One of the aspects of Titus that appeals to me the most is his reported profligate generosity to all who asked for material assistance, his extremely personal approach to charity, and what might be described as a certain loving inefficiency in responding to need. Perhaps part of his appeal for me is my own anti-technology, Luddite resistance to modern life being increasingly dominated by cell phones, e-mail, fax machines, etc. which promise falsely to keep us up to date, connected, and able to turn on a dime! Obviously Titus knew nothing of these modern inventions but I believe that his spirit has something important to teach us hyper-efficient moderns with our focus on productivity and instantaneous access to information.

One of the themes that reoccurs in Titus’ biographies is his tendency to give away so much material assistance to those in need that he often had to be reined in by his superiors. One prior is reported to have admonished Titus : “ If everybody was as generous as you, the rich would be poor and the poor would be rich. You are poor. Just leave things as they are. There are some limits!”. Titus is said to have responded: “We seek out the rich and give them more respect. The poor are ours too but we don’t want to belong to them. We make ourselves look ridiculous before the God who heard our vows” (of poverty). When Titus himself was the prior at the new house in Nijmegen, his housekeeper reported that he forbade her to lock the door to protect his need to study and write. She complained that there were always so many visitors and people needing favors. Titus replied that he wanted them all welcomed with a cup of tea or a cigar and that God would provide sufficient time and energy to deal with them all. Titus was eventually relieved of his position as prior, in part, we are told because he was “over budget” in spending on charity and the needs of his students. The new prior later said he had been impressed with Titus’ cheerful, humble, and obedient acceptance of being replaced.

Biographers report that Titus was often quite impractical in his suggestions about how to solve certain problems. Once when the discussion was about the unfortunate separation of the priory from the parish church by several houses and a street, Titus threw out the idea of digging a tunnel to connect them. On another occasion he recommended building a viaduct to connect a Carmelite house that needed more space with a piece of land available nearby. He appears never to have concerned himself with the more concrete, financial aspects of such proposals. One gets the impression that he lived in another plane, where practical, down to earth considerations couldn’t compete with his lofty idealism and optimistic determination that any problem had a solution. Anyone who has ever lived in community knows that such people are often considered naive “holy fools” and frequently the community may not have much patience for them. Titus was apparently aware that efficiency wasn’t his strongest suit. But he did caution against being ‘cowardly and timid” in good deeds or placing so much emphasis on prudence “that one looks in vain for charity, sacrifice and courage”.

A wonderful example of his “inefficiency” was his phone call one evening to the mother superior of a convent to ask if she could receive him that evening. When he arrived after having come part way on foot and part way by boat and told the mother superior that he had come to ask for a job for a man who needed work, she wondered why he had traveled for 45 minutes, instead of asking his question more efficiently on the phone. Titus replied that he felt he could best represent this man’s cause in person and that he was glad to have made the journey. There are countless other stories of individuals for whom Titus intervened in seeking employment, financial aid, solutions to personal problems, etc. He even wrote a series of meditations to accompany the very controversial Stations of the Cross so that the artist might feel less criticism and so that his art, which Titus felt was genuinely Christian art, might gain more acceptance.

Titus’ involvement in multiple projects is legend and the truth is that some of these projects got left by the wayside due to lack of time. But all who knew him, whether in a journalistic context or in his political efforts to gain official status for the Friesian language in the north of Holland, commented on his personal, individualized response to each cause or person. Perhaps had he been more “efficient” and less idealistic, he would have compromised with the Nazis and agreed not to continue his campaign against their policies, been released from prison, and perhaps survived the war in some comfortable, out of the way place. Holland would have lost the witness of one of the most effective and dramatic Dutch protests against the Nazi evil and the Carmelite family perhaps would never have known of this “inefficient” holy man of God.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

All of us can identify times when we have been the recipients of charity or the good offices of others. How did it feel when these gifts were given with official, bureaucratic efficiency but were lacking in genuine human caring and involvement?

How can we remain sensitive to the Christ in our needy brothers and sisters, while still being “practical” and aware of the limits of our resources?

Are there members of our communities and families who may, at times, be irritating with their difficulty in quickly getting to the “bottom line” because of their complete goodness and generosity towards humankind? What can Titus teach us about the gentle and valuable witness of these people? Does our impatience tend towards fragmentation of people and situations rather than being able to see them whole as God sees them?

How can we maintain a Carmelite contemplative stance, with a focus on the needs of the world, without letting modern technology obscure the divinity of the person before us?