Francis Xavier Shen

At left: I took this photo with a disposable
camera in Sedalia, CO when I was on
a silent retreat there in Summer 1996.

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A work in progress:

	C.V.
	Composite Bio
	Early Years (1977 - 1984)
	Grade School (1985 - 1992)
	High School (1992 - 1996)
	College (1996 - 2000)
	Graduate School (2001 - Present)

Curriculum Vita:

C.V. in .pdf format (last updated October 2007)

Composite Bio:

Composite Bio

Early Years (1977 - 1984)

"But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine."

:: Isaiah 43:1

“I waited, no one would rise up; I held back, no one would stand in opposition; I was silent, no one would speak; I pretended to fight, no one would even make a show of fighting. The conduct of the rest of the dispute is left to me, so that I can justly cry out, ‘Rise up, O Lord, judge your cause;”

:: Thomas Becket, Letter to All English Clergy, July 1166 ¹

“Very nice, pious considerations that don't bother anyone, that's the way many would like preaching to be. Those people who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.”

:: Archbishop Oscar Romero ²

I was born on December 29, 1977. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred on December 29, 1170.

I learned about the date of Becket's death as I was reading for a paper for Prof. Charles Donahue's Legal History Class in the Spring of 2004. When I saw the date, I stopped reading.

For those who believe that details such as dates are inconsequential, my amazement may seem childish or fanciful.

But I could not shake the feeling. I stood up from my small desk. What was I to think of the fact that Becket left this world on the same day that I entered it? What more to make of the fact that I had become increasingly impressed by and entranced with Becket? That his fiercely independent streak resonated so much with my own?

These are questions that have stuck with me. Becket was, at least in my reading, a one-man wrecking crew -- a man who went up against the most powerful institution of his day, the Church, and held his own. An important question, of course, is why he fought so hard. Was it his ego? A power trip of his own? Or was he motivated by a call from God to speak out, to challenge power that had gone astray? It was probably a mix of both for Becket, and eight hundred and seven years later, it's probably a mix of both for me too.

***

Whether it's Monty Python recalling the major events of Europe or Mel Brooks providing us with a history of the world, it's easy to look at our place in the history of civilization and laugh. Big Bang, evolution, dinosaurs, meteor, no more dinosaurs, bugs, monkeys, humans, baseball, and poof -- we've sitting here in the present day. But to laugh off evolution and the history of civilization as entirely irrelevant to our modern lives doesn't seem like the best path. We are, after all, descendants in one way or another of people who lived a really really really really (did I mention really) long time ago. There's no way around it. And, if you think about it, it's a very cool thing.

Watch what happens in only one sentence: My mother's grandparents emigrated from Ireland, and my father was born in Shanghai, China. Wow. In one sentence (14 words, if you're keeping score at home), my life suddenly relates back to three different countries, and thousands of years of history. It's a safe bet yours does too. And, somewhere in there, if we keep going back far enough, your family and mine likely had some common ancestors. Or at least my family borrowed your family's lawn mower once. They had lawn mowers in ancient times, right?

Lawn mowers or not, the point is that finding a starting point for "my" story isn't as easy as it sounds because my story is also my parents story and their parents story too. It's the story of the people who built the ship that brought my father to America. It's the story of the Catholic missionaries who set up the parish and college where my parents met. My story isn't really my story.

***

My parents, Bridget Brennan and Jerome Shen, named me after St. Francis Xavier, Patron Saint of Missionaries in the Catholic Church. I was baptized in St. Francis Xavier (College) Church, on the campus of St. Louis University (SLU). It was at the College Church that I later received my first Holy Communion and was confirmed. I chose the confirmation name Jerome in honor of my father and grandfather, who are both named Jerome.

When, in college and afterwards, I thought about joining the Society of Jesus as a priest, I used to joke with my spiritual directors that with a name like Francis Xavier, how could I not give it serious thought?

The connection to Jesuits and my family actually starts much earlier than my birth. My parents met, in fact, in a Catholic faith-sharing group called Christian Life Community (CLC). It was Jesuit priest who helped my parents realize that God was calling them to marriage. Many Jesuits were family friends, and we saw them frequently at Mass on Sundays and at our home for meals.

Growing up, my brother and I would tag along to CLC meetings every other Friday night. We would play with the other kids (kids who are now grown, married, and perhaps in faith sharing groups of their very own).

* * *

My mother says that one of her main goals in raising my brother and I was to make sure that we were confident. When my brother and I tell her that we are the greatest human beings on Earth, she says that perhaps she over did it!

My mother also says I cried a lot as a baby. Likely I was just hungry all the time and didn't know the words for "turkey sandwich".

* * *

I remember very little about my time in the womb. Actually, that's a lie. I remember nothing about my time in the womb. I remember little of my time before grade school.

I was born on December 29, 1977 in St. John's Hospital, and as the story goes, my grandfather (a pediatrician) made sure that the doctors knew how important my delivery was.

I don't remember the first house I lived in, but my parents have since shown it to me. We lived on Sydney Street in the Tower Grove neighborhood of the City of St. Louis, in the state of Missouri.

When I was two, and my mother was pregnant with my brother John Paul, we moved to our home in St. Louis Hills. This is the home that I remember, and that my parents still live in. It was built in the 1950s, and includes some 'unique' decorations such as a naked mermaid on the shower door.

***

It's funny that we remember the least about what experts say are the most important years of our development. For instance, I don't remember learning to walk, talk, or put on my clothes. But even without conscious memories, it's not hard to figure out how it happened: parents. If there's an early theme developing here (a theme, by the way, that would be more by chance than design since I'm writing this bit by bit and not coherently), it's a theme of reliance on parents and family.

Much of present U.S. social policy is designed to answer the question: What do we do when there aren't parents around? How can we substitute for missing parents, most often missing fathers? Popular solutions are longer school days and starting children in school at younger ages. But how much of a surrogate are such programs? Can they really make up for missing parents? Sadly, I think the answer is no.

Here's why. The most important gift a parent can give their child is time. Not fancy toys. Not fancy trips. But time. Plain and simple.

My parents couldn't have given my brother and I more of their time. (Read the middle school years and you'll see that for about 3 years, this outpouring of love and support was just not cool). My mother put a hold on her career to be at home with her sons. As soon as I was old enough, my father and I played catch on the front lawn every night when he came in from work. We ate dinner together every night, and we took family vacations every summer. We went to Church on Sundays, and during Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter we sat around the dining room table to read the Bible and say our evening prayers.

Here's what we didn't do. We didn't spend a lot of money on consumer goods. We didn't buy a new car until I was in middle school, we didn't have a VCR until I was a sophomore in high school, we clipped coupons, we didn't eat out a lot, and we wore all sorts of hand me down clothes. We scheduled our vacations to take advantage of our father's chemistry conferences, and we would drive instead of flying.

Do I look back now, and think: boy, instead of playing catch with me, I wish my father was slaving away at the office so he could buy us a bigger television? No.

Do I think: man, I wish that instead of talking about our days over dinner we sat around and watched sit-coms? No.

***

A story about my father goes like this. One time when my mother went out for a meeting at night, she left my father holding me in such a way that I wouldn't cry. When she returned a couple of hours later, my father was still in the same position!

***