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THE GRADUATE AND THE NOVICE
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Jesuit Oregon Province
Jesuit seminarians at Mass at the Novitiate of St. Francis Xavier, Sheridan, Oregon, in 1949.
them; “they were just there.” He trusted God would let him know if the
collar fit. He devised a code to let his sister know how it was going.
SPELLMAN IMPRESSED everyone he encountered at the novitiate. “John was
a model novice; very prayerful yet never stiff; always a joy to be with. He had
a marvelous sense of humor and kindness,” says the Rev. John Navone, a
classmate who went on to spend years in Rome as a revered professor, theologian
and writer. Another fellow novice, the Rev. Tom McCarthy, recalls
Spellman as “just a really nice guy; obviously very bright, from a family that
valued faith and education.”
Their surroundings were perfectly pastoral. “It was a thousand acres of
heavenly Oregon countryside overlooking the Yamhill Valley,” Navone said
wistfully, 62 years later. “The meat was wonderful—the bread wonderful,
too. There were prune orchards, livestock and crops to tend. Our outdoor
exercise was agricultural.” Inside, the 85 novices lived in a big, long room.
Their cells were fashioned from wooden partitions that stopped short of the
ceiling. Each room had a drape for a door, a desk, a kneeler and a bed. “It
was very austere, yet very cheerful,” says Navone. They had a common washroom.
From time to time there was a shortage of water, and when there was
plenty it was often cold. Once to bed, no one spoke—the magnum silentium,
the great silence—until after breakfast the next day. No newspapers, no