Savoring RealityAn Introduction to the Childlike Catholic Mind of Brother Francis

By Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

Brother Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M., was my mentor, teacher, superior, and spiritual father from

1993 until his death at the age of 96 in 2009. A few necessary biographical details at the

beginning of this paper will help to frame my considerations of Brother Francis and his childlike

Catholic mind.

Fakhri Boutros Maluf (Brother’s name in the world) was born in the town of Mashrah, Lebanon,

about thirty miles from Beirut, on July 19, 1913. His father, Boutros Maluf, was an educational

pioneer in Lebanon, and young Fakhri was educated at a school for poor children run out of the

Maluf home. Before he was ten years old, in keeping with his father’s method, Fakhri helped in

the instruction of the younger children.

Fakhri graduated from the American University of Beirut with a Bachelor’s Degree in

mathematics. From 1934 to 1939, he taught physics at that same University. In addition to his

academic career, Fakhri was also involved in Lebanese statecraft, being the philosopher, and

later the president, of the Syrian National Party, whose leader, Antun Saadeh, was a profound

influence on Brother Francis.

He was, during his time at the AUB, also a friend, disciple, and associate of Dr. Charles Malik,

the noted Lebanese philosopher and diplomat.

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In 1939, he moved to the United States to attend the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where

he received first an M.A. and, in 1942, a Ph.D. in philosophy. He then undertook post-doctoral

studies at Harvard University and Saint Bonaventure University in southwestern New York State.

From 1942 to 1945, Dr. Maluf taught mathematics and science at Holy Cross College in

Worcester, Massachusetts. From 1945 to 1949, he taught philosophy and mathematics at Boston

College. In 1942, the young professor met Father Leonard Feeney, S.J., and soon became

involved in the activities of Saint Benedict Center, a Catholic student center operating in

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dr. Maluf married Mary Healy, of Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1943.

In 1949, Dr. Maluf became one of the pioneer members of Father Leonard Feeney’s religious

Order, the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.1 As has happened in not a few cases in the

Church’s history, by mutual consent, both Dr. Maluf and Mrs. Maluf took religious vows and

lived separately in the monastery and convent, where they were known respectively as Brother

Francis and Sister Mary Bernadette.2

For the rest of his life, until overtaken by illness while in his nineties, Brother Francis taught

Sacred Scripture, philosophy, theology, science, and mathematics at various levels. For almost

1 The congregation into which he received me in 1993. 2 Sister Mary Bernadette died on December 16, 2011.

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twenty years he was the Superior of Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire,

teaching in the Center’s High school, overseeing the Saint Augustine Institute of Catholic

Studies, and the Center’s publishing apostolate. He authored four published books of poetry and

philosophy, published scores of articles on various Catholic subjects, and gave thousands of

lectures, many of which were taped and professionally produced. He has also left to posterity

many notes for future volumes.

Besides his philosophical and poetical wisdom, Brother Francis was well known for his memory.

He memorized all four Gospels, being able to recite the entirety of Saints Matthew, Luke, and

John each in Latin, and Saint Mark in Greek. He could name all the popes from Saint Peter to the

present, and had numerous other lists of persons, dates, and facts equally at his command. But he

was best known as a teacher.

Brother Francis died on Saturday, September 5, 2009, at the age of ninety six.

Although his Congregation is of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, Brother Francis was a

Melkite Rite (Byzantine) Catholic.

With this skeletal biography out of the way, I would like to fill in a few details that are germane

to Brother Francis’ intellectual development.

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The Maluf Home and the AUB

The family in which Fakhri grew up was one that had a long Christian tradition, but which had

recently fallen into the Masonic mindset of “enlightened indifferentism.” The background of this

mindset is worth knowing, since it, and especially the reaction against it, were major factors in

forming Fakhri’s mind. His Father, Boutrous Maluf, was a Melkite Rite Catholic who had lost

his Faith and become a Freemason, though not a very advanced one. On his Mother’s side, the

family had defected to Presbyterianism thanks to the Americans that founded the Syrian

Protestant College, an institution that had great influence on the family and our subject. In 1920,

this college was renamed the American University of Beirut (AUB), reflecting at once — as

Brother Francis himself assured me — three things: (1) the College’s elevation to the academic

status of University; (2) the new reality of the nationhood of Lebanon; and (3) the “enlightened

indifferentism,” of Masonry, for the faculty no longer considered themselves Christian

missionaries, but boasted that, whether a student was Christian, Moslem, Druze, etc., the AUB

would make him a better one. A slogan that expressed this philosophy was one Brother would

later lampoon: “It does not matter if you believe in one God, many gods, or no god; at least you

will know what we believe” — to which Brother Francis added facetiously, “...and that is, that it

does not matter if you believe in one God, many gods, or no god!”

