Fr. Martin P. Coyne, S.J.

A Person Of Expensive Jokes

Fr. Martin Coyne, S.J.

Well, if you are going to have a friendly chat with him, you better have a full meal before that, because you might be quire exhausted after the chat. You can’t be quite sure what reaction he will give to each statement you make. Looking at him you will be quire confused whether he likes it or not. And very often his reply is going to throw you into roaring laughter, but occasionally he is very serious too. It is guaranteed that you are going to burn all the food your stomach if you are with him. Can you imagine!

One day a little boy at St. Xavier’s happened to break a window while playing cricket. The little fellow was called to the principal’s office. The boy, looking at the serious man with a thick mustache sitting in tile principal’s chiar, started sweating, lost words, and almost wet his pants. Thank God the poor fellow didn’t collapse there in the principal’s room. But do you know what happened then? The boy left the room after having been congratulated by the principal for his good aim at the window! Yes. that is what Fr. Coyne is like – much like a “coin” having two sides – a serious-looking man but very humorous. Recently, we hear that among his other hobbles like photography, cycling and cooking, he has invented a new one too – the art of sitting arid watching things around.

Initially, Fr. Marty Coyne was told that he was born on 30th July 1934, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. But after he joined the Jesuits, his mother came to appreciate the significance of the next day (31st July the Feast of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits) and wanted to change her mind. She said he was born after midnight and it should be recorded as 31 July. However the written document about him supports only the 30th July date.

His father worked for tile city in the Anti-Arson Bureau, and his mother, just like most Mothers, worked as a short order cook, washerwoman, and housekeeper to her happy, comfortable home. His only sister was two years younger and much smarter than he was. Fr. Coyne says she still is.

His initial schooling was at the parish primary school, Christ the King. There he discovered much over eight fun-and-adventure-filled years of education from the good Sisters Of Mercy and learned not to take things at their stated values. Education got more serous after he was entrusted to the Jesuits for four years of high school at St. Ignatius. One-hour streetcar and bus trips to and from St. Ignatius provided him with basic lessons in patience, sitting, and waiting, which he has come to value in later life.

When he left high school in 1952, he was almost certain that God wanted him to become an aeronautical engineer. He was quite fascinated by that term. However, things changed after his father’s death during his first year of pre-engineering studies. When he talked with his mother, what he had shared with his father (as a might-have-been sort of thing), she snookered him, an he had to apply for Milford Jesuit Novitiate.

During the two years of novitiate, one day, in a fit of fervor, he discussed with Novice Master, Fr. Bernier Wernert, a couple of lights he thought he had seen – one to be a brother and the other to be a missionary. His novice master counselled him, “Forget the first and write a letter to the provincial about the other.” So he did as his novice master instructed him.

Then he continued his studies for the next two years of juniorate, during which he waited expectantly, but not being fulfilled, for a reply from the provincial. So he went on to West Baden Springs for three years of philosophy studies. There he learned quite a bit about whittling and hiking in Southern Indiana and even a bit about “philosophy.” By then he had forgotten all about the reply from Father Provincial. Finally, when it did come, by the last days of these years, he discovered that he needed to prepare for the beginning of spending the rest of his life in Nepal.

He traveled solo from Chicago to New York by train, alone from New York to England by ship, Queen Mary, alone from London to Rome by train, and alone from Rome to Bombay by plane. Bombay Jesuits its put him on another train for Patna, where in the Spring of 1961 he met and bonded with his first compatible travel companion, Patsy, a boxer dog (who, a few years later, was seen being taken our for dinner by a leopard at Godavari). Nevertheless, Bro. Ollie Nehr, a tiny Patna Jesuit, had all the trouble of picking up the “huge” scholastic at one point along the journey to Patna.

They (Patsy and he) flew into Kathmandu in April of 1961, and both of them went to work right away helping Godavari School to prepare for its Tenth Year Jubilee. Before the year was out, he got word on the day of her funeral that his mother had died.

Fr. Coyne: in Godavari School Principal

By 1963, he had another travel companion, Fr. Leo Cachat. They both headed for Pune, and about a year later for Kurseong for theology studies. In Pune, he learned more about whittling and cycling. Frs. Cachat and Coyne were ordained in Kurseong in 1966 and did their tertianship in Siragarha in 1967. They both returned to Kathmandu in 1968. Fr. Coyne humorously puts it, “I wouldn’t like to say which was a better travel partner, but Cachat lasted longer than Patsy.”

On his arrival back, he was appointed to St. Xavier’s Godavari School. Looking back at the experience he had at the time, Fr. Coyne says, “1968 was a year of considerable change. Every single thing got moved from Godavari High School to Jawalakhel except for two dogs, Fr. Saubolle, the paint on the walls, and me. Correspondingly smaller items Were transshipped from Jawalakhel to Godavari for the primary boarding school.”

