Category Archives: Ministry & Liturgy Magazine

The Deep Prints of Secrets

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, April 2010 –

I hold sacred many people’s secrets. The elderly mother whispers in my ear after Sunday Mass her dreams for her handicapped son. The eye-shadowed addict stops me on the street and confesses amid the blurring noise of a passing bus the reasons why he does not enter a church building. I hear the hushed voices in our confessional on weekdays admitting with deep wounds their personal grievances of the past. The parish volunteer catches me before the morning opening of our weekday hospitality center to entrust to me the secrets of his weekend.

All these holy encounters teach me to walk the path toward God’s healing and mercy. The only path I know to carry these fragile encounters is the path toward the Eucharist. Some days I am weighed down processing to the foot of the altar. There I find the deep prints of the secrets I carry with me. Often I am overwhelmed with love for the people who share their complex lives of suffering with me. I also worry about many people who are asked to carry burdens beyond which their hearts can bear. At the foot of the altar, I leave the dusty prints of my body carrying the grief, hardship and tragedy of so many people.

I carry people’s heart disclosures to the Eucharist because the Gospel of Luke teaches me to do so. These stunning passages we proclaim during the Sunday Eucharist in June open up for me the profound grace hidden in each of the secrets I carry.

A woman from the city comes to the table where Jesus is eating at the home of a Pharisee. She carries an alabaster flask of ointment in her arms and her secrets in her glass heart. Her secrets seem to be known publicly in the village. Word is on the street about her life and how she lives. Nevertheless, she carries with fragile reverence her secrets to the place where Jesus is sharing a meal.

She makes her way to his feet, grasping her flask at her chest to protect what is inside of her. At the sight of Jesus, she breaks through; her secrets spill out along with her bottled-up tears of regret, shame and years of being isolated. The sacred flow of water and secrets intermingle and together cleanse the dusty feet of Jesus. She seems to understand already that her life will be carried by Jesus along with other people’s lives to the cross. The path to the cross will bear the deep prints of sin, known and unknown. She realizes already the depth of forgiveness and mercy that comes from his unflinching presence.

Jesus also reveals love to the Pharisee. Simon believes the woman’s identity comes from her sin. Simon sees her only through the label that he and other people have placed on her. Jesus says to Simon that he did not wash his feet or give him a kiss or anoint his head. Jesus reminds him that the woman bathed his feet with tears, kissed them and anointed them. In this encounter, Jesus teaches Simon and everyone at the table, that the woman crying at his feet is worth more than her sin.

This profound story teaches me that Jesus wanted the woman to be restored to real joy. This joy is not a label nor is it fake or flashy. This joy comes from the honest love of God where all of us are more than our sinfulness and more than the everyday mistakes we make in our relationships. This joy is not a label. This joy comes from being at the feet of Christ and knowing and believing in our inherent worth as a child of God.

I know firsthand how our labels keep people separate, at a distance from our sense of belonging. The person with mental illness is easily labeled incapable of understanding life so is not taken seriously by others. I hear a wealthy executive blame a man experiencing homelessness for the man’s inability to keep a job. I see a responsible parent not wanting her child to associate with people living in poverty because her child might be exposed to “those people”. The long-time parishioner’s opinion is cast aside, the young tattooed youth who meditates daily receives disparaging looks at Eucharist and the pregnant thirteen-year-old absorbs her portion of stares – and more. We easily cast our worries on others and put public blame on the weary and the downtrodden.

We are all servants of God who asks us to lose our lives so to find the joy of life. Even our deepest secrets and unresolved pasts cannot keep us from the tender heart of the merciful Body of Christ. At the foot of the altar we learn to rest our pride, our arrogance, our prejudice and our corruption because of those who teach us that tears and remorse reveal the real presence of Christ Jesus.


The Spirit’s Note

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, March 2010
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When I lived in Southern California, I walked every week along the promenade between Santa Monica and Venice Beach. The famous beach pathway is not only well-known for its sunshine and beautiful sand, but for all the colorful people who make their living selling unique items. Many people will also offer their small or individual talents in exchange for a money offering. Some people who are homeless ask for a donation of coins or paper money dropped in a bucket or hat or tossed on a blanket.

One Friday morning as I was making the return trip to Santa Monica, I noticed a homeless man blowing on a trumpet with a small, rusty coffee can at his feet. He caught my attention because his trumpet looked as if it had been run over by a truck. The smashed instrument looked unplayable at best. However, my fascination became centered on the fact that he was playing just one musical note. I stopped in my tracks and watched him play for awhile. I could not believe my eyes or ears. After listening to his one note concert for a few minutes, I moved on along the path back to my car.

After walking about a half-mile away from the horn player, I stopped cold. All of a sudden something dawned on me. I said out loud on the path, “Now I get it! It was not that he was playing just one note on his trumpet, the man had the courage to play his note!” I am not sure what the people around me must have thought when they heard me talking to myself. However, the new insight sent me racing back to the one-note gentleman to put some money into his rusty container. Unfortunately, he disappeared before I could make a donation to his flat trumpet.

As I look back to my experience on the beach that day, I hold this man’s courage firmly in my heart. He was so humbled by his communication with his trumpet, yet he was fearless in offering to the world what only he could offer. This note speaks to me now of our upcoming celebration of Pentecost.

On Pentecost Sunday, we will proclaim from 1 Corinthians, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” This is manifest in my friend’s trumpet playing. The cumbersome note grasped my attention. It was not a note from a wealthy person, or an educated musician, a cleric or a teacher. This sound of belief and even longing came from a homeless man struggling for a dime in the hot sun.

Because I heard this man’s trumpet, I only imagine how many people I have ignored before him. His dire poverty struck me. I catch myself judging people for expressing themselves, or discounting their voice because of their background, their financial status or their lack of formal education. His humble poverty changed me and my belief about how the Holy Spirit changes me.

At Pentecost we must reconsider the people crying out to us who long for our attention, who beg to be heard, understood and accepted. We must welcome the teenager lost in the foster care system, the elderly suburban woman being abused or the manic housewife caught in addiction. If we believe that the Spirit is not dead, then we must be able to hear the Spirit in the lives of people we have ignored, shunned or have turned a deaf ear.

Many parish communities are paralyzed with fear faced with people in poverty. We have built fences around our schools, locked our church doors and protected our parish gatherings from strangers. We are called again this Pentecost to break free of our fear to welcome the lost, the smelly, the ragtag and the neighbor next door. Pentecost is not a past experience; it is an explosive grace capturing the hearts of people today, in our time and generation.

