I have to hand it to Sparky, nee John Henry O’Brien, and I can’t say I’m all that surprised. That he was his own man I have no doubt in my mind, but to brazenly lie to the leaders of his Order and essentially steal a part of their property … that left me very surprised. I never sensed a crooked bone in his body. He must have come to a decision to risk his soul in order to have Our Lady’s Monastery at West Saugerties do some good in the only way he could effect, by giving away a piece of it for the poor. Our secretarial work for scholars did not impress Sparky at all. He implied that to me often. And that was the reason why he insisted we spend more time in prayer than in so-called practical pursuits. He cared for our souls and he may have been one of the few placed above me who did. When he found a chance to rip off his order for a quarter of a million dollars and give it to the poor, he seized it … if that’s what he did. If he did anything else with the money, it would have been as Lance suspects, to save the money for us Brothers, wherever he put it. In either case, Sparky had more self-assurance than I would ever possess. I don’t think I would be able to make such a decision. I have never had that much courage.
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