This is all noted because it shows something of the academic atmosphere in which Brother lived

for many years — at once American, cosmopolitan, Masonic, and Protestant. Curiously,

according to the AUB’s web site, “The college opened with its first class of 16 students on

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December 3, 1866.” December 3 is the feast of Saint Francis Xavier, Brother Francis’ chosen

patron when he became a religious brother.

Dr. Charles Malik’s Christian Influence

Despite the academic influence of the AUB, Brother Francis was a product of the Orient. The

proverb and the parable were natural to him the way they were to the inspired writers of Holy

Scripture. So, too, was the poem, for his people were poets. For all that, he was trained at the

University of Beirut in mathematics and became an instructor of physics at that same University.

He was being groomed for greater things in the empirical sciences when he changed plans to take

up the study of Philosophy, much to the chagrin of his faculty advisor, who lectured him on the

uselessness of such a pursuit for modern Lebanon. “But all your people are poets and

philosophers! What you need is science!” said the American professor trying to make his young

charge see the necessity of the empirical sciences to bring the fledgling Arab nation into

modernity. Young Maluf was left unmoved.

This interest in philosophy was thanks to the profound influence of Dr. Charles Malik, the

philosopher and diplomat, who helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The

influence of Dr. Malik led the young materialist to accept realities beyond matter. This early

exposure to philosophy, while it opened his vistas beyond mere matter to the realm of

metaphysics, was heavily influenced by the heterodox excogitations of modern philosophers:

Professor Malik himself wrote his doctoral dissertation at Harvard on the metaphysics of Alfred

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North Whitehead and Martin Heidegger, both of whom were his teachers.3

His conversion to Catholicism led Fakhri from the notoriously opaque thought of Heidegger4 and

Whitehead to the lucidity of classical Catholic thought. He thrilled when he read the Penny

Cathechism’s simple presentation of the most important wisdom. He often said that that little

book contained more wisdom than all of the works of the philosophers. After subjecting his mind

to the tortuous ruminations of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, seeing the most

important truths declared so clearly and simply was a revelation and a refreshment to his soul.

Thanks to his newly acquired certitudes regarding life’s most important questions, by the time he

received his Ph.D. in 1942, Fakhri Maluf had lost all interest in the subject of his doctoral

dissertation at the University of Michigan: The a Priori in Science according to the Philosophy

of Meyerson.5

Naturally, given Fakhri’s academic background, while the simple truths of the Penny Catechism

appealed to his humble frame of mind — and its succinct answers bore an affinity with the

3 I do not want to do a disservice to the memory of Dr. Malik. The man was an eclectic, it would seem, for he was a practicing Christian (Orthodox), and introduced Fahkri to the work of St. Augustine, and, very notably, helped the young instructor at the AUB accept the reality of angels. (This was accomplished during a conversation which lasted for the entirety of one night. Dr. Malik and his young protege walked all around Beirut during this intense conversation. When it was daylight, they stopped at a coffee bar so that they could meet their classrooms full of college students somewhat awake.) Many of those in Charles Malik’s sphere of influence became converts, usually not to his own Orthodoxy, but to Catholicism. These converts include his two brothers, who became Catholic priests, one a Jesuit, the other a Dominican.

4 Heidegger, when confronted with the unintelligibility of his work, said, “Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.”

5 Brother Francis told me he was never much interested in Meyerson anyway, but was encouraged in this direction because Meyerson’s thought was considered fertile ground for the type of original research requisite in a doctoral dissertation, especially considering Brother Francis’ education in math and science. Émile Meyerson (1859-1933) was a Polish Jew who became a naturalized French citizen after WWI. Known as a chemist and, especially a philosopher of science, he was also an early Zionist. Meyerson and Maluf had, in other words, very little in common. Brother Francis’ dissertation can be found in the University of Michigan’s Library: http://mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/Record/002163464.

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aphoristic wisdom of the Orient — it was not sufficient to satisfy his intellectual thirst for a

deeper knowledge of Christian Truth. To satisfy that, it would take a lifetime of study of sound

philosophy, of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the Doctors of the Church.

