Our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, Our Brother and Friend

Notre Dame de la Garde.
Photo by Hedwig Storch via Wikimedia Commons.

Four celebrations give us wonderful insight into Jesus. They come at the end of the Sundays of the church year in the lectionary and the sacramentary: the thirty-fourth Sunday Christ the King and the three solemnities of the Lord during ordinary time—Trinity Sunday, Body and Blood of Christ, and the Heart of Jesus.

King and kingdom go together. The Child of the Father, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, by the Holy Breath, is king. We people and angels with our earth and universe during our time and eternity are to be His kingdom, His holy family of friends, to the image and likeness of the Trinitarian Family of Friends. He gathers us his sheep who help our brothers and sisters in need, hungry and thirsty, homeless and naked, sick and imprisoned, bodily and spiritually. He is the king of the kingdom of us friends based on His truth and love. He is the Man, our human way, our merciful way. Entering His reign, He remembers us wrongdoers who have turned to Him to take us to His home (Mt 25, Jn 18, Lk 23).

Jesus is our one Lord who Is, who is the Merciful (Ex 3 and 34). He is our Lord as Child with His Father and His Holy Breath, the Trinitarian Family of Friends. He of Mary, wife of Joseph, in the fullness of time becomes our Brother and Companion and Savior, our Comrade and Champion and Revolutionary, our Friend. He is sent to us from His and our merciful Father to redeem us and He sends His and our Holy Breath from the Father in us to adopt us, His holy family of friends of Mary and Joseph, to the image and likeness of His Trinitarian Family of Friends (Gal 4). He guides us by the Holy Breath who speaks and gives what He hears and receives through Him our Jesus from the Father (Jn 3, Mt 28, Jn 16).

Jesus nourishes us, kindles us, converts us through the sacrament of His Body and Blood truly present, offered among and for and with us under the symbol of a word and bread and wine meal. He wants us to eat His Body handed over for us and drink His Blood poured out for us, to offer self for others with and like and through Him. In our hunger and thirst of heart and conscience and struggle, we need Him so that we may live radically and fully His way for us (Jn 6, Mk 14, Lk 9).

Jesus opens His Heart for us as our affectionate Friend and Savior. He, humble of heart, often rests and refreshes us who are laboring and burdened. He does this now during the time of our life and mission and forever in our eternity. He lets His Heart be pierced for us sinners. He searches and finds us lost sheep and carries us home (Mt 11, Jn 19, Lk 15).

Who is like our Jesus, our King, our Brother, Child of Mary and Joseph and our Lord with His Father and His Holy Breath? He offers himself for us. His Heart is open for us. He is the center of revelation and liturgy in our Church for our world (see the four constitutions of Vatican II). He is our hope and promise and fulfillment during our life and history, and for our eternity. He gathers and renews and sends us His family of friends and witnesses.

Jesus was at the center of my childhood and boyhood and youth in our parish and school, in my family and among my friends. He was at the center of my study of arts and sciences, of my practice of thought and expression both spoken and written and persuasion (logic, grammar, rhetoric), and of my three years of philosophy (1950-53 at the Gregorian): year one at the center of human imagining and knowing, method and content, truth and being (logic, epistemology, metaphysics); year two at the center of our earth and universe, of people and angels, of Him who Is (cosmology, psychology, natural theology); year three at the center of human feeling and willing, of us human persons and community and our attitudes and actions, religious and secular, of our concerns—domestic, cultural, economic, political (ethics).

Jesus was at the center of my theology before ordination (1953-57 at the Gregorian). In year one, He was the king of the kingdom (de revelatione, de ecclesia). In year two, He was the Child of the Father by the Holy Breath, the Beloved Word of the Lover by the Love, the Image of the Artist by the Gift, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph (de Trinitate). In year three, He was the Word Incarnate crucified and raised, our Anointed Savior, our heart, our friend (de Verbo Incarnato, de Christo Salvatore). In year four, He was the memorial word and bread and wine meal making Him truly present offering Himself among and for and with us brothers and sisters (de eucharistia).

