Remembering Father
Belyea (August 14, 1927 – February 22,
2008)
Father Belyea.
To this day, his name fills me with such admiration and
takes me back to a time when he became an influential person in my life. It was
September 1970 - the beginning of our 4th year in nursing at U of T.
When faced with the challenge of finding two required arts electives that would
fit into our highly structured timetable, many of us had the good fortune of
registering in Father Belyea’s “Religion 304: Theology in Literature” course.
It was a long walk to St. Michael’s College on the other side of campus where classes were held, but by October, the
trek from the School of Nursing on St. George Street, across Queen’s Park to
St. Michael’s College felt like a welcome escape into another world.
Father Belyea had a presence. His smile would light up the
room. He was charismatic but in an unpretentious way. His lectures were
mesmerizing and thought-provoking, and he delivered them with great enthusiasm.
At a time in our early twenties when we were looking to understand the world
and to find meaning in life, Father Belyea seemed to be someone who had figured
it out. If anyone could help us make sense of the confusion, it would be him!
Keeping up with the demanding reading list of books for the
course was a struggle, but falling behind wasn’t an option. He introduced me to
writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Albert Camus, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky and James Joyce. Father Belyea would deliver his lecture as he
walked back and forth, back and forth, at the front of the room, holding the
book we were studying under his arm or in his hand. He would read key passages
– just a line or two – and then perhaps repeat it as we pondered the concept he
was addressing. The point was always to go a little deeper. He made us think.
He asked questions, offering them to us for our consideration, without
providing answers. He taught us a great deal about humanity and the human
spirit. We learned about kindness, love, hope, acceptance, compassion and
forgiveness. We listened to, and considered, the opinions of others, even if
they were different from our own. Sometimes, we challenged those opinions. We learned
that simple words can have a profound meaning and that comfort could be found
in them. We strived to find the goodness in people, in each other. Father
Belyea believed that we could make a difference in the world and the lives of
others. He made us want to try.
Here are some of his unforgettable quotes from lectures:
Birds sing sweeter than books
tell how. (e. e. cummings)
The greatest and rarest art of
all is the art of being human.
If you’re bored, you’re boring.
The degree to
which we isolate ourselves reflects the amount of fear we have towards
other people.
Climb Mount Everest: love someone
who doesn’t love you.
The people we should love the
most are those who love us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves.
A person has to forgive himself
before he can forgive others.
The state of the soul is truly
manifested in the eyes.
Beware of youth who are too sensible.
The artist sees through his eyes and
states the profound, the obvious.
The experience of living can
teach one how to think, but thinking can never teach one how to live.
There is an element of sadness
that is generated from every thing of beauty, for example, a sunset. Man
forever longs for the infinite.
Father Belyea enjoyed having nursing students in his class.
Perhaps the reason for this was that we, too, had chosen a caring profession;
that he knew some of the more difficult aspects of life we’d already been
witness to as nursing students, or would be confronting in our careers that lay
ahead. As we became nurses, he had something valuable to impart to us.
I believe that the way in which I practised nursing over the
years was influenced by the teachings of Father Belyea. I continue to live each
day with meaning. And when I listen to birds singing their hearts out, I think
of Father Belyea and smile. They truly do sing sweeter than books tell how.
JoAnne (Garland) Haynes