The Spirit still blows the hinges off our doors, still knocks us off our pedestals, still whips the wind out of our preconceptions and heals our hurtful judgments of one another. The celebration of Pentecost must create the Church from the lives of those who are waiting for a new dignity of life, for those who long to be accepted and for those who cannot wait to pray with us.

The golden age of the Spirit does not exist. We must not believe that a certain time in history is more infused with grace than another. We cannot get stuck in our parish communities believing that the Spirit was more present when we had the cute pastor, or when we had stricter rules, or when priests wore cassocks, or when we wore tie-die.

The gift of Pentecost costs us our thinking that we are in charge, that life will be better without the stranger or that our false security will bring us peace. Pentecost reminds us all as individuals and worshipping assemblies that our lives are a mystery and we are made lovingly in each note of the Spirit’s love.


Almost White Garments

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, February 2010
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I relish a moment of quiet in the chapel early on Easter morning. Every year at the Downtown Chapel I sneak downstairs, flick the switch of a single altar light and sit on the sanctuary steps. I relax in this sacred space as I have done in various other places in the 27 years of my priesthood. I savor the prayer and excitement, the longing and grieving, and the memories and peace of the Triduum. Every year the Triduum captures the real life of every parish, and I try to soak up the lingering hope of people who believe in the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.

Last Easter morning I tried to recall the names and faces of our friends who courageously extended their feet to be washed on Holy Thursday. I captured again the longing on those faces that ache for Jesus to truly wash them of suffering, poverty and loss. I remembered the fresh smell of the bleached towels. I heard again the gentle music, the soft singing. I felt again the anxiety of some people worried about publicly exposing their imperfect feet. The naked feet reminded me again of the sinners and outcasts who ache to be called among His followers. These memories help me realize one more time that everyone longs to be cared for and acknowledged as followers of the Christ who still washes us clean.

I remembered the folks who processed down the chapel aisle to kiss the cross on Good Friday. Some people from our hospitality center reverenced the cross for the first time. Other people who live on the margins of society hoped that this gesture could spark healing for them and for the Church. Still others sought out the wood because it has been a deeply significant ritual all the way from their childhood. Last year I sensed my own fear of death as I remembered an elderly woman who hobbled up to the cross. She died just a few short weeks later.

I also held up to the Divine my memories of celebrating the Easter Vigil. I smelled the Chrism now mingled among the bright aroma of the white lilies. I pondered the wax from the peoples’ candles now on the carpeting. I remembered the new fire capturing excitement on the faces of the Elect and the Word of God echoing our ancient history in our small chapel. I remembered the joyful faces of people renewing their baptismal commitments. The deep joy of new life echoed back to me on the quiet step.

My reminiscence ended abruptly last Easter morning with a knock on the chapel door. Julie, a volunteer and parishioner, arrived in the rain with a load of clothing donated from her coworkers. As I opened the door she said that a young man she encountered down the block really needed help. We invited him through the lobby doors. He was in his early twenties and told us he was just passing through town. He stood in front of us wearing jeans, a T-shirt and filthy, wet white socks. He explained that while he had slept in a doorway all of his possessions were stolen, even his shoes. He begged us for at least a pair of socks and any kind of shoes.

Julie and I escorted him into our men’s clothing pantry, a small dark space in our basement. I assisted him in sorting out some options for shoes. Julie ran upstairs to acquire a new pair of white sweat socks. His name was Chris, and the smell of booze covered him as he sat down on a bench to try on his new shoes. We chatted as he peeled off the soaking wet, filthy-grey socks from one foot then the other. His face lit up as he slowly put on his new socks and tried on a couple of pairs of shoes to find the right size. The donated canvas shoes fit him perfectly.

Julie and I engaged Chris in conversation as he relaxed on the bench enjoying the warmth of his new socks and shoes. He was alone, seeking a job, lost in alcohol, running from family issues and not sure he would stay in Portland long. He thanked us over and over again, for the new white socks and the shoes that felt even better than the boots he had been wearing.

As we were leaving the men’s pantry, Chris picked up his old white socks and tossed them to the side of the room into a small waste basket. I saw the gesture in slow motion, this young man tossing the white garments off to the side. I slowed down and took a second look at the socks in the trash can. I turned off the lights to the small windowless room, acknowledged his smile, closed the door and gave thanks for the Easter morning memory.


Line Dancing

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, December 2009
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On most early mornings I smell cigarette smoke in my bedroom. I smell it not because I smoke or that anyone in the rectory smokes. The hint of cigarettes slowly drifts into my third-story room from the line of people forming below my window. People line up every weekday morning at our urban parish to enter our hospitality center seeking the basics of life. The queue forms in rain or shine, in good economic times or bad, in every liturgical season.

The row of friends and strangers becomes a profound presence of prayer for me even before our hospitality center opens. Low-income neighbors come very early because they have to make decisions about how to spend their day. A young man living outside needs clothing; a single mother wants a laundry voucher so they both wait in our line. A man seeking a job interview steps into a row at another service center to perhaps get one of the few showers available for that day. A stranger in town waits in a different line to get a new identification card because all his belongings were stolen during the night.

Every morning I acknowledge my own lack of patience waiting in lines. I grow angry when I have to wait at a grocery store check-out counter. I feel offended when I have to wait in a restaurant to use a restroom. I have no patience waiting in line to fill my car with gasoline. Every morning in my room and office, the smell of cigarettes and echoes of conversations from below my window remind me of my own stubbornness, small-mindedness and lack of patience.

One of the major differences between when I wait in line and when my friends wait in line is that I will eventually get what I need. I will fill up my car with gas, pay for my groceries and be able to use the restroom in a restaurant. There is no guarantee that people below my window, no matter which line they stand in, will ever get what they need. Our parish can afford only so many laundry vouchers per day, only so many resources for clothing. Our one volunteer can only cut hair of a limited number of people on Wednesdays.

The queue under my window offers a profound reflection especially during the Lenten season. We begin this forty-day retreat with varieties of people in all parishes waiting in line. A cultural mix of people stand in the same procession waiting to be touched, to be given the ash-mark, the sign of the Crucified.

There are as many reasons for coming to Mass on Ash Wednesday as there are people. An immigrant family wants their foreheads to be smeared with ashes because they cling to traditions from the old country. A poor, elderly man believes that if he does not get ashes and dies during the year, he will not go to heaven. An exhausted business man strains to connect again with his childhood. Some gay members feel they can only be part of the sinful fringe of the Church. A neglectful mother feels genuine guilt. An unemployed couple has grown scrupulous and Ash Wednesday continues to make them feel unworthy. For some people suffering abuse, Ash Wednesday is one of the only days a year that they are physically touched in a positive way. Some believers want to keep all the rules, some want to be reminded they are still sinners. Most people want to be found in the love that God has for them.