“Events transpired at a perspiring rate of twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week. Finally, I found myself religious superior of the Jesuit veteran community (Fr. Moran, Fr. Downing, Fr. Miller, Fr. Saubolle, Fr. Dent, and Bro. Karpinski), treasurer of the school, head matron over all the hostels (except for Fr. Downing’s Class Five), and keeper of the dogs – our dogs in and others out. After Cap Miller left, I got to be be principal and filled the five-card flush.”

In January 1981, he moved to St. Xavier’s Jawalakhel School. In March the same year, on one fine morning, he found himself trying to kick apart the dining room furniture instead of buttering the toast while having a blackout. He immediately went to Chicago where a neurosurgeon, after taking his manifestation of consciousness, reamed out of his brain the prefrontal parasaggital meningioma that had caused the seizure. After the surgery he suffered a partial paralysis on the right side with multiple pulmonary emboli.

He returned to school after a year, less one day. There he had to learn again to walk again and use his right side, occupy the principal’s office, and terrorize opponents on the hand-ball court – well, at least the wheelchair boys from the Social Service Centre… through 1992. During this time he used to walk around the football field as an exercise, while the kids Were playing. Some of the highly creative ones on the field were fascinated by the way he walked along the side and even attributed the name Haathi (elephant) to him. This name remained a secret until Fr. Coyne himself, in front of a class, approved it as an authentic attribution to his nature. After that the name was never heard again.

Many of the challenges in Fr. Coyne’s life occurred during his work in the schools. His primary aim was to allow the students to develop in most all aspects and to help them to understand themselves. So he seriously challenged the students and also at times their parents to show up to the level of goals set before them.

One of the things he noticed about the Class Six students at Godavari was that he used to consider them as having grown as much as they could. He later found that they did grow up further in age as well as in reputation. Even then, Fr. Coyne had marked them with certain impulses that could never be forgotten. One of the jokes among the campus boys who continued from Godavari went like this: when a class is totally undisciplined with a lot of noise around, if someone shouts, “Fr. Coyne is coming!” then immediately pin-drop silence follows. Well, it is much more than that. What was more consoling for Fr. Coyne, as the old boys used to come and greet him, is to see the true values of life that they learned from their primary education at St. Xavier’s still operating in them.

Some of his negative experiences here in Nepal as a Jesuit were undergoing the shock of losing fine men like Tom Gafney, Allan Starr, and Ben Bruneau. To cope with such situations was a real challenge.

Fr. Coyne as NJS Socius at the phone, as usual.

When he was asked to give a message to the younger Jesuits in the region, his answer was very brief, “Well, you know, I would like to say only one thing. The younger generation should be protected from being infected by people like me.” He stopped, looked up, had a good laugh, and then continued, “You see, a lot of things had been started off and taken care of by the older generation. I would consider myself is more of one who continues and consolidates than one who innovates. But what I observe now is that the direction has changed from where our generation had started. At that time the goals were set according to immediate needs and demands of the time. Certainly, the perspective has grown wider now. Part of this change is clearly seen in the idea of moving out of the Valley, and we are moving out of the Valley. Our target group also has been changed from small to bigger. We are expanding from the idea of providing the best education to social service, village development, and so on. So what I expect of younger generation Jesuits is not to be stuck with the idea of merely continuing but also to be innovators for the future.”

After working for nearly thirty years in both the schools, he went away for a semi-sabbatical in 1993. He was soon reassigned to HRD Research Center Community as the Admonitor of the Regional Superior and the Socius. He is also the editor of the Sagarmatha Samachar, the Nepal Jesuit Newsletter. Now, working in the Region curia, sitting amidst heap of papers, two computers (of which one refuses to cooperate with him), the telephone (which is nor much disciplined in silence), the mail, emails – both coming in and going out, he says, “I find myself now and then when I look hard enough … at the right time.”

Even after the bell, the discussion was going on for quite some time with lots of questions. clarifications, and arguments, when a hand went up from the back row at the right corner. The moderator looked up and asked, “Yes, Father, what is your question?”

“Do we need to discuss something on when to stop the session?” came the answer,

Before the moderator could say anything, another hand went up, and a voice followed, “Yes, yes, that same question was exactly what I had in mind to ask too.”

Tile previous hand went up once again from the back. The moderator was amused and asked, “Okay, Fr. Coyne, what is your second question?”

“No,” he said, “I would like to withdraw my question.”

(Text and Pictures from the Nepal Region’s 50th Anniversary Book, 2001)