Jesus is at the center of my eighty-seven years, of my sixty-five years as a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate (and of Joseph), of the fifty-nine years of my life and mission as a presbyter, a theologian and a parish priest. May He be at the center of my aging and death and eternity.

Please pray for and with me: Jesus of Mary and Joseph, thank you for your many blessings, especially my brothers and sisters, my friends, my family of friends. Forgive me my many sins, be merciful to me, a sinner. Help my ongoing conversion as your friend and witness.

Immaculate Conception ("DIME") statue at the University of St. Mary of the Lake via the USML website

St. Eugene, founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, died as the Salve Regina—the Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy—was prayed. Cardinal Francis George asked those present at his dying to sing this same hymn. The first Oblates leaving Marseilles, France, for the peoples of America, Asia, and Africa sang this same hymn as they watched the statue of Mary in Notre Dame de la Garde overlooking the harbor disappear to their ship moving out on the sea. In this hymn, we ask Mary, mother of mercy, that after this our exile she show us Jesus. We turn to her and her Joseph to pray for and with us to Jesus each day and especially at the hour of our death.

Dawn Eden Goldstein, S.T.D.

If all goes as designed now, my near future is to be an assistant parish priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mission, Texas. My heartfelt thanks to the wonderful people of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary. During my eighteen years in the church of Chicago, this has been a spiritual and intellectual and human oasis of brothers and sisters and friends. My heartfelt thanks to the seminarians and their fellow students, their teachers, and especially their staff of office and library and security and maintenance personnel. My heartfelt thanks to my sister and friend Dawn Eden Goldstein, who urged me to share my reflections on this blog and who made this possible with her expertise and generosity.

May Jesus and His Mary and His Joseph hold us all and each, singly and together, in their hands and mind and heart, now in our time and always in our eternity.

Father Don

Our Need, Our Holy Breath, Our Charisms

We need our merciful Father through His Child, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, to breath anew His Breath in us brothers and sisters together and singly, to make us His family of friends to Their image and likeness. We need His Holy Breath and His charisms, our blessings directed to our brothers and sisters. We need His charisms of life/state and mission/office (ST II-II, qq. 83-89/Dei verbum, Sacrosanctum concilium), of thought and word and deed (ST II-II, qq. 71-78/Lumen gentium), of contemplation and action (ST II-II, qq. 179-182/Gaudium et spes).

The sixth and ninth commandments urge us to honor us brothers and sisters in our sexuality, virginity, marriage justly in thought, word, deed, to have caring hearts. The seventh and tenth commandments urge us to honor us brothers and sisters in our talent, work, property, justly in thought, word, deed, to have sharing hearts. Our sexuality is a basis of relating to others. Our talent is a basis of actions for others. Thomas, in speaking of our charisms, blessings directed to others, singles out among others office and state. State refers to our life in terms of our sexuality. Office refers to our mission in terms of our talent. Sexually we choose originally to be single, married/widowed, or consecrated/committed. Talentwise we choose originally to be lay or ordained. Pleasure can lure us not to care, possession can lure us not to share. We need Jesus, our source and exemplar, our way and truth and life. We need His shepherding and teaching and sanctifying. We need His offering word of revelation and His offering meal of liturgy to offer self for others in our relations and actions, our life and mission (DV and SC).

In addition to charisms of life and mission, we need charisms of thought, word, deed. We need charisms of thought, to hear the word of proclamation and promise of the Holy Breath, to feel His seizure and rapture. We need to speak words from His wisdom and knowledge and with His tongues of encounter. We need to do deeds under His impact, miraculously healing and nourishing and freeing and uniting and encouraging and cheering. We need these charisms in everyday ways and sometimes in more spectacular ways. We are a gathered and renewed and sent people, charismatic (democratic) and hierarchical (ordered). We are His family of friends because of His revealing and gracing action and of our responsive action trusting the Father and helping us brothers and sisters. We are ordained and lay, together and singly we are called to be holy, inspired by consecrated and apostolic members. We saints of earth and purgatory are to be totally His family of friends like and with the saints of heaven. We are exemplified, embodied, personified by Mary and Joseph. Jesus is the light of us nations of brothers and sisters as His holy family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him and His Father and His Holy Breath, His Trinitarian Family of Friends (LG). His Breath breaths, floods, blows, kindles, souls us together and singly through Him in His Church gathered and renewed and sent for His world.

