Brother Gale: With age, there is wisdom

October 12, 2024

by Peter Finney Jr.

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Christian Brother Gale Condit is 82 now, and his life as a lion tamer turned Catholic school educator has blessed him with a deep reservoir of wisdom, prudence and humor that can be built only by daily rubbing elbows with teenage boys and girls who sometimes don’t know which end is up or whom to trust.

Brother Gale has been living most recently at Christian Brothers School in City Park, and at the end of the academic year, he will officially move to the brothers’ “retirement” residence in Covington.

“We’re kind of getting up in what they call age,” Brother Gale said, laughing.

Over his more than six decades as a Catholic school teacher and administrator – most of them spent at De La Salle High School, Archbishop Rummel High School, the St. Paul’s School and the Academy of the Sacred Heart – Brother Gale has honed the craft of breaking through to students who are facing enormous challenges in their daily lives.

One of the most pressing difficulties facing teens today is a creeping sense that their search for meaning drives them aimlessly into dark places their parents never would have imagined. It’s why over the last several years, Brother Gale has sounded the alarm over what might be called technological hypnosis – the iPhone as an appendage of the heart, mind and soul.
Brother Gale credits a friend for giving him the following example.

“Do you ever go to the circus and see a man go into a cage with five or six lions?” Brother Gale asked. “And, did you notice if he was carrying anything with him? A chair. And, why do you think he brought the chair with him? I’m sure it’s not to sit down and look at the lions. It’s because the chair has four legs, and you can twist the chair, and those lions will all watch those legs. They are distracted by the legs.

“Here comes another leg – and they turn their head. That’s kind of like what’s going on to an extent in our society. We’re being distracted by so many things that we weren’t before, but we are now.”

Brother Gale took a course at Boston College that delved into cultivating spirituality in a technological age.

“It was one of the best courses I have ever, ever taken,” he said. “They discussed things like, ‘Is your iPhone your insurance policy against boredom?’ ‘Is fear of missing out (FOMO) just a click away?’ Students, then, should be introduced to all these thoughts to help them watch their own behavior. They say technology can do a lot for you, but what can it also do to you?

“Are you conversing or simply connecting? Are you confusing connection with relationship? The word relationship is key. I know in Catholic schools, we stress communication, which should lead to community, which should lead to communion. But if that’s not being followed, you’ve got all these people immersed in technology. Technology deals with the outside of things; formation deals with the inside.”

Developing authentic human relationships – especially between the generations – has been a passion of Brother Gale’s educational career. When he taught briefly at the Academy of the Sacred Heart on St. Charles Avenue, he came up with the idea of launching a “junior-senior” prom.

“But this wasn’t a typical junior-senior prom,” Brother Gale said. “The junior class put on a prom for senior citizens.”

Back to the future

It worked like this. The juniors decided on “The ’30s” as the theme for the prom. The girls then visited senior homes in the area to see who might be physically able to attend the dance and arranged for the women to be transported by bus. The girls dressed up in Art Deco or bias-cut gowns.

When the seniors arrived at the front gates of Sacred Heart, several 1930s-era Model A cars were on hand to drive them up to the front door.

“As they were getting out, they were hearing through the windows the music of the 1930s,” Brother Gale recalled. “The girls had on hats that read ‘PRESS AGENTS.’ They interviewed the elderly, and then they were escorted into the cafeteria where the music was playing. And the girls would sit with them. Some of the other girls had a strap around their neck with a tray – in those days it was cigarettes – but these girls had fruit. The mother of one of the girls sent over a whole supply of caviar.

“There were two generations there, and they were having fun together. They weren’t scared of each other. It’s a beautiful thing. That meant so much, them being with the elderly. I could just see it. Those girls will never forget that.”

Smiling not allowed

Brother Gale laughs when he recalls, as a rookie teacher in his long black cassock, being told by an older French brother the secret to being an effective teacher: “Don’t smile until Christmas.”
“Another brother told me, ‘Life is an onion that you peel while crying,’” Brother Gale said. “I thought to be a good teacher I needed to do this, that or the other. Well, I found out that isn’t always the case.

“One of the big things was learning how to listen and not just spouting forth your feelings or your opinion or an answer. I’ve had kids who have come to me years later and said, ‘Brother, thank you for being patient. I really appreciated that.’ Or kids would say, ‘Brother, I gave you all that trouble in school. I owe you something.’

God’s conduit

“Showing respect for every student is important. If he has a birthday, try to remember that and wish him ‘Happy Birthday.’ Students may not tell you, but they appreciate that. If I helped anybody in anything, fundamentally, it’s God working through me. It’s not me. Maybe I had sense enough to be patient, and God used me to help somebody who needed it.”

Brother Gale was so good at his vocation that he didn’t even need a chair.

The Christian Brothers are honoring Brother Gale’s lifetime of service by establishing the Brother Gale Condit Scholarship Fund. A Nov. 2 gala will be held in his honor at Metairie Country Club. Tickets are available at lcbfoundation.org/brgalefund/give/. To date, $265,000 has been pledged to provide tuition assistance to students at Christian Brothers School, Archbishop Rummel High School, De La Salle High School and St. Paul’s School.

To support the scholarship fund, send checks to Lasallian Christian Brothers Foundation, 104 W. 11th Ave., Covington, LA 70433. Note “Brother Gale Fund” on the memo. For gala information, contact Tom Coughlan at [email protected], (985) 276-9638.

[email protected]