By Jonathan Wright ’23, Resident Director
The following was published in the Fall-Winter 2024 issue of TMC’s Communitas newsletter. It is reprinted here in anticipation of returning to the land of Fr. Rale once again for our 2025 New Student Orientation.
The wilderness has a way of surprising and overwhelming. Since the journey past the reach of civilization is often gradual, one does not so much enter the wilderness as find himself in it. Suddenly, the uninhabited expanse makes itself known, grips the imagination, and incites an emotion somewhere between dread and wonder. The wilderness is at once a challenge and a gift, charging any explorer with the question posed to Job: “Hast thou entered into the depths of the sea, and walked in the lowest parts of the deep?” (Job 38:16 DRA).
Such were my thoughts as our small party traversed the woods of northern Maine for this year’s New Student Orientation. Our goal was to retrace the steps of Fr. Sébastien Rale, missionary to the Abenaki nation, on the 300th anniversary of his martyrdom at the hands of the English. For nearly forty years, Fr. Rale had called this vast expanse his home. More than all of the letters and biographies of his we had read to prepare ourselves for this journey, I found the most poignant account of Fr. Rale in the forest itself.
First and foremost, the wilderness issues a challenge to those who would enter it. This challenge is not merely a question of whether man can survive the elements; it confronts his deepest and most dormant passions and reveals an interior wilderness which must also be conquered. Men of God have always known this—St. Anthony had his desert, St. Benedict had his cave, and Fr. Rale had the Maine woods. All three well knew that in such places, if one has the discipline to quell his own interior noise, he will hear the most quiet voice of all, which whispers, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 RSV-CE).
In this way, Fr. Rale found the Maine woods to be a catechist, not only for himself, but for the natives he served. In a letter to his brother, Fr. Rale records an exchange with the Abenaki where he took issue with the rough-and-ready way in which they ate their meals: “I answered that I was not accustomed to eat meat in this manner, without adding to it a little bread. Thou must conquer thyself, they replied; is that a very difficult thing for a Patriarch who thoroughly understands how to pray? We ourselves overcome much, in order to believe that which we do not see” (Letter of Fr. Rale, October 12, 1723).
Before the Abenaki learned about God from Fr. Rale’s books, they discerned something of God’s Law in the patterns of nature and the struggle to live. Their eventual catechesis only strengthened their appreciation of the lessons taught by the forest.
And so it was with us; we hiked, climbed, and canoed our way around the remote Flagstaff Lake and the nearby Mount Bigelow for two days—but none of us would claim that such exertion was not rewarded.
Throughout our time on Flagstaff Lake, a second lesson became apparent: that the wilderness is a gift of revelation. As St. Paul says, “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity” (Romans 1:20 DRA). As anyone who has experienced it will tell you, this revelation comes primarily from the breathtaking beauty and order of Creation.
Fr. Rale, a skilled linguist, found such beauty in the Abenaki tongue. He wrote letters to his countrymen marveling over their force of style and expression:
If I should ask you why God created you, you would answer me that it was for the purpose of knowing him, loving him, and serving him, and by this means to merit eternal glory. If I should put the same question to a Savage, he would answer thus, in the style of his own language: “The great Spirit has thought of us: ‘Let them know me, let them love me, let them honor me, and let them obey me; for then I will make them enter my glorious happiness’” (ibid).
On our expedition, we encountered beauty at every turn. I will never forget trudging through the brush at twilight to greet a gray and misty dawn on the lakeshore, and listening to the otherworldly song of loons echo across the placid water.
The culmination of our trip, fittingly, involved an outdoor liturgy at Fr. Rale’s remote tomb. Nothing of his village or church had survived the British assault; only an obelisk remained, built on the spot where he had been cut down, arm in arm with the Abenaki braves. That day, despite the lonely setting, it truly felt like those braves still stood watch, honoring their spiritual father. That morning was bright and calm, and the air was full of what could only be reverence—even the trees seemed to bow. It was the wilderness to which Fr. Rale had devoted his life, and it was the wilderness that had prepared him to die. And at that moment, all of us worshiped in harmony.
Eventually, we began our long drive home, making a stop in Portland, where the sea could be glimpsed from across the bay. As I gazed out at that other vast expanse, I was struck with memories of my own New Student Orientation. Then, the prospect of the education before me loomed like an immense and unexplored ocean. Indeed, the Great Books turned out to be more of an odyssey than I could have imagined; even after completing the course of studies and moving on to further ones, I still occasionally identify with Melville’s Pequod, feverishly combing an endless sea of knowledge. This year’s new students were fortunate however: They were nourished by the example of Fr. Rale and his wilderness. They were prepared to “Launch out into the deep” (Luke 5:4 DRA).
For further reading:
Buen Camino: TMC Pilgrims Walk the Ancient Road to St. James