Besides charisms of life/state and mission/office and of thought and word and deed, we need charisms of contemplation and action. Our contemplation is our prayer and our action is our virtue struggle. They interplay, each leading to the other. Together and singly we heartbeat with and like and through the Child of the Father, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, through and in and toward His Catholic Church for His world. Together and singly we breathe by and in and with His Holy Breath. Together and singly we move from and to and for His and our Father the Merciful and us brothers and sisters, people and angels, with our earth and universe, during our time and eternity, the miserable in our heart and conscience and struggle to be His holy family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him and His Child and His Breath, His Trinitarian Family of Friends. Together and singly we move, breath, heartbeat as human and angelic persons and community in our action, religious and secular, ecclesial and civil. We do so in our married couples and families, in our schools and culture, in our work and property, in our government—local, national, regional, international—of both citizens and officials. We aim at life, liberty, and happiness, truth, justice, and mercy, pardon, peace, and beauty. Our contemplation and our action transform our world as the holy family of friends of Mary and Joseph in the light and fire of the Trinitarian Family of Friends.

So, our Holy Breath from our Father through His Child our Jesus of Mary and Joseph by His charisms directs our relations and actions of our life and mission through His offering word of revelation and offering meal of liturgy, guides our thoughts and words and deeds through His Church, gathered and renewed and sent, and blesses our contemplation and action transforming His world (the four constitutions of Vatican II). Like and unlike Karl Marx, we aim at a world to be interpreted and changed. Like and unlike Friedrich Nietzsche, we aim at the transvaluation of all values.

There is a description of the encounter between the deacon Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch that helps us grasp the way our Holy Breath guides our needed encounters with one another (Acts 8). He puts Philip in the carriage of the Ethiopian eunuch who thirsts for Jesus his Savior and after his evangelizing takes him away. Often He puts Philips in our carriage of us Ethiopian eunuchs in our need and then takes them away. Sometimes we are the Philips He puts in the carriages of our brothers and sisters the Ethiopian eunuchs in their need and then takes us away. This is really not an accidental happening but a providential action of our Holy Breath.

Our American poet Emily Dickinson observes, "Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell." Meeting one another, whether long or short, is central to our life and mission. Jesus promises we each and all have a place in the house of our Father and He will come to take us home by His Breath (John 14). Our same poet observes also, "I'm Nobody! ... Are you — Nobody — too? Then there's a pair of us! ... How dreary — to be — Somebody! ... To tell one's name — the livelong day — to an admiring Bog!" Jesus, humble of heart, by His Breath from His Father, rests and refreshes us laboring and burdened; this He does often now and will do forever for us His friends (Matthew 11).

Father Don

Our Need, Our Jesus the Messiah, Our Savior the Anointed

We need Jesus in his incarnation for our salvation as we confess and profess in the creed of our church. By the Holy Breath, He is the Child of the Father, our Jesus of the virgin Mary, wife of Joseph, for our salvation, especially through His passion and resurrection (Apostles Creed, Nicene-Constantinople Creed).

John Paul II was fascinated by the mystery of our redemption. Jesus is redeemer of us people (Redemptor hominis). His Mary is mother of our redeemer (Redemptoris mater). His Joseph is guardian of our redeemer (Redemptoris custos). Our mission is that of Him our redeemer (Redemptoris missio). Jesus our redeemer opens us to His merciful Father (Dives in misericordia) and to His life-giving Breath (Dominem et vivificantem). John Paul faced communism in Poland and in the world at large. He faced secularist humanism worldwide. He was concerned about the true liberation of us people, our true redemption. For him, liberation theology is truly redemption theology.

