Men of prayer, preaching and
intelligence(continued)
Passionist office holders in the CTSA.
Augustine Paul Hennessy was proposed to be the CTSA secretary in 1947. In 1948 Hennessy was appointed to the Committee on Nominations and Admissions. In 1950 Joseph M. O'Leary of Chicago, Illinois was appointed to the Committee on the Cardinal Spellman Award. Hennessy filled in for O'Leary in 1950 and 1951 so the latter could complete a study year in Rome. In 1953 and 1954, and 1956 and 1957 Hennessy was on the Board of Directors. In 1955 he was President of the CTSA and Chair of the Committee on the Cardinal Spellman Award. He remained on this committee in 1956 and 1957.
Hennessy celebrated his 90th birthday on March 11, 2004. A native son of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was the son of John P. Hennessy and Kathryn Campbell. High school was at St. Joseph's, Hanover, Pennsylvania and West Philadelphia Catholic where he graduated in 1931. From 1932 till 1933 he was at the Passionists' Holy Cross Seminary, Dunkirk, New York. His novitiate was 1933 till 1934 in West Springfield, Massachusetts. He professed his Passionist vows on August 15, 1934 and was ordained a priest on May 1, 1941.
He went on to The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. and received a STD and STL. From 1959 till 1962 Hennessy was Rector of the Minor Seminary, Dunkirk, New York; 1962 till 1965 Master of Passionist novices, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 1965 till 1967 Rector of Calvary Monastery, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; 1967 till 1975 Editor of The Sign, Union City, New Jersey; 1975 till 1978 in residence at Jamaica, New York; 1978 till 1990 retired at West Springfield; 1990 until 2004 at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Hennessy's 1955 presidential address to the CTSA was published in the 1956 Proceedings. Entitled "Charity and the Pursuit of Wisdom" it was divided into four parts: 1. By Charity We Possess God as Really and Substantially as we shall possess Him in the life of eternity. 2. Charity is a real participation in the Intratrinitarian life of God. This is a life of knowledge and love. 3. Through Charity the spirit of love substitutes the filial spirit of Christ in us for the spirit of egotism. 4. Charity produces an affective union with divine realities and this affective union is virtually cognitive, even though it be supraconceptual mystical experience. Hennessy's conclusion: Charity is the dynamic unitive force behind theology in all its functions.
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