I would like to consider Brother Francis’ childlike Catholic mind first as philosopher, then as

poet.

The Philosopher

“Philosophy begins with wonder” said Aristotle. But this wonder, if it is to be fruitful, must lead

us to a deeper understanding of what is. Brother Francis frequently pointed out in his lectures

that a child is a natural philosopher. Children, before they are even possessed of reason, can

become ecstatic about what they learn by simple apprehension and the judgments they form

based upon them.6 Brother Francis would, when making this point, imitate the enthusiastic

inquiry of a child: “What’s that, Mama? … The moon? … Ahhh! The moon!”

Quid est — what is it? That question seeks to know the quiddity, or essence of a thing.

Considering that essence more practically, by what it can do and what can be done to it, we

arrive at the nature of the thing. These are the pursuits of the philosopher, and they are also the

pursuits of the child. His wonder at things in the universe leads man to seek causes, not only of

6 In rational psychology, we learn that the “three acts of the mind” are simple apprehension, judgment, and reason.

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how things came to be, but that ultimate cause (Aristotle’s “cause of causes”) known as “final

cause,” or purpose. The child, too, has this interest, for he always asks “Why?”

Many modern philosophies deny the child his proper answers, because they deny the child’s —

and everyone’s — capacity to know. The Kantian, for instance, is an epistemological heretic, one

who draws a wedge between reality and human knowledge. The inherent reliability of our sense

faculties was something Brother Francis used to champion with great verve and vigor.

In his delightful way of transmitting truth by the device of the proverb, he would tell the story of

Joe Murphy, a student in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Joe came to night lectures at Saint

Benedict Center all confused by what he had learned in his university lecture hall. He was

skeptical about the existence of God, and of much else besides. In an effort to establish a terra

firma of certitude, Father Feeney finally asked the young skeptic, pointing to a coffee table, “Do

you at least acknowledge that you and that coffee table are two different things?”

“No,” came the perplexed reply.

After that incident, the Center’s coffee table came to be known as “Joe Murphy.”

“Truth is knowable.” I could not possibly say how many times I heard that consecrated phrase

from my mentor’s lips. It was, for him, an article of Faith worth dying for. To attack this

utterance it is to deny a child his certitudes, and ultimately to rob him of Faith and salvation.

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If all this sounds unoriginal in its essentials, there is a good reason: It is entirely unoriginal. In

fact, this paper is very carefully subtitled with reference to the “mind” of Brother Francis, not his

“philosophy” or his “doctrine.” He himself instructed us never to attribute to him an original

thought. This is because he considered himself to be, and he truly was, a disciple of philosophia

perennis. That does not mean that the man was boring. In making other men’s great thoughts his

own, his beautiful mind was dilated and enriched. Further, his way of packaging and presenting

the material — intensely, challengingly, and even thrillingly — was all his own. He was often

forced into the role of apologist while teaching. As he himself used to say, apologetics is one

theological discipline — the only one — that must change, since the objections to truth are ever

changing. In his role of apologist for philosophia perennis, he was capable of genuine art and

originality, as generations of students would agree. “The Parable of Joe Murphy” is but one

example.

If truth is knowable, not all truths are worth knowing, worth considering or worth remembering.

This was a great part of Brother’s thinking: the hierarchy of truth and the discipline of dedicating

our spiritual faculties to what is of genuine importance. In his book of meditations, Challenge of

Faith, Brother called the memory “the heart’s treasure house,” and “the abundance of a man’s

heart.” He further said that, “It is of the essence of the memory to be selective: it would be

monstrous to remember everything.”7

There are evident moral and religious reasons for making such an assertion. Brother Francis

7 Challenge of Faith, page 56.

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could also give a metaphysical foundation for it. Here, I ask the reader’s indulgence as I try to

explain what Brother Francis could make very clear: the analogy of being as an illustration of the

hierarchy present in reality.

Something is real if it has being — if it is. The word “real” comes to us from res (thing) in Latin.

Res is a transcendental, along with being (ens), which is the most fundamental of all the

transcendentals and that to which they can all be reduced.8 From the word res, we get the word

“reality.” It is real because it is. By the “analogy of being” we know that some things are said “to

be” in a superior way, some in an inferior way. An elf is, but its existence is as an ens rationis

sine fundamento in re (a being of the mind without a foundation in reality). In a higher sense, I

(Brother André Marie) am. But while I am, I may never say of myself “I am who am.” My being

is derived, contingent, utterly dependent on the only Being whose essence is to exist: God. That

being, and He alone, may say “I am who am” because he is the necessary being, the being who is

the fullness of being.