John Paul highlighted the church in the contemporary world and religious freedom. During the council, he was deeply involved in Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae. Jesus is our way to be truly free human persons in community today (GS no. 22 and 24, DH no. 2-3 and 10-11). His Breath from His Father touches us together and singly to realize we are to be freely His children and so brothers and sisters among ourselves as His family of friends of Mary and Joseph.

Jesus is our captain in the battle of life and history. He is our comrade, our champion, our revolutionary. He makes us humbly trustful in His and our merciful Father and mercifully helpful to His brothers and sisters miserable in our heart and conscience and struggle. Especially through His passion and resurrection, His defeat and victory, He transforms our movement and flow from cruel to merciful. Mary and Joseph are His closest friends in His turning us from the isolation of enemies to His family of friends humbly trustful and mercifully helpful.

Thomas considers our redemption as an aspect of our salvation. Jesus saves us especially through His passion as merit of our good and as satisfaction of our evil and as sacrifice offering self for His Father and us His brothers and sisters and as redemption changing the movement and flow of our history and lives from cruel to merciful. Especially through His passion and resurrection, He saves us as sacrament revealing and gracing our lives and history (ST III, qq. 48, 49, 56).

Jesus our Savior is our wounded heart, our affection, our fire. He makes us His family of friends of Mary and Joseph (John 19, Haurietis aquas and Munificentissimus Deus of Pius XII). He walks with us, talks with us, breaks bread with us, missions us (Luke 24, Deus caritas est, Verbum Domini, Sacramentum caritatis of Benedict XVI, and Evangelii gaudium of Francis). Jesus is our good Samaritan (Luke 10), He sets us on fire (Luke 12). He is merciful friend to us cruel brothers and sisters and wants to make us His merciful family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him Child, Beloved Word, and His Father, His Lover, and His Breath, His Love.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well by Nicholas Columbel, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jesus changes our water to wine (John 2). He is our way and truth and life (John 14). We thirst, He gives us water from His well (John 4). We are blinded, He makes us see (John 9). We are deadened, He makes us live (John 11). He is the grain of wheat that dies to make us His field of wheat (John 12). He is the vine, we the branches to bear His grapes (John 15). He, humble of heart, rests and refreshes us (Matthew 11). He holds us in His heart and hands as His friends, His family of friends. By His Breath, He makes us His heart and His hands, offering self among and for and with us to His Father and helping His brothers and sisters (Chrism Mass homily of Benedict XVI, 2006).

Jesus is our need, our story, our song. Our Jesus the Messiah, our Savior the Anointed, yesterday, today, tomorrow, is forever (Hebrews 13).

Father Don

The Church Year, the Rosary, Our Life and Mission

The church year (Sundays, weekdays, saintsdays) tones and colors our life and mission. It is centered on Jesus, Child of Mary and Joseph, the Child of our Merciful Father and His Holy Breath. It is centered on Jesus of the gospels in His incarnation for us (advent, christmas, epiphany) and in His redemption of us (lent, easter, pentecost), in His words and deeds after His baptism and temptation to before His last supper and agony (ordinary time). This we pray in the rosary with the joyful, the luminous, the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries of Jesus and of us His followers.

We can pray the life and mission of a brother, of a sister, of a friend, dead or still alive on earth, in the light and fire of the mysteries of Jesus in the church year and in the rosary. We can pray the history of the church and our world the same way.

We pray the conception, the gestation, the birth of Jesus of Mary wife of Joseph, we pray His traditioning as child in the presentation and his creativity as youth in the finding (the joyful mysteries). We pray His call in the river and the desert; His words, especially in His talks such as the sermon on the mount; His deeds, especially in His meals such as the wedding at Cana; His opposition in Galilee with the transfiguration; His rejection in Jerusalem with the triumphal entry (the luminous mysteries). We pray His last supper with the washing of feet and the offering of Self in transformed bread and wine; His passion from the agony in the garden to His last breath on the cross; His raising and breathing His breath from His Father in his friends; His ascension and blowing and kindling His Wind His Fire in His friends past present future; His family of friends forever, personified by the wife of Joseph, His mother Mary, taken by Him bodily to heaven (the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries). This is my personal way of praying the rosary each day with fifteen mysteries.

