A visit to Shadowbrook, the old New England Province novitiate, in Lenox, Mass. This place has a long, beautiful (and tragic) history. The original Jesuit novitiate was the former Andrew Carnegie mansion in the Berkshires, in Western Massachusetts, called Shadowbrook. It was called by this name by the Jesuits who bought the place in the 1920s, where it served generations of novices in the New England Province. In March 1956, a terrible fire destroyed the place and killed four Jesuits, who are today buried in the cemetery at Campion Center in Weston, Mass. It was, naturally, a traumatic experience for Jesuits of the time, and is still remembered well. Here is a photo of the Old Shadowbrook: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Shadowbrook,_Lenox,_MA.jpg Here is a photo of the tragic Shadowbrook fire: lenoxfire/page.php?PageID=2921&ImageID=2254&PageName=Shadow+Brook And an excellent history of the Shadowbrook Fire: amazon/The-Shadowbrook-Fire-F-Shea/dp/0615848702 A few years later, the New Shadowbrook was built, for huge numbers of entering Jesuits. In 1970, after vocations had declined, the site was sold, and the novitiate moved first to Boston and then to Jamaica Plain. Today the combined novitiate for the New England, New York and Maryland Provinces is in Syracuse, New York. And in one of the rooms is a photo of the Old Shadowbrook. And what happened to the New Shadowbrook? Today it is the Kripalu Center, a holistic health center, which provides retreats and workshops. A Jesuit friend and I usually visit the grounds on our way to Jesuit vows in Syracuse, to have lunch, pray, remember the Jesuit heritage there.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 23:32:13 +0000
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