“An Artist in Burnt Cork”: Brother Martin Whelan, S.J. (1837-1903)

The Jesuit Brother’s vocation is one with a rich history of service and scholarship. But Brother Pat Douglas, a Jesuit ministering in the Midwest, notes that it’s a “kind of forgotten” vocation. There are many, he says, who have a strong call to religious life, but not necessarily to the priesthood. In keeping with this blog’s policy of honoring Catholic America’s unsung heroes, today’s entry focuses on the life and career of Brother Martin Whelan, S.J. (1837-1903).

Described as “a picturesque figure,” Martin Whelan was born and grew up in Boston’s North End. While he was young the Jesuits took charge of his home parish, St. Mary’s. There he came in contact with some of the most significant Jesuits of his time, including Fathers John McElroy, pioneer military chaplain and founder of Boston College, and Bernardine Wiget, a prominent author and preacher. It was Wiget in particular who helped the young man discern his vocation.

Martin attended the Eliot Grammar School (at the time, Boston had no Catholic schools). He went on to study painting and drawing at the Lowell Institute. One of his hobbies was sketching the prominent actors of his day. His family assumed he would go into business with his older brother, a Boston merchant, but in 1858 he joined the Jesuits as a brother. While they supported his decision, they assumed he would eventually  come back home.

He began his novitiate (a sort of Jesuit basic training period) in Frederick, Maryland. From there he was assigned as a teacher to Holy Trinity Parochial School in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. The parish, founded in 1789, is the oldest Catholic church in the nation’s capitol. With the exception of a Bostob interval, he was taught at the school and served as principal during the years 1860-1892. He also worked as a sacristan, a position that involved taking care of the church itself.

In Holy Trinity’s parish history, he was remembered as an expert at putting on school plays, both for the parochial school and the Sunday school. From the start, theater has always been an important part of the Jesuit educational tradition. Brother Martin wrote operettas and plays, and was “a master of decoration and scenery painting.” It was said of him:

He was an authority on wigs, buckskins and togas; an artist in burnt cork and paint. How he delighted to transform an innocent fresh-lipped cherub of a boy into a truculent stage villain with fierce mustachios; to pad a lanky youth into Falstaffian girth and proportions; to develop slender shanks with dropsical piano legs; and to regulate the stride and pace of ‘Warriors’ and ‘Senators.’ His ability in the histrionic art won the respect and admiration of his scholars; his skill as a teacher and his kindly interest in the boys won their gratitude and enthusiasm.

In 1892, Brother Martin was assigned to St. John’s Literary Institute, a Jesuit school  in Frederick, Maryland. As poor health caught up with him, he returned to Georgetown. At this funeral Mass in November 1903, hundreds of former students and parishioners paid homage to his life and ministry. A peer said of him:

Such a life hidden away for so many years in an humble classroom, is inconspicuous in itself, but most meritorious, fruitful and far-reaching in its results, and lasting in its power for good. Who can estimate its effects? A large number of men in Frederick and Georgetown, now fathers of families and staunch Catholics, owe much to him, and hold his name in benediction.

One author aptly states that the Jesuit Brother’s “vocation is to be apostolic.” Nobody embodied that ideal better than Martin Whelan, both inside and outside the classroom. In his devotion to his ministry, he lived the Jesuit model of “men for others.”