No matter the reasons we all wait in line to be marked with the Sign of the Cross, every parish must welcome every person. No parish assembly can take for granted that people ache for new life and the security of belonging in the Church. We must not judge people whose reasons for being in the Church seem out of place, too liberal, too conservative or not authentic. We cannot judge folks who come to our parishes only once a year just to receive ashes. We must not shun people who sneak in the doors after Mass on Ash Wednesday and want someone to mark their foreheads.

The queue for the sacred ash mark should remind all ministers that we accept people struggling with mental health, regretful pasts, overwhelming poverty, infidelity, and insincerity. The line dancing down the aisles of our churches to begin the Lenten season teaches us that people have made real decisions to be there, to show up once again to be claimed by Christ’s death and resurrection within the Church.

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Testing the Waters

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, December 2009
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I was shocked at the results of my eighth-grade aptitude test. I thought for sure when I sat through the exam that it would easily reveal my future career. I figured my entire life would be outlined in this simple assessment completed even before high school. Instead, when I received the results, I knew my future was not going to be so easily defined. The test revealed only one area of real strength in the 90th percentile range, everything else was in the 20-30th percentile range. The graph revealed that “agriculture” was my strong point and that my identity would rest on these skills.

I glance way back to the eighth grade because I now have perspective on God’s grace and sense of humor. Life is not as cut and dried as I hoped as a child. I could never have predicted my life’s tests, sacrifices and wrong turns or the beauty of experiences and relationships. The irony of my life now is that I live on a concrete farm in an urban parish in downtown Portland, Oregon. I minister in an environment where there is no grass, no potted flowers, no home-grown spices, and no garden vegetables and not even visible soil. It is also the place where my faith is put to the test and where my life is open for surprise.

This test goes well beyond my eighth-grade exam. Each day brings new demands beyond my abilities. People here are embedded in fear about how to survive the unfortunate circumstances of their lives. They live with the hard lessons of economic pitfalls, horrible addictions and the blame that their homelessness is their entire fault. There is no time here for pretense or false piety. There are no black and white answers to issues of poverty. We have no patience in this setting for power struggles and stodgy clericalism. The soil here for ministry takes many years to plow. Reaping is in God’s hands alone.

The real test for me centers on my ability to let go of my preconceived notions of my strengths, weaknesses and even my ability to trust God. Here, God calls me beyond my imagining, leaving me clinging only to the everyday seeds of trust, fidelity and gratitude. My real life test is to live the life reflected in love of the sacraments and my commitment to the poor.

Working among the poor has tested my faith completely. Several years ago I had the idea of offering a day of retreat for people preparing for initiation from around the Archdiocese. I wanted people who are searching for identity within the Church to discover even for a few hours what I have found here. I wanted people to learn about God’s fidelity among people who have less than themselves. So for the past half-dozen years our parish has hosted this five-hour Lenten retreat at the Downtown Chapel.

The Elect and Candidates, sponsors and team members are offered the opportunity to assemble in our urban setting where ministry puts us all to the test. The purpose of the retreat is to expose everyone’s vulnerability in prayer. This emptiness or loneliness in God allows us to serve those who are physically poor. Our neighborhood in return then shows everyone on the retreat that we are all the same; we all need God no matter how much money, power or possessions we own.

Many of the Elect from other parishes are not exposed to how the Church responds to people on the margins of society. They have not yet experienced the social Gospel and have not been taught the lived history of social justice within the Archdiocese. I discover that people want to test out whether or not the Church is practicing what it preaches.

I begin the retreat asking people about their experiences of prayer. Many faces go blank because they fear they will give a “wrong” answer. I ask them not to test them, but to find some bedrock of truth to explore our relationship with God. After a few minutes of surface answers and polite conversations we get down to the real issues of life. A sponsor finally opens up about how difficult prayer can be when guilt suffocates her. A young candidate from the suburbs whispers that surrender is most difficult because of her addictive and controlling behaviors. A mother reveals that her prayer is still about the grief she carries because of her miscarriage. One man acknowledges his experience in prayer as, “Fits and starts.” A young woman struggles in her prayer to listen. An elderly woman admits her “Restlessness.” And an admitted addict speaks of prayer as “Only love.”

I struggle to authentically articulate how the poor teach me to pray. If I am honest about my own life, I know how I push God away and then complain that I do not belong within the boundaries of God’s fidelity. I hear every day from people who have next to nothing in life. However, they reach out to touch even the hem of Christ’s garment because that is so often their last possession.

To demonstrate this I ask someone in the group to “play” God. I usually ask a woman to stand up and I introduce her to the group as God. God who is all love, not just “sort of like love”, but all love stands with open arms. I walk to the other side of the room, face against the wall and yell out how we all live in our own power leading to addictive behaviors, isolation, and false authority. “God” calls my name and I slowly turn into the direction of love, finally being reconciled into the loving embrace of God who accepts me and brings me home.

I learn this honesty in new ways from people who suffer mental illness, severe loneliness and even from people who suffer unimaginable abuse. I speak as openly as I can about my own inability to be honest in my quiet moments with Jesus. My challenge in silence is to pray the truth of my life and not try to reach God from the emotional masks and even sin I hide behind.

I try to get across to our visitors that if we are going to serve authentically, we must pray with genuine hearts. We cannot serve thinking we have solutions to other people’s problems. We cannot be convincing if we have not first found ourselves in the embrace of God. Otherwise we become just a church of, “Do-gooders” instead of people who are compelled by God to serve others in the world.

My colleague from another parish, Deacon Brett Edmonson, fashions the vulnerability that has been raised in conversation into a model of prayer. He takes these seeds of honesty and opens people’s lives in the model of prayer called, “Lectio Divina.” This process of slowly reading the Scriptures offers people an opportunity to sink soul-deep into the consolation of the Holy Spirit within the Scriptures. The loneliness and fear that rises up from the discussions rests in the Holy texts, not to resolve the fear, but to allow God to receive it.

These contemplative frameworks for prayer suggest to people that our complications and worries are lived and supported in the mystery of God’s love for us. I watch people’s attentive facial expressions as they realize their prayer comes from their vulnerability. They seem to relax into God’s care when they confront these tender life issues. They rest in a new silence that seems full of insight when people make the connections to their own poverty.

