The Airport Run: 30 years, 30 Days, 30 Stories. Day 8 out of 30

Logan airport. 

It was the break from our Ignatian Spirituality class senior year. Joe P, Brian, Matt, and I were talking in the kitchen of Fr. William Reiser, S.J.’s house down in the middle of Worcester, when Fr. Reiser came up to me to ask a favor. A Jesuit from France was going to be arriving at Logan airport for a talk at Holy Cross the following week, would I mind driving to the airport to pick him up? Bill didn’t give me much other than a name, Jean-Yves Calvez, S.J., and the time that his flight would be arriving, 2:30pm. I agreed to do it, and asked my friend Matt and then Jesuit novice (now Fr.) Charlie Gallagher if they would like to join me. We made the hour-long trip to the airport and sat in the Sam Adam’s Pub for lunch while we waited. We looked out over the tarmac, and when the Airfrance flight came in we quickly paid for the fried clams that we had been eating and ran down to arrivals.

            I had made a sign on Microsoft word that said “Fr. Calvez” on it, and a small man in a big coat turned the corner, looked up at us, and the sign and waved. Introductions were made, Fr. Calvez told us that Fr. Reiser had told him that a young man applying to the Society was going to pick him up. Matt grabbed his small suitcase and he and Charlie began talking about all of the Jesuits that they knew in common as we walked towards the car.

This is the same model and color as my old car. Sadly I couldn't
find an actual picture of it though.

            My car was a navy blue 1993 Volvo 850 GLT (that’s right, the sports model) It had been my father’s for 8 years before he more or less gave it to me at the beginning of my senior year of college. At this point in the spring of 2002, this car wasn’t particularly elegant, but the seats were still leather and it was still comfortable for the ride back to Worcester. We put Fr. Calvez’s suitcase in the trunk and got into the car. As we made our way out of the airport traffic began to pick up. This was back in the days before the Ted Williams tunnel in Boston, and getting back and forth through the Sumner and Callahan Tunnels could be something of a chore. As we sat there, under the harbor, in the tunnel, Fr. Calvez asked me a simple question: “So Michael, what theology classes are you taking this semester?” I answered: “Well Father, I am taking Jesuit Spirituality and Vatican II Theology.” Fr. Calvez quickly responded: “Very interesting, I was at the council you know.” “No Fr. Calvez, I didn’t know that, what did you do at the council?”

            This turned out to be the first dumb question that I asked, I expected an answer like “I got coffee,” or “I was a page.” With all gentility and humor, Fr. Calvez responded: “I worked on a document.” My second dumb question: “Really Father, which document?” I expected to hear one of the more minor documents and that he had just advised in the writing of it. He responded: “I wonder if you have heard of it, it is called Gaudium et Spes, my friend Karol and I wrote most of it.”

            STOP for a minute; let’s just break down that statement. 1) Gaudium et Spes, arguably the most important, revolutionary, beautifully written, document of the council. Inarguably in the top four in all categories because it is one of the four Constitutions, the four most authoritative documents, of the council. (2) His friend Karol. You likely know this polish friend of Jean by a different name, John Paul II.

Fr. Jean-Yves Calvez, S.J. 

            OK, so to recap, at this point I realized that this diminutive French Jesuit riding around Boston in the back seat of a college kid’s second hand Volvo is none other than one of the more important figures of the Church in the 20^th century and a personal friend of the Vicar of Christ. Now, to be fair, Bill Reiser’s sense of humor calls for such a thing. He knew that I would be gracious to our honored guest and that the conveyance would be comfortable enough, but he also knew that as the car ride progressed eventually it would be revealed who this man was, and none of us, including Charlie who was a Jesuit Novice and Church Historian, would have guessed it.

            The rest of that ride Fr. Calvez glad regaled us with interesting stories of the council and of his “friend,” andwe hung off of every word. He spoke in a generous and gracious manner that was not at all patronizing, but in fact very interested in what the three of us thought. Here is a man who, in part, wrote one of the most important documents of the history of the Church, and yet his name appears nowhere on it. He was a friend of the pope, and yet two college kids and a novice picked him up at the airport. He was obviously known as a great scholar among scholars, but the three of us had no clue as to who was about to sit in that back seat when we arrived at Logan Airport that morning.  

            I think I learned two lessons that day. The first is the old, trite lesson, that one should never guess a book by its cover. To look at the man you would have never known that he was who he was, and while I certainly didn’t think poorly of him before I met him, it only became apparent that rather than my doing Fr. Reiser a favor by picking Fr. Calvez up, Fr. Reiser was actually doing me a favor by giving me time to pick the brain of this intellectual giant of the Church. The second lesson is much more profound, and one which I carry with me more and more. In this life we often want to leave a legacy behind, but the question is to what end? There is a church here in Rome that has over the tomb of a cardinal the inscription “Here lies dust, ashes, and nothing.” That might be a little extreme, but what might be more important in this context is just this; we can live for our glory and leave our name behind, or we can choose to live for God’s glory and do some remarkable things in the service of the Kingdom of God.

Fr. Calvez counted his greatest achievement as something that he isn’t given credit for, but that has changed the way that we think about the Church in the world, particularly in its relation to the poor. His telling us wasn’t to publicize it, but to start one of the most amazing discussions about it that I have ever had, for obvious reasons. In our lives we can be famous for doing nothing, as many Hollywood non-actresses and heiresses prove. Fame means nothing and fades. Eventually all that is left is dust, ashes, and nothing. Sometimes the greatest works of our lives are the ones done in anonymity, those things that we do not seeking reward for ourselves but the betterment of all, or more importantly the greater glory of God. Besides, how often do you get to change the world just by sitting, writing, sometimes arguing, and learning with your old friend Karol?