Whatever may be said at the same time of God and of a creature — e.g., they both “are” — is not

said in the same way, but it is not said in a totally different way, either. Such things are said

“analogously,” not “univocally” (with exactly the same meaning) or “equivocally” (with a totally

different meaning). Logicians call these the “three modes of predication.” They are so important

that the philosopher Mortimer Adler — for whom Brother Francis had some genuine respect —

claimed that the failure of Protestantism to deal with the attacks of Enlightenment were due to

8 What is said of the “good” in the scholastic axiom ens et bonum convertuntur (being and goodness are convertible) can be said of the other transcendentals as well. They all reduce back to being.

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Reformation’s “violent anti-intellectualism” in rejecting the notion of analogy, something

recognized in Catholic philosophy and theology as of utmost importance.

From this “analogy of being” (analogia entis) we can also derive an “analogy of thing” or

“analogy of the real” (analogia rei)9 whereby something can be called “real” in different degrees.

A thought in my mind is real, but my beard, having actual subsistence, is more real. I, a person (a

rational subsisting thing), am yet more real. Above all else that is real, God is most real. His

reality is of a higher ontological order. This “hyper-reality” of God is something that enraptured

the childlike Catholic mind of Brother Francis.

Ontology, or metaphysics, was to him the gateway to theology. Without supernatural revelation,

of course, no philosophy can reach to the mysteries of the Christian religion; however, “natural

theology” — what can be known of God by nature unaided by grace or supernatural revelation

— is part of the study of Ontology. For this reason, and also because of the general difficulty of

the subject and its need to be prepared by studying the other disciplines, Brother Francis put

Ontology as the last of the philosophical disciplines in his schema for teaching philosophy.

At this point, I would like to take a look at two articles that Brother Francis wrote in the 1940s.

They sounded themes that my mentor would return to and develop in his later teaching. These

articles were written for From the Housetops, which was then being published at the Center in

Cambridge, and can be found on our congregation’s web site: Catholicism.org.

9 In keeping with what we said in the previous footnote, we may say ens et res convertuntur (being and thing are convertible).

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“The Problem of Change: A Mystery of the Natural Order”

This article is a meditation on act and potency. Brother Francis argues that the Aristotelian

solution to “the problem of change” — illustrated by the opposite errors of Heraclitus (all is

change) and Parmenides (nothing changes) — allows the creature to ascend to his Creator, and

prepares the mind for grace. The meditation is something Brother makes on a natural mystery,

just as someone engaged in mental prayer meditates on a supernatural mystery. This

methodology shows his essentially contemplative approach to philosophy.

Wonder arises in the mind when what started to be a problem turns out to be a mystery. If

you are working on a crossword puzzle you have a problem on your hands; but if you

suddenly discovered that the crossword puzzle is really a disguised message from the one

you love, the problem becomes a mystery. In a problem there is nothing to be known

besides a solution, but in a mystery there is no final solution, but a continual growth

towards contemplation. You face a problem, but you plunge into a mystery. When a

problem is once solved, you do not want to think about it any longer, but the more you

think about a mystery, the more you want to think about it. Mysteries are visible leads to

invisible realities; they are landmarks on the way to our destiny. Mysteries are

undeciphered messages from our eternal lover and the supreme object of our love.

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Still introducing his subject, Professor Maluf shows himself the disciple of Father Feeney:

Father Leonard Feeney said once that mysteries are not things about which we can know

nothing but things about which we cannot know everything, precisely because there is so

much to be known. Tides, for example, are a problem, but the sea is a mystery. Making a

living is frequently a problem to man, but life itself is always a mystery.

He then introduces his thesis:

I intend to take up here one sample of a mystery which has haunted the minds of men at

all times, and which is partly responsible for the development and growth of philosophy. I

mean the mystery of change. I wish to suggest that meditation on this mystery is an

excellent introduction to philosophy. I can even promise, that when assisted by the light

of grace, such meditations may illuminate the central mysteries of the faith, and increase

our knowledge and love of God.

The “mystery” is framed by the opposition between two absurd positions articulated by the pre-

Socratic philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides. The former asserted that “all is change,” while

the latter denied that change exists at all. Heraclitus said that “no man can jump in the same river

twice” because the man changes and the river changes. Since both are in constant flux, the “man”

and the “river” are not the same if a second jump is made. Parmenides and his disciple, Zeno, on

the other hand, formulated arguments that, to them, conclusively proved that there exists

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absolutely no change or motion at all.