These genuine discussions and silent moments seem to relieve the anxiety people had initially about coming to this urban area in the first place. Their eyes light up when their own questions of life are acknowledged and their fears are spoken openly. This creates a new place in the hearts of all the participants now to leave the confines of the parish building and go into the streets to tour our neighborhood.

Members of our staff lead the participants in small groups from our parish lobby into the streets to discuss the issues of our neighbors. Since our parish does not have any free-standing homes in our boundaries, we speak about the struggles people face within the single room occupancy hotels. We tell stories of people dealing with exploding numbers of bedbugs, over-priced rooms, lack of insurance, minimal health care and drug-induced violence. I tell stories of engineers, contractors and workers cutting corners in their work because the building they were building was to house the poor. People are introduced to the nightclub adjacent to the parish that plays music until 6:00am on weekends and are told of how the sound reverberates in my bedroom.

We walk with a new awareness of what the poor face every day and the issues so many people want to ignore. We stop in front of several non-profit organizations, similar to praying a public Stations of the Cross. We pause, tell stories and pray for the care the agencies provide. Slowly our friends on retreat realize the complexity of life for people who are homeless, addicted and mentally ill. Our participants speak of how they have been so blind to people around them and how their families still cultivate fear about poor people.

I explain on our pilgrimage that even one issue would be enough to speak about for our retreat. If we just focused on homeless women, the stories would be vast about the lack of shelters and care for women. We could spend days speaking about the horrific issues of domestic violence and how the women roam the neighborhood at night so not to be raped. We could spend the rest of the day speaking about the women who sit at night around the perimeter of our chapel building hoping to be safe.

When the groups end the pilgrimage they walk back into our building to debrief their new experiences in the chapel. There is a new silence, a hush of observations and insights that fill the space. Some bear the weight of the test with tears, with a new desire to volunteer, and a new realization that suffering must be surfaced in every parish community. One woman shared that her grandmother was homeless and that the walk around the neighborhood was extremely exhausting and painful. All along the way, reminders of her relative’s struggles pierced her conscience and pulled at her heart. She felt so much guilt because she could never fix her grandmother’s pain.

We close our day with ritual prayer. I speak to them about showing up with every emotion, tension, sin, heartbreak and joy to the Easter Vigil. I invite them to “show up” to the feast of the Sacraments, not only physically, but with every aspect of their lives. Then the Holy Spirit will heal what needs healing and open for them a new path of fidelity and love. They will be tested beyond their abilities, loved further than they can imagine, and called to serve in ways they least expect. We end our day with the Elect and Candidates standing around the altar and the sponsors and team surrounding them. We chant this litany of blessing for all people who will be initiated into the Easter Sacraments.

Response: Bless us, O Lord
In our waiting for love,
In our longing for integrity,
In our searching for hope,
In our striving to belong,
In our wanting to serve,
In our bridging the rich and poor,
In our working for peace,
In our serving the outcast and forgotten,
In our befriending the destitute,
In our speaking words of healing,
In our embracing the sick and marginalized,
In our walking with the tired and lonely,
In our committing our lives to others,
In our standing in truth and fidelity,
In our hearing the cries of the oppressed,
In our asking for forgiveness,
In our hungering for the Eucharist,
In our believing in the Word,
In our claiming your prophetic message,
In our calling to live Gospel justice,
In our daring to speak the truth,
In our living in community,
In our reconciling with our enemies,
In our renewing our Baptismal promises,
In our hoping to be saved,
In our calling to die and rise in Christ,
In our following the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
In our relying on God alone,
In our remembering of saints, prophets, martyrs and guides,
In our resting in your loving Kingdom,

Every Lent after the retreat I escort people to the red doors of our chapel to say goodbye. I believe God is continuing to test me through my fear and loneliness by planting seeds of new relationships. I stand in the doorway grateful for new people believing in love and listening to the Baptismal call to serve within the Church in ways we all least expect.

Hand Dipped

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, November 2009
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I reluctantly dip my fingers into our small baptismal font when I enter our chapel before Mass. There are many reasons for my hesitation. The water itself is the first problem. No matter how often we change the blessed water in the porcelain bowl, some people will use it to wash their hands, faces and belongings.

A scum forms along the edges when a mentally ill woman washes her plastic rosary in the font. Another person puts wildflower pedals, grass and dirt in our bowl of life. Rough dirty hands of a homeless man dip into the same waters as the manicured fingernails of the executive secretary from across the street.

The water is not my only hesitation. Some days I am not sure I want to dip my hands into the water because faith is just too difficult. My reluctance to put my fingers in the water is a reminder of my hesitation to open my life to God. I have a deep reservoir of resistance. My resistance accumulates here in our urban chapel because I hear every day the unanswered prayers of people living on the streets. I see firsthand the effects of our culture’s blind attitudes about healthcare. My hands shake with fear as I dip my fingers into the white bowl remembering Jesus’ baptism and realize I am being called to live and serve well beyond my comfort or capability.

I hesitate for a moment going to the font because I also am aware of my own lack of courage. I feel the cool water on my fingers and the sting of guilt on my soul. The water splashes up fear in me about being a priest in such a place of rawness and fragility. On most days I do not feel prepared to enter into relationships with people who challenge me so much.

I also feel the challenge of the Gospels in these new weeks of Ordinary Time. Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine shows me again that I must turn my reluctance to dip my fingers into baptismal water into real service. The water in our simple font must also be turned into direct care for people who cannot serve themselves. The shallow font is deep with hope for people if I could just get over myself. My wet fingers begin the challenge to ready my heart to sip from the Cup of Salvation.

The Gospel from Luke completely challenges me. I hear Jesus stand up in his place of prayer and declare liberty to captives, sight to the blind and glad tidings to the poor. He has been anointed to say things I experience here every day. If I dip my fingers into a baptismal bowl, does this mean Jesus will cure our addictions and take away the horrific effects of mental illness? I wait with wet fingers and sweat on my brow for the answer.

Jesus’ words always confused people. His prophetic words, healings and miracles stirred up people’s fear. He tells me that no prophet is accepted in his native place. So I rely only on Joseph’s Son to show me what to say to a young woman who sells her body to pay rent for a rat-infested apartment. I wait for Jesus’ words to respond to a young man who sleeps at our door who speaks to me about being sexually abused by family members. There are days that I want to rise up with fury and toss any notion of faith into the Willamette River in downtown Portland. I hear the prophets telling me to be patient as I wash my fingers in our dirty bowl.

