18 sept

Saint Bernard and Saint Francis. In an original plan for this trip I thought I was going to focus on these two saints. The first seeking austerity, the second going for plain poverty. I am not sure if we have time enough to focus on Francis, but the original thought reminded me of some family history.

In my mothers family there were four priest uncles, including a Bernard and a Frans. Bernard was a parish priest in Zeelst, a very small town close to Eindhoven. He studied theology and wrote a doctorate thesis about Thomas Aquinas, if I am wright. I have a copy of the book, it must have been written in the twenties, but I do not remember ever looking into it. Because his rather advanced intellect it was rather surprising that he never got a more prominent parish. This is what I remember my grandma quietly complaining about. The reasoning that she came up with was that he had a rather delicate health. The real reason was probably that he was hopelessly old fashioned and because of that reason not very much favoured in the rather enlighted diocese that the bishops in Brabant were heading over.

Anyway, as a young boy these things didn’t matter to me. He was a very tall man, even taller than I am now and lived like a prince in a very large parish house. It is still the ideal kind of house to me. With a library, a large kitchen fruit trees in the yard and a large winecellar that still accommodated barrels of wine instead of just bottles. Instead of a wife he had a housemaid, which has its advantages. He smoked large cigars and was always keen on discussing the latest results of our favourite football team, PSV. I liked him.

‘Heeroom’ – as we called priest uncles – Frans I never knew. He died when I was two or something. He was also very old fashioned, probably even more than his younger brother. He was a professor at Nijmegen University, teaching canonic right, which, as far as I ever knew, consisted of theories where it was possible to divorce (basically being possible when the marriage wasn’t consummated, if that is an english word) and how to become a saint. He taught for ages. He perfected his college lessons very early on, so that later he had a blueprint that he would not detract from, which is at least a sign of lack of curiosity, if you ask me.

Heeroom Frans was rich, at least rich for our family standards. He owned several houses, including the one he would sell to my grandparents (his youngest sister was my grandmother) and in which I lived for two years while studying history in Nijmegen. To me the lives of these great uncles of mine belonged to a very distant past. But just as I like the house that Bernard lived in, I kind of liked the theatre that was involved in the priesthood. Heeroom Frans was a monseigneur, which is something higher up in the catholic hierarchy. He was allowed to wear a purple hat, which in my memory was still laying at my grandma’s attic. There definitely was a painting of him in full regalia that hung in my room and with which I loved to shock my very progressive and very anti-catholic fellow students.

I mean, there has always been some kind of fascination with Christian history in my life.

One other good story about Bernard. His health was so delicate that he could almost constantly smoke quite large cigars and still become something like 85, at which time he was living in the house of my grandparents. He had a heart attack while playing a game of cards as I remember. An uncle, who lived down the street, was asked to come over and check the situation. He arrived , observed that the heart of Bernard wasn’t beating anymore, but his cigar was still burning.

I wouldn’t mind to die one day like that.