Jesus, present in His church for His world, is celebrated during the church year and weekdays and saintsdays mainly in the memorial word and bread and wine meal of Him truly present offering His body and blood among and for and with us to be heard and offered and eaten/drunk and approached by us. Likewise, He is celebrated in the prayer of hours, psalms in His light and fire for us in our everyday need of heart and conscience and struggle at anticipated midnight readings, morning, midday, noon, midafternoon, evening, night.

The Basilica of St. John Lateran (originally Saint Saviour) in Rome.
Photo by Jastrow via Wikimedia Commons.

Jesus, present in His church for His world, is celebrated in our life and history with sacraments and sacramentals. There is our birthing at baptism; our firming at confirmation, our nourishing and converting and illumining and kindling and impelling at the eucharist; our being forgiven of our sins with reconciliation; our being strengthened in our serious bodily illness with the anointing of the sick; the ordaining of a man to be a priestly servant for the priestly people as bishop or presbyter (both as priests) or deacon (as servant); the marrying of a man and a woman as coupled friends open to giving life to their child. Besides the sacraments, there are sacramentals. Sacraments are actions of Jesus through His church; sacramentals are actions of the church as her prayer to Jesus.

The great sacramentals are the consecrating of a man/woman as a virgin or the committing of a man/woman as an apostle; the burial of the bodily remains of a human person after death for final resurrection; the dedication of a house to be a home for the gathered and sent followers of Jesus. Other than these great sacramentals, there are those for our yearly passover conversion: ashes, branches, oils (of sick, of catechumens, chrism)—cross, candle/candles, water. There are many other sacramentals, blessings of people and things for different and myriad occasions and concerns.

No wonder we treat the church of Jesus as our mother and teacher of us His followers together and singly in our life and mission as his followers together and singly.

Father Don

The Way of the Risen Jesus and His Followers

"Florida Sunrise" by James E.K. via Wikipedia.

We followers of Jesus follow Him the Crucified His way. And we follow Him the Risen His way. He is crucified by us but raised by His Holy Spirit from His Father. We mark fourteen stops to deepen our dying to our sinful self and rising to our graced self.

(1) Jesus rises from the dead at sunrise the third day after His crucifixion and burial. (2) He empties the tomb where His dead body lay. His body is not found in the tomb by Mary Magdalene and by the women nor by the apostles Peter and John. The angel tells them Jesus has been raised up from the dead. (3) Jesus appears to His Mother and friend Mary in communion with His friends alive and dead, especially Joseph. (4) He appears to Mary Magdalene and to Peter individually in the garden near the tomb. (5) He appears to the two disciples on the road and in the inn. Their hearts burn as He walks and talks and breaks bread with them. (6) On this third day of His passover and first day of His resurrection, He appears to the ten apostles in the upper room of the last supper. He breathes His Holy Breath from His Father in them to mercy their brothers and sisters in their sinful misery. (7) On the eighth day of His resurrection, He appears to the eleven apostles in the upper room; this time Thomas, who has doubted, is present and now believes because he has seen and heard and touched Jesus.

Campfire via Wikipedia.

(8) Days later, Jesus appears to the seven disciples at the lake. He missions Peter to care for His lambs and sheep out of love for Him. (9) Forty days after the resurrection, He appears to the eleven apostles on the mountain. Then Jesus missions them to evangelize and sacramentalize their brothers and sisters from all the nations; He pledges to be with them to the end of time. (10) Jesus ascends in their presence to His Father by His Cloud, His Holy Breath, and continues to help His followers from the side of His Father by His Holy Breath. (11) During nine days, the 120 disciples, including Mary His Mother and some extended family members, and including Peter and the other apostles, pray in the upper room for His Holy Breath from His Father. (12) Fifty days after His resurrection and ten days after His ascension, Jesus from His Father breathes His Holy Breath in the 120 disciples. (13) His Holy Breath is Water filling them, Wind blowing them, Fire kindling them, Soul animating them together and singly, each original for and with all and each, making them His Body and Him their Head.