I splash water on my body and I also feel the tug of the nets thrown into the Lake of Gennesaret. The disciples were making a living doing what they knew best. They were fisherman just like their ancestors. Jesus challenged them to toss their nets into a deeper place. When their nets were bursting with a catch, he told them not to be afraid. I so wish I could walk with this fearlessness among the deep waters of hypodermic needles, rain-soaked back packs and shopping carts filled with people’s only possessions. I must rely on Jesus who challenges me through our shallow bowl of water that deeper faith will someday wash up in me.

Jesus gathered his friends on dry, level ground and told them that the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the grieving will all be blessed. He also warned those who were well-satisfied not to expect satisfaction in the Kingdom. I hold on to these Beatitudes. I believe that what Jesus said that day on dry land can be found in our baptismal waters. I splash filmy water on my forehead and shoulders ready to be led into places I least imagine under the sign of the Crucified.


Handwritten Texting

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, October 2009
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I watch people every noontime handwrite their prayers in a book near the entrance of our chapel. Parishioners and strangers pen thoughts, worries, and hopes for a better life on white paper in a simple black three-ring binder. People hope that God will soon respond. They wish that God could text them back.

There are no instructions, icons or lit candles or kneelers or holy cards, but people have come to understand that being present to this black book is an experience of the holy. These pages include a printed prayer for the ministry of our urban chapel and blank spaces to be filled in with personal thoughts and petitions.

This collection of prayers handwritten in Advent especially breaks my heart. There are no quick replies from God. These words on cheap paper, however, change my life. I read the scratchy printing of a mentally ill woman who begs God to release her boyfriend from prison. The flowery penmanship tells the story of an elderly woman praying she will receive money to pay her rent in the single-room occupancy hotel. The tiny print swears at God for giving the author mental illness. Some prayers I read beg for food and others echo a longing for the end of war. In small print one prayer storms heaven asking God to get rid of deep depression. No matter the penmanship or requests, these sacred cries open me up to profound prayer from the tragically lonely voices of people in poverty.

These prayers are written by people who have no voice in the world. Very few people listen to poor people with mental illness. The man sleeping at our front door gets no response from anyone in our society who can foster change. These prayers speak the loudest to our parishioners who work hard to build a community where people are welcomed.

I read the blue-ink prayers, petitions and expressions of anger and realize these prayers are words of prophets. God planted into the throats of the ancient prophets cries to help people remember the poor, the starving and the prisoner. The ancient reformers called people to look again at the needs of ordinary people. These prayers at our doorway call everyone who reads them to cultural reform and honesty.

Zephaniah told his people not to be discouraged, to live without fear and rejoice in God who loves His people. I hear the same from many of our parishioners who live outside and still rejoice in the smallest kindness. Jeremiah spoke out that the Lord shall be of justice and mercy. I hear this cry from friends who reassure me that they are cared for by God even when nights are wet and cold.

John the Baptist pointed his words and life into the direction of God and screamed his concerns to reform and to repent. These written prayers for me act as agents of renewal for our community. They beg us to rely only on God and to act quickly, lovingly and with integrity. These prayers alarm every community to wake up from self-concern, overindulgence, and needless materialism. The prayers of the poor activate my conscience, stir my anger, and show me only God is in charge. I feel all the injustices of the world in these simple prayers.

The prayer texts of the poor also remind me of the sins of the Church. These sins go deeper into communities beyond our small neighborhood. We can no longer ignore people who suffer mental illness or who remain caught in drug addictions. We must speak out of the reality of war when homeless veterans show up to write prayers in our chapel. We have a sacred duty to help men and women who sell their bodies for drug money. Advent calls us to provide shelter, food and hospitality because even the Holy Family was once in need. Our sins are embedded in the prayers of the poor.

I learn from these prayers that Christmas is for the poor. Christmas through its advertising, economic forecasts, and bottom lines so often promotes the notion that love is for only beautiful, thin and wealthy people. The voices of our friends living below the poverty level, in transitional housing or under cardboard huts along the street, must not grow silent in the dark days of Advent.

I read these black-book prayers with hope. They are written so all of us can eavesdrop on personal conversations with God and learn to pray more honestly. These Advent intercessions ignite my faith to work on behalf of people who need the basics of life. I know God responds to each prayer, not through written texts, but through the work of us all.


Sidewalk Soup

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, August 2009
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I learn every day from people on our narrow, urban sidewalk. Many of our low-income neighbors line up in the very early morning to enter our hospitality center to receive clothing and hygiene products. From my third-floor bedroom window I overhear a man arguing about his place in line and another homeless man telling stories about being beaten up during the night. The sounds of the sidewalk echo back to me a simple truth – I cannot eliminate the reasons why people are hungry. Nothing that I plan changes joblessness, increases salaries or offers people adequate health care. Providing suitable housing or employment after prison is out of my bounds. Lessening money mismanagement of people suffering depression or alcoholism is beyond my expertise.

Our parish community nonetheless continues to learn from this simple walkway around our building. Since we have no parking lot or parish garden, no school or separate rectory building, the sidewalk becomes our place of hospitality. On Friday evenings, parishioners and volunteers collaborate from our small urban parish in Portland, Oregon to provide a simple soup meal outside our building. For a couple of hours our sidewalk becomes not just a passage to bars and strip clubs, but a place where people can find friendship and real nourishment. Even though we do not provide long term solutions to poverty, we respond from faith to provide a kind ear, a friendly conversation and a hot meal.

This outdoor meal is truly the work of many people. Parishioners and volunteers prepare a hearty homemade soup and dated packages of pastries arrive from a local grocery store. A parishioner from a produce company delivers boxes of fresh fruit and retirees spread peanut butter on donated bread. Volunteers set up our small chapel lobby with pots of hot water for chocolate and strong coffee. In summer the hot soup is paired with refreshing cold lemonade from large plastic containers. A volunteer sets up a couple of long tables and wipes clean the old plastic tablecloths already used dozens of times.

We serve the feast from the tiny confines of our lobby, the smallest public space in our building. Our guests receive their meal and sit in plastic chairs lined up against the green outside wall. Even in the cold winter rains of Portland, people wait in line for the 7:00pm opening of the red steel doors on the corner of 6th Avenue and West Burnside Street.

