Twice Ordained

The memoirs of an intelligent, gifted, highly educated, urbane, witty, and charming person always fascinate. Reminiscent of Thomas Merton's well-known Seven Storey Mountain, Willis's book shows a person unafraid to reveal his intimate longings, loves, joys, friendships, hopes, fears, mistakes, and disappointments. This volume offers an intimate view of a well-rounded person dealing with both the difficulties and joys of the training and the pastoral life of a Congregational Minister. I found especially fascinating his interior and exterior struggles with religious bigotry, after he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. His penetrating, yet often amusing, description of the "old" Jesuit training, Jesuit pastoral experiences, and Jesuit academic life is worth the price of his memoirs. Particularly infectious are his love of music, the detailed description of his world-wide travels, and his views on arcane scholarship and overly specialized courses for undergraduate students. Deeply moving is how he expressed his genuine grief over his father's death, the untimely death of his younger brother, and his mother's demise. Loved as a warm, charming human being and as a great professor, he was as comfortable with a "humble" waiter as he was with the rich and famous. Also, who would not be fascinated with a person who had attended Wagner's Ring Cycle about fifty times and yet enjoyed Arnold Schwartzenegger and James Bond films?