(14) So the story of Jesus and His Church, His gathered and sent followers, unfolds through history (gospels of Jesus, acts and letters of apostles, revelation). People belong to Him inwardly by His graced faith and hope and love and justice in their heart and life and mission, and outwardly relating to Him our Way and Truth and Life through His shepherding and teaching and sanctifying in His Church for His world by our graced good will, human and secular and hopefully as religious, as Christian, as Catholic. Jesus crucified and raised calls us His way during our life and history to be His family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him Child of theirs and of His Father by His Holy Breath.

The last supper, the passion, and the resurrection of Jesus is our passover, our liberation. The coming of His Holy Breath from His Father is our covenant, our communion. The last supper is now the passover and covenant meal offering of Jesus and of us His friends, especially Mary and Joseph.

Popular prayer in the Church by the Holy Breath inspires our prayer together and singly: 

Abba, Father, we are His children, His friends, His family of friends. Alleluia, praise the Lord. Take my freedom, receive my imagining, knowing, willing. Only give me your love and grace, that is enough, nothing more. Soul of Jesus, Body of Jesus, hide me in Your wounds, never let me be separated from You. Mary, Mother of Mercy, after this our exile, show us your Child, our Jesus. Together with Joseph, pray for and with us to your and our Jesus now and at the hour of our death. By the Holy Breath in the Church. Amen, let it be so.

We together and singly are deeply involved in the struggles of our Church and of the nation and world. We have our concerns and our hopes and dreams. With the help of Jesus, we do our best and entrust all to Him. His and our Church and nation and world are in His heart and mind and hands.

Father Don

The Way of the Crucified Jesus and His Followers

Pieta by Michelangelo. Photo by Juan M. Romero via Wikimedia Commons.

During Lent, we practice more often the popular devotions of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and of the Way of the Cross. We want to follow Jesus in His sorrows and in His way of His cross to His resurrection. This latter devotion involves some traditional fourteen stops that deepen our dying to our sinful self and rising to our graced self.

(1) We start with Jesus being judged religiously by the Jewish high priest and secularly by the Roman governor and condemned to be crucified. (2) Then He shoulders the cross for the walk to the hill of crucifixion. (3) He falls the first time, bruised by people like us who are not loyal in our faith and obedience. (4) He is met and encouraged by His mother and friend Mary, and through her in the communion of saints by His father and friend Joseph. (5) He is helped by the man Simon, who also shoulders His cross. (6) He is helped by the woman Veronica, who dries His face. (7) He falls the second time, bruised by people like us, who are not modest in our hope and poverty.

(8) Jesus encounters some weeping women of Jerusalem and urges them to their and their families' conversion. (9) He falls the third time, bruised by people like us, who are not truly affectionate in our love and chastity. (10) He is stripped of His clothing by people like us, who are not childlike in our humility and cheerfulness. (11) He is nailed to the cross by people like us, who are not honest in our justice and perseverance.

(12) Jesus burns out on the cross, dying for us His enemies and friends. He prays for our forgiveness, He promises us His everlasting home, He entrusts us together and singly to His mother and her to us. He experiences our abandonment from His Father because of our sins and yet trusts Him completely and loves Him wholeheartedly and us mercifully. He thirsts for us, His brothers and sisters, to be His family of friends. He completes His life and mission by His Holy Breath for His Father and for us. He hands over His Holy Breath to us, His brothers and sisters, to make us His family of friends.

(13) Jesus' dead body is held truly affectionately by Mary. (14) His dead body is buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple belonging to the Jewish ruling council, only to rise on the third day to breathe and blow and kindle us with His Holy Breath, His Wind and Fire, from His Father. So He makes us together and singly, each original for and with all and each, people and angels with our earth and universe during our time and eternity His family of friends of Joseph and Mary in His Church for His world, to the image and likeness of Him Child and His Father and His Holy Breath.