Both of these schools lead to intellectual despair because they force the intellect and the senses to

contradict one another. The solution is to be found in a philosophy that joins — with the proper

subordination — the data of the senses and the rational processes of the mind. That philosophy,

grounded in common sense, is Aristotelianism.

It was Aristotle who contributed the right solution for the problem of change. The

solution was already implicit in the common-sense judgment of men; but when Aristotle

succeeded in drawing from the ordinary discourse about change, the distinctions and

definitions required for a philosophic solution of this problem, philosophy as a science

became possible. Parmenides had said, as already mentioned, that “being is, and non-

being is not,” that “being can be limited only by non-being, and therefore, being cannot

be finite or plural,” that “being cannot become non-being, nor can non-being become

being,” and since these are the only possible alternatives, then change is impossible. But

Aristotle denied the dichotomy between being and non-being; he said, between being in

the fully actual sense, which is God, and absolute non-being, which is nothing, there is a

third possibility, namely, a being in potency, like a seed. A seed, Parmenides would say,

either is or is not a tree. If the seed is a tree then it cannot change to one, because there is

no change when things remain the same, but if the seed is not a tree, then neither can it

change to one, because the being of a tree cannot arise from its non-being. But stated in

the more common-sense terminology of Aristotle, the problem can be stated more

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correctly in the following manner: a seed is not a tree in act but a tree in potency and

therefore when sufficient causes cooperate to reduce that potency to act, the seed

develops into a tree and the process of development is what we call change. This is how

Aristotle arrived at his definition of change: “change is the act of a being-in-potency as

long as it is yet in potency.” Potency is a reality and is different from sheer non-being

which is nothing. Change is the actualization of real potency in beings that are real but

finite.

That, then, is the solution to the “problem” of change: “Thus as far as philosophy is concerned,

the problem of change is solved by reduction to this concept of being-in-potency.” But the

“mystery” of change yet remains. And it is that mystery that leads us to God.

The element of potency in the universe implies an aspect of mystery which will be

resolved only when we see face to face the One Eternal Being in whom there is no

potency and therefore no mystery. Our senses cannot perceive such a Being who is pure

act, but our intellect cannot be satisfied without it. We may be able now to realize a little

more fully how both Parmenides and Heraclitus were baffled by the same aspect of

mystery in the visible universe which was intended by God to wake them up to a

realization, be it dark, of the intelligible but invisible God behind the visible universe.

Parmenides was looking with his mind on the objects which his senses offer, and insisting

on finding in these extended material things the one object which satisfies the intellect.

He was looking for the right object in the wrong direction, and the result is his

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monotonous, uniform, but empty sphere where is neither a good God nor a good universe.

Parmenides was staring at time and imagining eternity.

On the other hand, when Heraclitus denied permanence and asserted that all is mere

change he was implicitly denying the existence of God and the substantial reality of

things. Both philosophers were thwarting the universe regarding its first message as a

creature, for when the world changes it confesses its insufficiency, and points towards

God.

“The Dangers of Scientism”

“The Dangers of Scientism” puts on display Brother Francis’ complete volte-face from his days

as a materialist student of the empirical sciences. He begins with the image of a man whose view

of the universe is literally microscopic:

If a man were to say to me, “I refuse to use my eyesight except through a microscope,” I

might think that the man is queer or crazy, and I would certainly try to avoid his

company.

The allegory prolonged a bit, Dr. Maluf then explains for whom the “queer or crazy” man is a

figure, that is, the villain of his essay, a certain “type of mind”:

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Now if you take this clumsy and most unlikely illustration and translate it from the order

of sense to the order of intelligence, you get one of the most common intellectual types

today, the type of a mind that will not apply its intelligence except through the scientific

method. This type of mind is apt to undermine common sense, on the ground that future

scientific discovery might disprove any certainty. It discredits philosophy, because the

objects of philosophy (God, the spiritual soul, cause, substance, etc.) cannot be weighed

or measured, can neither be reduced to a mathematical formula, nor observed in a test

tube. And finally, this type of mind discards all revelation, on the ground that religion is

not a channel of knowledge and that its value is purely emotional and unintellectual.