Amid the food set-up, the volunteers and guests gather cramped into this small lobby space and narrow sidewalk for many reasons. One reason is the name of the soup line. Our evening hospitality is called the Brother Andre Café, after Blessed Andre Bessette. Andre was a Holy Cross Brother in Montreal, Canadawho died in 1937 with over one million people attending his funeral. He was a man of small stature with an overwhelming dedication to Saint Joseph. Assigned by our religious community to be the Porter at Notre Dame School because of his sickly nature, Brother Andre became a healer. People with crippling diseases traveled for miles to stand in line in order to speak with Brother Andre for just a few minutes. Andre was the first member of our Holy Cross community to be named “Blessed” by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

We carry on the ministry of hospitality Brother Andre showed the Church. Members of the parish welcome friends and strangers with food at our front doors. Our guests may not be healed of illness or infirmity, nor are their crutches and canes left at our door, but strangers are welcomed and our friends are fed, named and appreciated.

This street meal is more than merely a handout. I find profound connections at the bottom of the empty bowls, in the evening interactions. When I first came to the Downtown Chapel, drug dealers stood on our corner convincing people that addiction would be their real food. We pushed the dealers aside. On Friday evenings we present people with an alternative beyond broken needles with friendship and a full soup bowl. This dynamic ministry speaks loudly on our corner as we witness also to onlookers, shoppers and corporate executives strolling by on Friday evenings.

Our narrow sidewalk extends well beyond our own neighborhood. Our ministry of hospitality reaches far into wealthy suburbs and many other parishes. Every week members of different parishes take turns preparing their recipes for soup. The visiting parishes provide some of the volunteers to set up and clean up, to host the evening and to welcome our neighbors. Many volunteers also bring blankets, socks, hygiene products and clothing to be handed out during the weekday hospitality center. I understand more profoundly with every passing week that our narrow sidewalk meanders into the consciences of many people in various parts of the city and beyond.

These volunteers appreciate that our sidewalk soup line becomes a place for people to become known. For many suburban people, these sidewalks are a place of fear and anonymity. Our Brother Andre Café remains a place where the poor have names, faces, life stories, real fears and dimly-lit dreams. The middle-aged soccer mom begins to understand the stories of a young former prostitute living in a single-room occupancy hotel in our neighborhood. As her fear diminishes, the mother relaxes about her children coming to volunteer in our parish. Creating relationships becomes a key source of change, hope and healing for everyone involved.

Our Friday evening outreach is also a place where high school and college students encounter a meaningful mission of the Church. Our parish staff connects with a half-dozen colleges throughout the year. Some undergraduate classes serve food on Fridays and some stay for a week-long plunge in the neighborhood. Nursing students wash people’s feet on Wednesdays. Some high school students meet their volunteer requirements by sorting canned foods for our daily pantry. Others volunteer in our daily hospitality center handing out laundry vouchers to a local Laundromat. They all experience interactions with people who suffer greatly and who live on the margins of our society.

However, nearly all the students go back to their families and schools telling stories of the reality of life. I hear later that they talk about foot fungus, the lack of housing for former prisoners, and the inadequate facilities for homeless women. Our students leave here realizing that the mission of the Church is about people. They admit to me the stereotypes about the poor that their parents and classmates have been passing on to them and their growing realization of the injustice of many aspects of our culture.

Our food-stained sidewalk also helps give direction to the future clerical leadership of the Church. Graduate school seminarians are placed here by the seminary of the Archdiocese of Portland for our Friday night ministry. I lead undergraduate seminarians in a thirteen hour immersion into our work once a year. I watch as the soup begins to break down the notion that the Church is for only the well-educated and well-deserving.

By the end of the academic year the seminarians realize the terrifying issues of people locked in poverty, ill health and sustained unemployment. I watch barriers tumble down and I see that these future clergy gain real insight that ministry involves building real relationships with people. They are stripped of thinking their future priesthood will be about living apart from unemployment, adequate health care and alcohol abuse.. As always, food becomes the vehicle to bring all people together on the same level, the sidewalk becomes a place for equality and authenticity.

Our parish is not the only place that serves food on Friday evenings. In fact I tell new volunteers that food is not the real problem in our neighborhood. The true misfortune, perhaps the real hunger or disease, is loneliness. Social isolation among the homeless and especially people living in the single-room occupancy hotels feeds continuing addiction and crime. People who suffer any form of mental illness may also lack the desire or motivation to remain on medication, to take care of their personal hygiene or to make necessary financial decisions. Loneliness spirals people into further depression. Loneliness creates a path of hopelessness about the future. This isolation also destroys trust, keeping people from reaching out when they are most in need.

However, our volunteers often arrive believing they can change people. They want to solve their situations or zealously promote food or blanket drives. Some become visibly angry that we are not doing more to get people medical help and dental care.Miracles become visible to me when our wealthy volunteers realize that our staff know the names of our guests. Volunteers gradually understand people when they get to know their human stories. Poverty is not easily solved. The issues of mental illness and homelessness are a tangled network of real issues not solvable by any good intentions. Our volunteers who share a bowl of soup realize that if poverty is to be changed, relationships are the key ingredient. This recipe for change starts with broth, onions, carrots, chopped meat, and a warm smile.

The source of these relationships on the streets comes from inside our chapel building. The Eucharistic Table, the center of any faith community, provides the risk to take love beyond the sanctuary. Our community is loved into service. Every day as I celebrate Mass, I break the hosts and pray that grace may sustain everyone present. There is grace enough for everyone because of Christ’s relationship with all believers. God also provides grace which compels us into feeding people who hunger for food, love and a sense of belonging. I realize that God’s love is plentiful if only we can give it away. I ask God every day for the courage to put Eucharist into practice, to take love to the streets of the city and into the households of everyone – even unbelievers.

Even though our parish community serves from God’s love, we still do not have the resources to change policies concerning health care for everyone, adequate housing for the mentally ill and decent employment for veterans. However, I believe that if policies are ever going to change in our cities or for the rural poor, we must first be in relationship with people who are poor. And the source of all these relationships is the sanctuary in all of our churches, the place in which we profess our belief in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Leaving our sanctuaries to minister on street corners is never easy for any worshipping assembly. Entering into the unknown is always risky. Leaving the security of ritual and breaking down even the invisible communion rail takes deep and profound faith. The priorities for every faith community must remain in service to people who suffer. The call of Jesus to wash feet, heal the sick, touch the leper, and encourage the sinner is not a false piety. This call is not for warm-hearted liberals or staunch conservatives, but for us who pattern our lives after Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. This mission is Christ’s love made flesh, to build community, engage the suffering, and sustain the orphan and widow.