We pray for the concerns of the successor of Peter about the Church and the world. We hope with the help of the prayer of the Church to Jesus (indulgence) to overthrow the impact, psychological and social, of our past sins. We sorrow for our sins because we fear to be separated from our friend Jesus, because we hope to be joined closely to Him our Friend, and mostly because we fail to love Him our faithful Friend and Companion and Savior, our Brother and Lord, our Comrade and Champion and Revolutionary, freeing and uniting us to be His family of friends.

The last supper, the passion, and the resurrection of Jesus is our passover, our liberation. The coming of His Holy Breath from His Father is our covenant, our communion. The last supper is now the passover and covenant meal offering of Jesus and of us His friends, especially Mary and Joseph.

Father Don

OMIs, 200 Years: 1816-2016

This January 25, 2016, we shall celebrate the 200th birthday of the missionary oblates of Mary Immaculate. We started January 25, 1816, the conversion of Paul, met by Jesus on the road to Damascus and changed from His enemy and persecutor to His friend and apostle, in a former Carmelite convent vacated during the French revolution at Aix en Provence in southeastern France. We have been preparing for this event the last three years: 2013 with reflection on love-chastity-community, 2014 with reflection on hope—poverty, perseverance—formation, government, 2015 with reflection on faith and justice-obedience-mission. This event comes toward the end of the year of consecrated life, November 30, 2014 to February 2, 2016 and toward the beginning of the year of mercy, December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016, both called by pope Francis.

In his apostolic letter marking the start of the year of consecrated life, pope Francis listed its aims: remembering our past thankfully, living our present passionately, embracing our future hopefully. Personally this means remembering thankfully people and places and times that touch me deeply. There is our founder, a young priest later to be bishop of Marseilles, France, St. Eugene de Mazenod, beatified by pope Paul VI mission Sunday, 1975, and canonized by John Paul II first advent Sunday and memorial of St. Francis Xavier, December 3, 1995, merciful good shepherd to the miserable (Luke 10). There are our blessed: Joseph Gerard, French missionary to South Africa; Joseph Cebula, Polish martyr at a Nazi concentration camp; twenty-two Spanish martyrs, mostly seminarians, during the recent civil war.

Closer to home, there are Charles Pandosy, French missionary to the Walla Walla diocese in the Oregon territory that is now Washington state (1847 arrival); Peter Perisot, French missionary, member of the Cavalry of Christ (he is reported to have read St. Thomas while resting on the trail) along what is now the border of Mexico from Brownsville through Mission to Roma (1849 arrival); Edwin Guild, farmboy from southern Illinois, who as a priest created the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, a man of humble devotion to Mary; and John Maronic from Minnesota, who started a movement for people specially abled, the Victorious Missionaries. There are special places like St. Joseph Mission, Atanum, in the Yakima diocese; La Lomita, a chapel of Mary at Mission on the oblate horseback trail in the Brownsville diocese; the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in her prayer for everyday people in their needs and wants at Belleville city and diocese.

Ahtanum. Photo via UW Special Collections.

La Lomita. Photo by Onleal91 via Wikimedia Commons.

La Lomita interior. Photo by Onleal91 via Wikimedia Commons.

There are oblate teachers like Pat Fennessy from Chicago who encouraged me in speaking and writing and playing basketball, like Boni Wittenbrink who communicated a broad vision of the church and the world, oblate leaders like John Walsh from Chicago who approached difficult community situations from the heart. There are my former oblate fellow novices like deceased Gerry Fuller, classmate from first grade on, poet and preacher, singer and writer, clown and advocate of the poor; Tom O'Brien, humble energetic missionary to the poor in Brazil; Paul Wightman, shepherd to Ozark people and cave explorer enthusiast; Bill Woestman, from novitiate to the present, now church lawyer and scholar and author, caring deeply about people in difficulty.

Our novitiate class, 1949-50. Above, a break in apple-picking. Below, the prayer of the hours.

