McNamee, Charles S., 78 yrs., of Scituate
MA; formerly of Norwood, MA.
Charles S. McNamee, retired
teacher, former monk, beloved father and grandfather, and dear friend to many,
died on September 23, 2016 at his home in Scituate with his children by his
side, following a lengthy illness. Charlie – known as Bing to older friends and
family and as Mr. Mac to legion of students and colleagues – was born in
Norwood Mass. on November 27, 1937. Son of the late Charles A. and Mary F.
(Manning) McNamee; brother of the late Catherine A. of Falmouth, Mass, Charlie
loved his children and their families very much: Thomas N. of Scituate; Grace
and Josh Decker and their son Alden of Missoula, Montana; Claire Z. Poole and
her daughter Ava of Mashpee, Mass.; and Charles A. and Dana Crosby McNamee and
their son Charlie and daughter Alexandra Kiki of Stamford, Connecticut. He is
survived also by his wife Catherine V. (McCann) of South Boston.
For 35 years Charlie taught at
Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, in the areas of theology, chemistry,
physics, and math. Additionally to
support his family Charlie drove a school bus route from the South Shore to Xaverian
for most of his years teaching, sometimes picking up a second route in the
evenings; and held a variety of summer and part-time jobs over the years including:
digging for the Boston Water Department; teaching CCD instructors at Scituate’s
St. Mary’s parish (1970s); teaching Scripture and sexuality education for the
Archdiocese of Boston (late 1970s and early 1980s); working at Turner’s Package
Store in Scituate Harbor; tutoring various subjects; driving buses to high
school football games; pumping gas; teaching arts and crafts to youngsters at
summer camp; and even coaching freshman basketball and the astronomy club. Until retirement in 2006 when health became a
major concern, Mr. Mac loved to attend Xaverian football and baseball games and
lectures on astronomy given at institutions in Boston. Throughout his teaching career he cherished
his colleagues and thrived on the life of the classroom and his interactions
with students in courses that ranged, across the years, from New Testament
Scripture; to Love, Sex, and Marriage; to Conceptual Physics. He was as comfortable lecturing about the Fig
Tree Cursing as he was leading a laboratory on acceleration; though he always
would pray to the Holy Spirit for support before giving a talk, and midway through
his career he took to ringing Tibetan prayer bells to bring each class of
talkative boys to order. Xaverian always
held a special place in his heart, and in recent years whenever he had the
opportunity to spend time with former colleagues or with students the stories
would pour forth and many good times were recalled. Mr. Mac was honored with the Theodore Ryken
Award in 1996 for his contributions to the school in the spirit of the founder
of the Order of the Xaverian Brothers.
A 1955 graduate of Norwood High
School (where he was known for his clutch hook shot, enthusiasm for golf, and
an interest in astronomy), Charlie went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in
chemical engineering at Northeastern University in 1960. During
Charlie’s college Co-op year and summers he worked for C.I. Hayes and for Bird
& Sons, but deferred any career in industry when after graduation he joined
a lay Catholic apostolate, a missionary teaching program of the New England
Province of Jesuits. He spent much of
the next three years in a poor hill-country town in Jamaica, called Above
Rocks, where at St. Mary’s College he developed a love for teaching and met the
woman who would be his future wife – she too a lay apostle from the Boston
area. Charlie loved the people of Jamaica,
their irrepressible spirit, their culture, their music – especially the pre-reggae
early 1960s ska – and their bottles of warm Red Stripe on hot tropical nights. His supervisor and mentor, the Rev.
Sylvio Garavaglia, S.J., counseled him
about discernment of vocation, and having been influenced by the writings of Thomas
Merton (and by the example of Father Garavaglia) Charlie decided, at the
conclusion of his teaching assignment, to dive into the religious and
contemplative life of a Trappist monastery.
He spent five years in cloistered community, initially as Frater
Dominic, then as Brother Brendan, at St. Josephs’ Abbey in Spencer Mass, practicing
the monastic counsels, living in silence, working the fields and the Jam
factory with other monks, praying the Divine Office, and studying. It was a difficult but joyous and rewarding
life which would leave a deep impression.
Before professing Final Vows, and having the counsel of the Abbot, Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, who would continue to be
a spiritual mentor, Charlie left the monastery in 1968 and married Catherine
McCann shortly thereafter. Upon
completing a Master’s Degree in Dogmatic and Systematic Theology at St. Louis University
in 1970, Charlie and his young family moved back to Massachusetts where he held
short-term teaching positions in Harwich and at Milton Academy before starting
at Xaverian in 1970-71 and moving to Scituate the next year. From the early 1980s he faced the trial of
raising his four children in a single-parent home, but he was graced by the
help of his mother and older sister Kiki, and blessed by the generosity of family
friends several of whom he considered living saints, some living right here in
Scituate. Eclectic spiritual reading,
e.g., Fr. Raymond Brown, Thomas Merton’s The
Way of Chuang Tzu, Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen
Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Emily Dickinson’s poetry – was both comfort and
nourishment to him; as was, most importantly, his daily life of classroom
teaching.
During his retirement Charlie
loved to spend time, whenever he could, with his grandchildren Ava, Alden,
Charlie, and Kiki, who lighted up his life.
He met and corresponded with old
friends and loved to grapple with or expound on heavy theological or
cosmological issues, especially relishing dialogues about the spiritual life
with younger associates. He remained
fond of the Cronin’s Publick House in Quincy where in recent years he’d still
enjoy an occasional lunch in a small circle of close friends from the Xaverian
faculty. He loved to read and to write, and
to blog (changethewayyouthinkaboutreality.blogspot.com); to follow sports and
politics, and to go driving in his GMC pickup.
Given his various medical and mobility challenges, he would suffer
through the recent long winters yearning for the spring day when it would again
be warm enough for him to sit in the sun on his porch and merely breathe – the
sacrament of the present moment – in the birdsong and peace of his own, tree-lined
backyard cloister.
Charlie Mac loved God and the
Cosmos and he loved people; and he was most happy when teaching along the lines
of Jesus’ first words, appearing in the first-written Gospel: “The
present moment is the right time, the Kingdom of God is within you . [Мετανοιεσετε] Change the way you think about reality; believe this GOOD
NEWS’” (Mk 1:14-15).
Visiting hours at the Gillooly
Funeral Home, 126 Walpole St., NORWOOD, followed by a funeral Mass at St.
Catherine of Siena Church, 547 Washington St., Norwood. Interment will follow
at Highland Cemetery, Norwood.
The family is grateful for the
compassionate care given to Dad by the professionals at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harbor Medical Associates, and the South
Shore VNA and Hospice.
In lieu of flowers, donations in
his memory may be made to:
St. Francis Inn c/o Rev. Mike
Duffey, OFM; 2441 Kensington Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19125 http://www.stfrancisinn.org/ or to the Xaverian Fund, 800
Clapboardtree St. Westwood MA 02090 http://www.xbhs.com
Posted by his son Tom. Requiescat in pace. 1-4-3, Dad.