The sanctuary is the place where service and justice are birthed. The sacred liturgy calls us to live beyond the threshold of our comfort, to open doors beyond our ignorance. Our parish community continues to call us into our streets and neighborhood even beyond serving soup. Our community processes to a murder site when violence strikes our neighborhood. We sing a litany that names forms of evil on the sidewalk where the stabbing or shooting occurred. It is the very same litany we sing when we celebrate the Scrutiny Rite for our catechumens. Members of our staff take people on tours to educate volunteers and strangers about the issues of poverty we learn from being in relationship with people inside our chapel walls. The sanctuary and streets are both places of conversion and hope.

I realize sharing soup and stories on the streets does not solve every aspect of people’s suffering. Our staff did not have the insurance or medical care to keep Jane from dying on our streets from gangrene. Our parish cannot solve Jim’s problems of severe mental illness which keeps him in the same clothes for months without showering. We cannot clean people’s teeth or offer a root canal. We cannot fix the ongoing problem of bedbugs in the single room occupancy hotels.

The sidewalk outside our chapel building is more than a corridor to the neighborhood. The concrete path is an extension of the Eucharist itself. The food we share gives us hope when everything else fails. The soup served from the cold streets unites lonely people on Friday evenings and changes priorities of volunteers. The common walkway leads right back to the sanctuary when we are all exhausted from our efforts and need to be fed again with real sustaining food, the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.

A Beautiful Supper

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, April 2009
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All too often, I stuff myself with junk food. The sweet or salty fatty fare tastes so good at the time when I think I want to fill the void of hunger. I am always aware that I am trying to fill up more than my body’s desire for nutrition. I am really hiding my feelings of wanting to be connected, loved, and accepted in the world. Food can often play tricks on me, making me feel I am in charge of my own life. Stuffing my body can also mask my feelings of not belonging in the world.

I understand this feeling of emptiness every day working among the poor. I am engaged with people who believe they do not belong in the church because they fill up the void in their lives with multiple sexual partners or by shooting up drugs or constantly acting out in anger and violence. Beneath the surface of all of our anxiety is a deep, profound craving to belong to God and to the gift of being fully alive.

Priscilla deepened my understanding of the real food God offers to all of us. Priscilla always sat in the front pew during Sunday Mass because of her fading eyesight. Even though her eyes could not go the distance, Priscilla perceived more at the Eucharist than most of us. I noticed her
feisty, fiery, youthful self hidden in her aging body. She always looked forward to her seat in the church because her family lived in another state and her health kept her home most of the week. Priscilla’s vision was anchored on the action of sharing our common story in Scripture and praying the Eucharist.

Every Sunday after Mass, Priscilla would hobble up to me, stare into my eyes, and say with loving confidence, “Thank you, Father, for the beautiful supper!” Her words always adjusted my perspective back on the real meaning of my own hunger.

Priscilla was deeply connected to the Eucharist because of her poverty, illness, and loneliness. Her piety was not nostalgic, rigid, or maudlin. She admitted her hunger and she believed God would feed her. She better understood God’s care for people because she spent years rolling up her sleeves to feed people on our Portland streets. She got her hands sticky spreading peanut butter and jelly on white bread. She stained her soul with involvement by remembering people’s names and welcoming the poor in our soup line.

Priscilla’s words of gratitude teach me about the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ as we continue to pray in these months of Ordinary Time. We celebrate in all of our parishes the sacrament that feeds our deepest hungers. We name the reality that all of us starve for the life God has for us. However, this solemnity cannot become reduced to a rigid or static notion of the real presence of Christ. Priscilla showed me again that Christ reveals his presence in relationship to people and to honest hunger.

Some parishes may be tempted to celebrate this solemnity by focusing on adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. When this becomes the only focus in our parish celebrations, adoring the eucharistic bread at a distance becomes more important than the action of the celebration of the Liturgy. People may perceive that the Eucharist we kneel in front of is better, holier, and even more present than the Eucharist celebrated every day in parish life.

The lives of the poor show me that the action of the Eucharist calls us all into service and love. The presence of Christ must remain rooted in what Christ actually did on earth. He gathered people who were hungry and multiplied loaves and fish and had full baskets left over. He fed people in ways they could least imagine, not only with bread and fish but by curing diseases, expelling demons, and even raising the dead. On the night of his death he stooped down and washed his friends’ feet at the same meal in which he told his apostles to remember him when they break bread and share the cup.

Priscilla died this past year. Every day as I stand at the altar and hold the Eucharist in my hand, I remember her gratitude to God for real and authentic suppers. I look past her empty seat to other people in the pews starving for love and longing for relationship. I feel a deep, satisfying fullness of tasting God’s presence as we all approach the beautiful supper of the Lamb.

About My Father’s Business

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, November 2008
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My father died alone in a hospital room four days after suffering a series of strokes.  Earlier that evening my family and I gathered around his bed before heading out to dinner. I told him that his two living sisters granted their permission for him to die. He never made any major life decision without the approval of at least one of his five sisters. I told him that my brother and I could manage life from here. We all told him of our love. I thanked him for being my dad.  Dad had accomplished his goals, he battled Parkinson’s disease for years, he was tired and he was ready to let go.

As we prayed around his bed on that cold December evening, he remained barely conscious. Dad responded to our presence, forming his lips into a silent, “thank you.”

I treasure his sacred last words to us. His farewell gift of gratitude has formed and changed me in these past years. I now see more clearly my own life as a man and as a priest. I inherited on that cold night a gift of gratitude and I will spend the rest of my life interpreting that gift in all I do and accomplish in the world. I look back now from that moment of gratitude to listen again to his other words throughout his lifetime. His words and phrases now open me up, challenge me, and create in me a place of strength and love. I believe Dad’s phrases which he often spoke in life also speak now to other ministers in the church who strive to live the same message of gratitude and encouragement.

My parents owned and operated a grocery store for forty-five years. My only brother managed the business after his military service. I worked reluctantly during summers stocking shelves with canned goods and bagging groceries for familiar customers. Dad’s business was his school of life. Through this small, neighborhood business, he learned how to be a man, how to relate to the world, and how to face the struggles within himself.

His familiar phrases, his one-liners, motivated all of us who worked long hours to make ends meet. His words were his mantras, like refrains to the morning psalms. The older I become the clearer Dad’s words ring true especially in the context of my pastoral ministry. I hear his phrases differently now because I heard him admit his gratitude.  I first heard his words as an awkward teenager unmotivated to be working in the family business, and didn’t understand their significance at the time.

