of his senior year, without a degree. This blow was hard to take and not at all part of his plan. But my grandpa, who dis- cerned God’s hand in all things, saw his way forward. If heating was the thing, so be it. Cyril would respond to St. Ignatius’s admonition to “set the world on fire” precisely by—in a manner of speaking— setting the world on fire. My grandpa became “hooked on
combustion” and dead-set on evolving his understanding of efficient heating systems. He rode out the Depression by working for others, honing his skills, and cultivating his natural disposition to entrepreneurship, ever grateful to be gainfully employed. By the late 1940s, my grandpa had made a
name for himself in the world of industrial heat- ing. He had also fallen in love, started a family with my grandmother, and created his own small heating business, the Meenan Corporation. But he was always “improving product” and search- ing for the pristine flame. This quest was not without trials of many kinds. The obligations and worries for the owner of a small business, where no job is too small, were legion. He injured his left hand preparing a job at his Clark Street shop and was never able to play his beloved violin again. But one evening, he caught a break. As he was busy running a test for a boiler job,
Cyril inadvertently kicked over a shop vacuum and beheld a glorious sight: the flaming tongues of the perfect burn. This happy accident, fleeting as it was, inspired a new direction in engineering. My grandpa’s questions about perfect combus- tion and the path to improved fuel efficiency were asked under a new light. The “vacuum event” was a game changer,
and like the story of so many accidental inven- tions—from penicillin to potato chips to post-it notes—the event inspired forays of robust experimentation. There were many failures, some of which involved torching copper and other materials beyond recognition. But Cyril was onto it; he crafted a device out of refractory cement replete with strategically placed holes that were situated, insulated, and ventilated for optimal burn. Eureka! The Combusto-Jet was born. What began as a boon to fuel efficiency
inspired by the hard lessons of the Depression became uniquely relevant for energy conserva- tion and pollution abatement in the early days of environmental consciousness. The Combusto- Jet not only facilitated radical fuel efficiency, it reduced pollution dramatically—a feature dear to my grandpa and one he emphasized in his marketing material. This one-two punch became attractive to many Chicago manufacturers (and
24 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
As the above promotional booklet illustrates, Cyril F. Meenan’s Combusto-Jet heated iconic buildings in Chicago such as the Congress Hotel. Meenan’s other prominent clients included Sears, Coca-Cola, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Loyola.
others who required large spectrum heating), especially with the rise of emissions regulations in the early ‘70s. At its height of operation, the Meenan Cor-
poration—staffed by uncles and cousins and 20 odd others—had more than 1,000 systems in place. The client list included titans of Chicago industry: M&M Mars; Sears, Roebuck, and Co.; Coca-Cola; and Motorola. Other notable clients included the Art Institute of Chicago, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Domino Sugar. And consid- ering Cyril’s Ignatian inspiration, it is no surprise that he had a large category of Catholic clients such as parishes, seminaries, hospitals—and of course, Loyola. My grandpa had the Catholic market cornered,
and that was no accident. Like many Meenans, he was often a daily communicant, and like many Catholics in his era, he drew his main sense of community in the sacramental, liturgical, and social life of the church. He consecrated his fam- ily—including all 14 of us grandchildren—to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His abiding view was that life is to be cherished in every form and stage because, as he would often say (in ways that strike me now as all too Ignatian), “It’s all God’s gift.” Catholic values were central in his life, and the Catholic intellectual premise of faith meeting reason became the cornerstone for his business plan. Cyril believed we should utilize resources responsibly and minimize pollution because it is our responsibility to do so, and we take care of the gift and leave things better for the next generation. And as he taught me, “we always rely on the mystery of God’s grace.” By the collision of my own personal can-
nonballs, I was able to get a sense of this kind of
spirituality when I was very young. My grandpa taught me much about prayer and gave me my first spiritual direction by preparing me for my First Commu- nion. Sure, we didn’t call it spiritual direc- tion in the Ignatian mode, but things often make more sense with the benefit of hindsight, especially when you’re Irish. In Queen of All Saints Basilica (my family’s parish and, of course, one of my grandpa’s favorite accounts), we would kneel in silence and “bring our needs to the beads” by praying the rosary. He would then encourage me to do two things: first, to be ever grateful and to note why, and second, to always ask God
what he wants of me. In its focus on the magis, it strikes me as so explicitly Ignatian.
In 2012, I was at a professional crossroads. While I was no stranger to Chicago, I was born and raised in California and saw my life unfolding there. But the perfect job opened up at Loyola, which gave my wife, daughters, and I cause for serious discernment. Three reasons to move emerged as decisive: the excellent work taking place in the Hank Center (CCIH), the Loyola iden- tity document on Transformative Education (so singularly brilliant and bold), and the life-giving vision of the Institute for Environmental Sustain- ability. I’ve been fortunate enough to work at the crossroads of all three of these gems in Loyola’s crown. When I think of my grandpa, I think that the Spirit is at work here. I think that, in some meaningful way, my work
connects to his and that Loyola has a vital part in all of this. “Maybe you’ll go here one day,” he would say. Maybe so. The purpose of the Spiritual Exercises of St.
Ignatius is to respond to the movement of God’s grace within us “so that the light and love of God inflame all possible decisions and resolutions about life situations.” Cyril took this to heart in a humble but radically intentional way. “Look at that clean flame, honey,” he said to my mother, Joan, along for the ride one day with her dad as he checked the mechanics on a job. “That’s the beginning of perfect combustion.” “Ite inflammate omnia” is what we tell our
students: “Go and set the world on fire.” Carry the fire and nurture the flame. Encounter it and learn from it. Gather its brightness and share its warm light, directing it to the good from which it comes. As my grandpa knew, much depends on it. Man, how he loved a good flame. L
Michael P. Murphy is the director of Catholic Studies in the Department of Theology at Loyola.
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