By Peter Bugden
BEING given a pushbike so he could “go to Mass every morning and serve for the priests” was the start of a ride into religious life that has lasted 64 years for Marist Brother John Venard (Smith).
Br Venard, long-time columnist for The Catholic Leader and author of seven books of his own spiritual insights, set off as an 11-year-old to join the Marists and has never looked back.
Now, as an 86-year-old living in retirement in the brothers’ Ashgrove community and reminiscing over the highs and lows of his Marist life, he could never have imagined back then where that first brave, adventurous and faithful decision would take him.
“I went away to be a brother the day before my 12th birthday so I was only 11 when I left home,” he said.
It was a courageous decision but one that seemed to come naturally for a boy growing up in “a good Catholic family” of 10 children who prayed the family Rosary every night.
Four of Br Venard’s sisters became nuns – two Josephites and two Sisters of Mercy.
The path to his own entry into religious life, like everybody else’s, had its unique turns.
Br Venard’s was laid partly on frequent Saturday-morning trips to Harbord, on Sydney’s northern beaches.
After his parents Jack and Betty Smith moved the family from Kurri Kurri, a coalmining town in the Hunter region, to Epping in Sydney, young John attended Marist Brothers Eastwood.
“On Saturday mornings, Dad would take me and some of my mates (and some of the Marist Brothers) over to Harbord and we’d go surfing there,” Br Venard said.
“He had a Dodge car in those days, so he’d take us over to Harbord Beach and we’d swim in the surf and play cricket – the usual things, with a good little social group.”
It was all great fun, and hearing the brothers chat with this father on the way to and from Harbord and during their days at the beach, helped John develop a positive view of the Marists and the life they led.
“So when Br Arcadius (a Marist Brothers vocations officer) came along in 1937-38 and said what a great life the brothers had, and a noble life, I thought that was pretty true so I ticked the little box which said, ‘If you are interested, tick the box’,” he said.
“But did I know what I was doing? I don’t think so.
“But when I said to one of my sisters (further down the track) that I didn’t quite know, she said ‘But God knew’.
“She reckoned God was looking after me, so that sort of shut me up.
“But it is true in many ways. A lot of my life, to me, is God looking after somebody who’s trying to do the right thing.”
Br Venard said people hearing stories of those entering religious life at the age of 12 would these days say, “That was mad”.
“Well, yes, it was mad but that’s what people did in those days,” he said.
“In the class I was in at Mittagong (NSW), there were 12 in that class so there were 12 other boys like me from all over Australia.”
Br Venard remembers how tough it was to leave home at that age.
“It was hard. It was very hard,” he said.
“I was only a simple kid. I was a bit shy and quiet.
“I can still remember crying myself to sleep for the first two or three weeks. It was the usual story. I sort of hung on.”
And as he adjusted to the homesickness, he had a couple of name changes on the way to becoming a brother.
“I was baptised John Smith. So John Smith went away to become a brother but he gets up to Mittagong, the training college, and there’s another John Smith there already, in the class in front, so the boss Brother Paul says ‘We can’t have two John Smiths here; what’s your second name?’
“I said, ‘Freddie’. So he said, ‘Right, we’ll call you Freddie’.
“So John Smith now becomes Freddie Smith …
“Then when I took vows and became a brother I had to take a saint’s name so I picked ‘Venard’.”
When he later had the chance to return to his birth name, he opted to retain “Venard” because of its reference to the French saint and because he liked the sound of it.
He chose to write under the name “Br John Venard” when he started writing a column called Sacred Space for The Catholic Leader about 20 years ago.
The stories he told in those columns became the basis of his books – Walking with a Battler’s God, A Journey with a Battler’s God, In the Arms of a Battler’s God, At Home with a Battler’s God, Surprise! The Battler’s God Dwells Within!, The Best of a Battler’s God, and Finally the Battler’s God.
Br Venard said, as a mathematics teacher, his writing had happened “sort of by accident”.
“I was in charge of a school of about 500 students,” he said.
“I was okay with mathematics and training sport but couldn’t write too well.
“In fact, my spelling wasn’t anything crash hot but I still had to write little editorials for the school newsletters so I used to borrow books and copy it out and try to appear learned.
“But the tuckshop ladies said, ‘Brother, your editorials are useless. We don’t know what you’re talking about’.
“And one of them said, ‘Why don’t you share your own private life because you’ve had to battle your way through, the same as we have?’
“And that’s where my writing started, and that’s what all these books are about – my battle. That’s why I talk about Battler’s God – my battle to be a (follower) in our modern world, and to see where God comes into it.”
Asked about the name of his column – Sacred Space – and what was his “sacred space”.
“The ‘sacred space’ is my inner life, and it’s my life,” he said.
“I used to be good by saying rosaries, going to Mass, doing things but it was all out there, all out there whereas it’s got to be in here.
“It took me a long time to work out that praying is not saying prayers; it’s the building of a relationship with God.
“We used to say the family Rosary every day, I go to Mass every day, and that’s all very good – if it helps me have a relationship with God.
“That’s what my writings are about. It’s about how our life is having a relationship with God and living in love, living in peace, happy, helping others, being good guys, because that’s what God gave us this life for, but it’s internal.”
This has led Br Venard to contentment.
“I’m a happy brother,” he said. “I think I’ve done something with my life and it’s worked out but I think there’s a fair bit of luck in it and also I think God’s a pretty good guy.
“If we try to do our best He’ll be on our side.”