Dad woke up each morning with more ideas than he could ever implement. Morning was the time to paint new signs on white butcher paper for the latest sale items. He prepared a dozen varieties of homemade sausage. He organized, made lists, and swept floors before employees arrived. His first phrase that I remember from childhood was, “Get it done early.”

He prepared for his day because he respected his customers and he wanted to offer them his best work. He felt every morning his life’s call, his mission and purpose in the world. He knew personal hunger as a child and he really respected food and its purpose in family life.

This explains why I pray at 4:00am, write essays before dawn and decorate the church before breakfast. I unveil every morning my own call to be a man of integrity and hope for other people. The early morning hours strip away pretense and they help me discover my mission from God. I confront my own demons and the uncertainty of my priesthood before I see the sun. I strive in the new day to be grateful for everything.

We could all learn from Dad’s business that our ministry depends largely on our preparation and reflection. We need better preparation from all of us who serve in the church. Being prepared is also costly. It takes time away from family, self-care and often from relaxation. However, “get it done early” for us may mean that we sit in the early hours and encounter God in the daily Scriptures. It calls us to confront our sin and mistakes. Being prepared for us means that we sort out before dawn the real reasons we stay in the church working, loving and serving people with often very little thanks for those pre-dawn efforts. This is the hidden life of the minister. Being prepared is to accept our call from God to get His work done on earth.

My father butchered meat for a living. He mastered huge meat-cutting saws, sharp cleavers, and wrapping up meat packages with white paper and string. With blood on his apron and sawdust on his shoes, he mastered the tools of his trade. However, in an instant he could wipe his dress shoes clean, whip off his apron, roll down his sleeves of his starched white shirt and be prepared to meet people or discuss products with salesmen. He expected the rest of us to be ready for customers. He would yell to us stock boys, “We need help up front!” This meant we were to drop what we are doing because we were needed to bag groceries at the cash register or help an elderly woman to her car.

This phrase always yanks me out of my solitude and stubbornness and reminds me of my authentic call to be in relationship with people who need God. I often hear Dad’s words when I see priests hiding in the sacristy before Sunday mass. When I witness ushers, greeters or other hospitality ministers telling jokes to each other or reminiscing about former pastors, I hear Dad’s plea to make sure people are greeted and acknowledged. I feel his dissatisfaction when people entering the church doors have questions about how to plan for marriage or simply want to know the locations of the restrooms, and they remain ignored.

“We need help up front,” is a radical call for contemplation by all ministers. Being with people is the reason the church exists. This grace-filled act is faith lived in the moment. Each person deserves our attention because God calls us all into prayerful action. People entering our church doors depend on us believing in something more than our self-centered piety in which some people belong and others feel ignored.

The family-run business often overwhelmed my father. Worry often got the best of him. He did not possess all the answers to how to make ends meet or the best way to advertise or what products to put on sale. When he realized he could not control the outcome of his day or when he grew tired of worrying about something in the future he would say to the rest of us, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

I find in this statement profound love and honesty. I, too, get caught up in many ideas and worries about my ministry and what it could become.  What I miss so often is ordinary life, people and their needs sitting in front of me. I cross one bridge at a time when an elderly man needs medications or when a woman needs diapers for her infant or when the addict needs to talk to someone right now.

The poor teach me the sacredness of Dad’s words. I learn to take each day of grace as it comes. I ground myself in daily life, one person and one need at a time. I make sure I am not living ahead of reality, not feeding on tomorrow’s bread. People who search for one meal at a time or ask for a clean blanket to make it through the night teach me all over again to deal with life as it comes, one bridge at a time. I realize in Dad’s statement that I cannot control life or peoples’ reactions either. I depend on God to help me make appropriate decisions.  I wait like everyone else for God’s initiative and presence.

Dad made financial mistakes. He cut his losses and moved on. He fretted much about making the correct choices and he stressed over people who were difficult to please. His worry became more evident when his Parkinson’s became more obvious to us. When he was exhausted from his worry, he would utter, “That’s the way it goes.”

Even hearing the exasperation in these words, I never took this phrase as Dad giving in to despair. I heard it then from a man who recognized with clarity his limitations. Now I hear it in the truth of adulthood myself. I say it under my breath when I feel my dreams slip away. I scream it to God when I know members of my religious community or parish do not understand me or my new ideas. This mantra becomes for me a new reliance on God, a trust when all else fails. Dad’s phrase speaks relief when my plans crash or it gives me courage when I finally understand I was wrong in the first place.

Many of us compulsively complain that we are never heard or understood in the church. Our energy runs out as we blame everyone when life does not work out from our plans. We blame everyone, including bishops, parish councils, the poor, consumerism, and even school parents, for much that goes awry in parish life. I hold on now to Dad’s words because I am confident it was his phrases and what remained underneath those phrases that brought him to his gracious thanks. I do not want to miss out on that gratitude. I want more than ever to appreciate life, to find it deep in my soul, and to let my gifts speak as they will. That’s the way it goes, when love finds a home in us.

Dad’s phrases race around in my heart daily, too many to speak about here. It was through his phrases that I learned to be a stock boy in a small grocery store. Now I hear them as a seasoned adult, a man searching for authentic priesthood, yet still my father’s youngest son. I learn from his mistakes. I put my own spin on antique phrases. I wallow some days in my own regret. I take chances and dream dreams and I believe that God never abandons us.

My parents and my brother liquidated the family business in 1991. Dad was never the same as his Parkinson’s disease, cancer and his pride took a great toll on his health, his mind and his perspective. He remained faithful to his many simple sentences, verbal reminders of his working days where his dreams once stood.

I preached my father’s funeral having received his words of thanks before he died. His gratitude helped to ease my pain. His phrases, the Gospel and my words seemed to all intermingle in my mind. I anticipated that day for many years, but nothing really prepared me. It was also on that day that I became a man, his grown son. I felt noble, taking the rein of life. I felt my priesthood standing in fire, a moment of purification, a place of passage.

At the end of the Eucharist, during the Final Commendation, I slowly pulled out from underneath my alb Dad’s white butcher’s apron. I held it up and my mother and brother sobbed. Everyone recognized it as his garment of service. They all remembered the baptismal white apron he wore behind the meat counter. I laid the garment on his casket and we prayed our goodbyes. My father’s business prepared me for my Father’s business, the two intertwined. Now I pass on in my adult priesthood what I learned as a youth and I long for the gift of my father’s gratitude, my earthly inheritance.

Albert John Raab, Jr. (1920-2000), Ronald Patrick Raab, C.S.C., Bishop William McManus, Rosemary Raab