After once again extolling the value of common sense, as he did in the previous essay we

reviewed, the author considers knowledge in general and how knowledge as ordered becomes

science. The empirical sciences, he notes, have their peculiar methodology and their undeniable

benefits. But then we see the villain again, that “type of mind,” that dares to make a specialized

science into the universal science, ending in a monism:

Hence we have another danger of specialized training; namely, when man is trained to

know a part of reality, and to deal even with this part in a manner that is systematically

artificial, this man develops more as a function than as a person. Hence, it is that science

and technology carry the danger of depersonalizing social relations. But man insists on

being a person and on being treated as such; and as a person, he insists on his right of

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somehow knowing all reality and being concerned about his destiny as a complete man.

Therefore, once his common-sense perspective gets to be distorted by the artificial mold

which frames his mind in a special field, he tends to raise his special and partial science

up to the dignity of a universal science.

“All reality is made up of material atoms or quantums of energy,” says the physicist.

“Reality is a mysterious life force, élan vital,” retorts the biologist, who would see all

things from the window of biology. All history is made by economic forces (Marx), or by

sexual energy (Freud). These and similar monisms, represent some of the grave dangers

of scientism.

Of course, there is a universal science, but none of the empirical sciences qualify:

The Greeks and the scholastics considered philosophy the science par excellence, but to

the modern mind, this view cannot be taken for granted; it has to be justified.

Brother Francis was, it was said, an apologist for philosophy. We see that in a very clear way in

this essay, for he goes on for many pages to show that philosophy is a true science, and to justify

to the modern mind why it is the science par excellence. After completing this task, he presents

his own schema for the hierarchy of the sciences:

Philosophy, therefore, not only has the title to be called science, but has it in the highest

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degree: it is, as already intimated, the queen among the sciences. Beginning with

ontology, and running down the hierarchy of sciences, we would get something like the

following arrangement:

I. Ontology (or general metaphysics) of which the most important part is Theology.

II. The Philosophic Sciences (the sciences of special metaphysics): Logic, Cosmology,

Rational Psychology, Ethics.

III. The Mathematical Sciences and the General Sciences of Observation and

Experimentation: Arithmetic, Geometry, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Biology,

Politics, Economics.

IV. All the practical arts and sciences whose primary purpose is not the understanding or

the explanation of reality but some practical utility. Their number is very great.They

correspond with the variety of crafts and professions, especially those which are intricate

enough to require the development of a science or perhaps many sciences. E.g. , all the

sciences of medicine, engineering, farming, pharmacy, navigation, metallurgy, banking,

jurisprudence, electrical engineering, etc.

One glance at this table reveals the root reason of scientism. The lowest order in this

hierarchy of the sciences is the foundation of our material civilization: it builds our

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machines, runs our hospitals, and fights our wars. In order to maintain our culture we are

bound to devote a great part of our time and attention to the cultivation of these lower

sciences.This trend has been crowding out of existence those sciences of the highest two

orders, which guarantee cultural unity and a balanced perspective.

He concludes the essay by answering an objection: with all the different branches of learning we

have now (and moreso today, with our ever-increasing accumulation of digital “information”),

philosophy is too much of an additional burden.

They say, “You want to bring philosophy back to the modern man; but he already suffers

from the complexity and diversity of his interests. Wouldn’t philosophy add just one more

item to this complexity?” This is like saying about a man trying to find his way around in

a crowded dark room, “Why crowd him further with a lamp?”

For that is precisely what philosophy contributes to the complexity of modern

civilization: a lighted candle in a crowded dark room.

It is very tempting, after this glance at “The Dangers of Scientism” to look at another essay in the

old Housetops, “Mathematics and Christian Education,” which is a highly polemical critique of

the mathematical usurpation of academia (in the guise of symbolic logic, “mathematics invades

even the field of philosophy”!). However, space does not allow this.

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“Mathematics and Christian Education” accomplishes what “The Dangers of Scientism” also

does: It safeguards the child’s certitudes and preserves his sense of wonder, so that he can “savor

reality,” neither seeking to dominate it as master nor despairing of being swallowed by its

immensity.

Before introducing Brother Francis the poet, I would be remiss if I did not give one more

achievement of the philosopher, that is, his admirable definition of wisdom. I offer the definition

with no comment other than to say that this very humble man was very proud of it:

“Wisdom is the most perfect knowledge of the most important truths in the right order of

emphasis, accompanied by a total, permanent disposition to live accordingly.”

