made manifest by enclosing the distinct units in a pair of bracket-like braces { }.

For this writer, in more abstract terms, a Set is a well-defined Unity of distinct Units in intentional Union. A set of two things is called a two-in-one or a biunity: a set of three things is called a three-in-one, a triunity or trinity: a set of many things is called a many-in-one or polyunity. Using ≡ as the conventional identity sign, and meaning is identical with, traditional Christian Creeds could now be abbreviated to God ≡ { Father, Son, Holy Spirit }.

Sets have subsets which are well-defined sets of some specific and distinct members of the original set. The set of letters of the English alphabet has the subsets of five vowels and twenty one consonants. There are also sets of sets e.g. The set of letters of the alphabet ≡{ The set of vowels, The set of consonants}. The set of all possible subsets of any set is called a power set. With the inclusion now of the word all, complications arise from the unlimited use of all in the concept of a Set of All Sets. Granted that a Set of All Sets is a power set, there arises the problem whether such a Set is an element itself of this Set of All Sets. If X stands for the Set of All Sets, is X an element of X? This may seem only a trivial question, but in reality it is pertinent to the nature and existence of Aseity, the Self of the Cosmos.