marianist.com/donate • 15 rrepressibly wry, Marianist Father Quentin Hakenewerth offers another man’s ditty as a way of summing up his own impact on Marianist spiri- tuality over the past five decades. “When I am dead/I hope it is said though his sins were scarlet/his books were read,” he smiles, quoting Anglo-French historian Hilaire Belloc. Indeed, since the publication of Father Quentin’s “Grain of Wheat” in 1968, few writings have made a broader impression on those seeking to practice the System of Virtues — Chaminade’s exercises in Marianist spirituality that he developed in the 1830s. “I don’t know of any author who’s had a wider impact,” says Marianist Brother Larry Cada, coordinator of research at the North American Center for Marianist Studies. “Father Quentin is an important popularizer who’s helped people understand the System of Virtues throughout the English-speaking world.” Growing up in a small town, and then on a farm in Lincoln County, Missouri, he admits that early on he didn’t see what others saw in him: the potential for a religious vocation. At the urging of grade school teachers, the Precious Blood Sisters, his parents sent him to Chaminade College Preparatory School in St. Louis in the early 1940s, his first encounter with the Society of Mary. By the end of freshman year, the Marianists were asking him to explore the possibility of a call. “I didn’t have a reason to say ‘no,’” he says, “so I went to the postulate the next year,” — the first step, at that time, to becoming a Marianist. Still, no lightning bolts or angelic voices occurred confirming his call as formation began. Rather, “I just grew into it,” he says. Only many years later, during seminary training at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, did he begin to make a personal connec- tion to the System of Virtues. Like every vowed Marianist, Father Quentin had encountered Chaminade’s writings both at novitiate and in other experiences of community life. “But I studied it as an idea, not something to live,” he recalls. “It never moved me very much.” The big aha The light-bulb moment came during a 30-day retreat at Fribourg. Seeking to go deeper into the renowned spiri- tual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, he was encouraged by a Jesuit retreat master to explore Chaminade’s System of Virtues instead. “’Live it. Use it,’ he told me,” Father Quentin says. “So I started practicing them and discovered that I had a long way to go.” At the heart of the System, comprised of 18 virtues or exercises, is a deceptively simple notion: “Each human being starts very small, with a lot of potential, and our task is to grow up, to fully develop all these capacities,” Father Quentin notes. The System provides a toolbox of sorts, specific habits that ultimately enable us to mature and give fully of ourselves. (The Five Silences are incorporated in this System; see page 12.) Shortly after ordination in 1961, Father Quentin began sharing his insights about Marianist spirituality in a series of retreats he presented to fellow Marianists, and later to the two titles he’s published on the topic: “Growing in the Virtues of Jesus” and “A Manual of Marianist Spirituality.” A teacher at heart, Father Quentin was surprised to be called into other ministries in the 1970s and ‘80s — first, in formation roles and then Provincial leader- ship. Eventually, he wound up in Rome to serve in the Society’s General Administration as Superior General of the order in 1991. Of that time he says, “It was an enriching experience, just to see so many different cultures and situations from around the world, but to know there’s a basic unity, too — that we’ve all got something to do together.” After completing his term at the GA in 1996, Father Quentin returned to formation work, this time in Mexico, directing novices, scholastics and pre-novices at houses of study in Puebla and Querétaro where he continues to serve today. Still on this transforming journey at age 88, Father Quentin offers a comforting truth, one arrived through humble and earnest practice: “You’re dealing with an infinite God,” he says, “so you’re never really finished. You just keep growing.” ■ John Schroeder is a freelance writer from St. Louis. MARIANIST SPIRITUALITY Father Quentin Hakenewerth is a leading authority on Marianist Spirituality. His books — “The Grain of Wheat,” “Growing in the Virtues of Jesus,” and “A Manual of Marianist Spirituality,”— were resources for MSP 2.0 (see story, page 10) and are highly recommended for anyone interested in Chaminade’s System of Virtues. Available from the North American Center for Marianist Studies, nacms.org or call 937.429.2521. I