The Poet

Writing about poetry has this author at a decided disadvantage. I consider myself neither a poet

of any sort, nor even a respectable lover of poetry. But I believe that even a mere introduction to

Brother Francis’ mind requires some treatment of his poetry; he was too much the poet for that to

be left out, so I shall leap considerably out of my familiar terrain into the realm of poetry.

In his youth, Fakhri had written poetry in Arabic. He even won a national competition while yet

in his teens. The poem was, if my recollection is accurate, on the subject of Mothers. It was read

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on national radio in Lebanon, and was still being so every year on Mother’s Day. When Father

Feeney learned that his young disciple was a poet, he suggested that Dr. Maluf try his hand at

poetry in English. Fakhri objected that poetry was something that needed to be written in one’s

native language, not a second language. When Father expressed his exasperation at such a

categorical statement of literary ideology, his disciple gave way and determined to try writing

poetry in English. He kept a notebook for this purpose, and when he felt he had a poem to put

down, he did it in this notebook. These have been published by Loreto Publications in the book,

Divine Alchemy.

In a small meditation that appears at the beginning of this collection, Brother Francis contrasts

poetry with philosophy. I think it appropriate to begin our look at Brother Francis the poet here,

since we already considered the philosopher. He entitled this meditation “Names”:

When words are things, we have poetry,

when things are words, we have philosophy.

“A rose by any other name...” This is the end of poetry. The Arab poet was

truer to his vocation when he said: “give me wine to drink, saying ‘It is

wine.’” Being a poet he meant to enjoy the very sound wine.

In the art of poetry, the “thing” that is fashioned into an object of beauty (the “clay,” the raw

material) is a collection of words. The words themselves — both as sounds and as emotionally

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evocative symbols — are the objects that the poet has at his disposal. On the other hand, in the

science of Philosophy, the “word” names universals (ideas) which are abstracted from real

existing things. Words name essences and natures that are real, can be known, and can be

discussed in human language.10 Both disciplines involve truth, considered either aesthetically or

scientifically.

On this subject, Brother also wrote a short poem called “Poets and Philosophers”:

The thing that abides

All true poets and

All philosophers share.

Universalized here,

Singularized there.

To appreciate what is expressed here, one has to keep in mind that Brother Francis was an

Aristotelian on the question of universals. Had he been a Platonist, this poem would make no

sense. The reader might, at this point, picture to himself that beautiful painting of Raphael, in the

Vatican’s Raphael Rooms, “The Philosophers.” Plato is pointing up, as if saying that ideas

constitute reality; Aristotle is gesturing with a flat hand, as if putting it on a table, suggesting that

“this thing before me” constitutes reality. For Aristotle, the universals (second substance) exist

only in the individual thing (first substance), and in the mind of the knower. That said, this little

poem is telling us that the poet takes a lofty, panoramic view of truth, speaking from the

10 This is contrary to the famous “three denials” of Gorgias.

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universal idea in an abstract and ethereal manner, while the philosopher begins with the thing

before him and can explain truth in terms of it.

Two themes that run throughout several of Brother’s poems are immensity and intimacy. In “The

Sky,” Brother considers God’s immensity:

O, Dear God why so much sky?

The birds don’t need that much to fly,

And far less is more than fills the eye.

But Oh! What depth! What mystery!

For God has meant the sky to be

A shadow of His Immensity.

Usually, these themes of immensity and intimacy are conjoined as an expression of the divine

condescension of the Incarnation. Here, in “Christmas,” we see this condescension:

Our sky is bright, our earth is gay,

And heaven overflows with joy;

A Virgin bore a child today,

And God is her baby boy.

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The poems “Tabor,” “The Lion-Lamb,” and “The New Law” are longer and deeper expressions

of the condescension of immensity in intimacy. I will reproduce here only “The New Law,” since

it is also very doctrinal, expressing the excellence of the New Law of Christ over the Law of

Moses, something that had been foretold even by Israel’s prophets, like Jeremias (31:31sqq.),

who is especially alluded to at the end:

I speak not now ‘midst awesome clouds

Nor give my law on stones,

For now I’ve come to be your Child

In flesh and blood and bones.

From the highest throne of majesty

Where Powers and Thrones adore me

I leapt to the pure immaculate bosom

And the virginal womb that bore me.

Eager to run your course of life

To become the Son of Man,

To regain for the world the pristine grace

Of My Father’s original plan.

To bear your burden and share your grief

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To join you in your strife

To bring to mortal man the gift

Of everlasting life.

I promised to be to the end of time

With you and ever abide,

Hiding myself in the tabernacles

Of my faithful spotless Bride.

And there I wait in the white of bread,

I wait in the red of wine,

I wait for loving hearts to come

To give them all of mine.

Not eye for eye, nor tooth for tooth

The law that was of old,

But heart for heart is my new law

Which prophets have foretold.

The several references to the things of “yours” (ours) that the Second Person of the Trinity was

“eager” to share shows us the marvel of God’s condescension, as does His “waiting” for us under

the humble accidents of the Blessed Eucharist.

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Some of Brother Francis’ poems, especially those composed for children, are merry and childish.

Others, like “The New Law,” are deeply devotional. Still others are biting parodies of the types

of people he considered enemies to the Catholic cause. I would like to give an example of a

parody, but first, a more serious kind of poem, what I will call a “poem of darkness.” Brother

Francis was never dour or gloomy, but he could express the dark side of reality, too. One poem,

“The Test Tube, Not for the Child” is particularly dark. It has the same mood as a poem of Father

Feeney, and I suspect that Father Leonard’s “Hound of Hell” was its inspiration. For comparison,

here is “Hound of Hell”:

Pray for the fragile daughter,

And the frail, infant son,

Whom, at the font, the baptismal water

I pour upon.

The cycle has swung to sorrow,

Our ranks have begun to fail;

We know not what gate of Hell tomorrow

Will not prevail.

The foam-at-the-mouth is frothing

In the Beast with the flashing tooth;

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The Hound that was sent on the scent of Nothing,

Has found the Truth.

The guns will be hard to handle

In the forts we will soon forsake.

Pray for the light of the single candle

On the birthday cake.

Published in Boundaries in 1935, Father Feeney’s poem was about the demonic “Hound” that

pursues the ruin of souls, and which inspired so many of the evil -isms then ravaging the world

and causing wars. It was a dark mirror of Francis Thompson’s “Hound of Heaven.” “The Test

Tube, Not for the Child” was less about a ghostly enemy of the soul than a fleshly one, but that

fleshly one — the test tube, a concrete embodiment of the “scientism” we have already seen

Brother inveigh against — is personified as if it were a demon. The result is the same:

endangering the souls of the innocent by undermining the truth (“certainties”) and causing war.

Not for the fingers

And not for the eyes,

I was made to distract you

Away from the skies.

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Not for the light

And not for the breeze,

I was meant to dissolve

Your certainties.

Bombs of destruction

Fulfill my desires;

I dream of poisonous

Winds and fires.

Not for the child

And not for the man,

I am part of a larger plan.

And if you must know

My ancestry,

Black magic, witch craft,

And sorcery.

The philosopher was concerned with certitude. Here we see the poet drawing a causal

relationship between destroyed certainties and flying bombs. The connection is not a mere poetic

one.

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In keeping with the title of this essay, I will fulfill my promise of a parody poem with one of

Brother Francis’ plucky pokes at academia gone mad, “Learning Unreality”:

You have read and read and

read some more,

History, fiction, science, lore,

But Oh! The things you think

you know,

That either are not, or are not so!

Conclusion

There were other aspects of this dear man that I would have liked to introduce here. Under the

headings of “mystic” and “missionary,” I would have considered his being a true contemplative

(in the strict meaning of the word) and, at the same time, a zealous apostle for the Faith. This

makes him an ideal of the “mixed” life — that is, the active-contemplative modus vivendi. Space

does not allow me to expand upon these aspects of Brother’s character. However, in what we

have said under the headings of “philosopher” and “poet,” there lay hidden these facets of our

profound Arab-Catholic thinker. The words which we have quoted — be they prose or poetry —

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were not mere verbal dalliances. They were expressions of genuine and deeply held (even

passionately held) conviction. Besides being a living embodiment of Saint Dominic de

Guzman’s ideal of the “mixed life,” something else can be said of Brother Francis that was said

of Saint Dominic:

“Wherever the Master was, he always spoke either to God or about God.” (Brother Paul

of Venice, at the canonization proceedings for St. Dominic, 1233)

And whether Brother Francis was speaking to or about God, that Hyper-Reality he loved to savor

and savored to love, this wise man spoke with all the certitude, candor, enthusiasm, and wonder

of a child.

Brother André Marie’s contact information:

Saint Benedict CenterPost Office Box 627

Richmond, N.H. 03470

(603) 239-6485bam@catholicism.orghttp://catholicism.org/

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