The young Fr. Francis George OMI

There are oblate bishops like John Taylor, one of our liberal arts teachers who became bishop of Stockholm, Sweden, highly gifted and ever loyal to the church; Francis George, one of our theology and philosophy students, who became bishop of Yakima, then of Portland, then of Chicago,  intellectual and pastoral giant with delighted laughter at the funny side of life, acclaimed by those of different views such as John Allen (who judged that, with the possible exception of Joseph Ratzinger, Francis was his most intellectually penetrating interview subject) and George Weigel (who judged that, of our fourteen hundred successors of bishop John Carroll, there was none more insightful into church and America than Francis). There are former oblate student seminarians like Ed Figueroa, unconquerable tireless champion of poor children and youth in Recife, Brazil; like Roy Snipes, our last Texas cowboy, a magnet of youth, first at Roma and now at Mission, blessed with the everyday poetic sense of his father and mother; like deceased Bob Olson, on fire to bring Jesus in his Catholic church to the people of Sweden.

Finally, there are those who were among us oblates but moved on before novitiate like Terry O'Donnel and Dan Donahue, before first oblation like my brother Jack Dietz husband father grandfather great-grandfather, before oblation for life like Tim Hoban and Dave Caravello, before ordination to priesthood like Steve Bulvanoski, after ordination to priesthood like Jim Relihan, but who moved back like Matt Menger who embodies the best of Texas. And most of all there are the people young and old and in between, boys and girls, men and women, each original for and with all and each, that we oblates are blessed to serve who evangelize us so profoundly as we evangelize them.

These and many other oblate heroes ordinarily unsung, brothers and sisters and companions and friends, of Africa and Asia and Oceania and Europe and America (south, central, north), past, present, future, and their places and times are a blessing that makes me thankful, passionate, hopeful, heading to age eighty-seven and now for sixty-five years and still going, though not so strong, a missionary oblate of Mary Immaculate (and of St. Joseph).

Father Don

A peritus remembers Vatican II

Dawn Eden writes: Today's Catholic World Report features my interview with Fr. Don, "A peritus remembers Vatican II." I am grateful to Fr. Don for sharing his recollections with me, and to Carl Olson at Catholic World Report for giving me the opportunity to share them with the world.

Mary, Holy Evangelist

Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel,
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC

December 8 we celebrate Mary graced in her conception and December 12 we celebrate her pregnant with Jesus, visiting her cousin Elizabeth pregnant with John the Baptist. Both celebrations belong to our preparation during advent for the new coming of Jesus into our hearts and lives and history, a new birth in us and a new manifestation of and through us of Him our savior.

Mary was conceived bodywise, as are we, by the lovemaking of her father Joachim and her mother Anne, open to giving life to her their child. She was conceived soulwise, mercied, chosen, graced to be the virgin mother of our anointed savior. At the annunciation of the angel to her before her conception of Jesus, she was greeted as fully graced, highly favored, much loved (Luke 1). So she was from her own conception. She is to be the virgin mother and companion and friend of our revolutionary warrior Jesus freeing and uniting us to be His family of friends. She, wife of Joseph carpenter of Nazareth, was conceived in view of her identity and life and mission. She is holy Mary. We hold her graced conception based on the revelation entrusted to the church.

We pray easily and gladly to Mary to pray for and with us to Jesus for the wine we need each day, each hour, each moment (John 2). We move and grow in her presence, her thought and affection; we are entrusted to her by Jesus as our mother and companion and friend (John 19).

Mary and her husband and companion and friend Joseph are the humbled and humble married couple of Nazareth and are especially close to humbled and humble people of every time and place. We are not surprised at her visit to Juan Diego in 1531 and to his Aztec people of what is now Mexico. She comes as Mary wife of Joseph, carrying Jesus, helping her older pregnant cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zachariah, singing her trust in our merciful Father by His Breath with and like and through His and her Child in her womb (Luke 1). She attracts many Christians and other religious people today, also humanists and secularists. Mary is the hoped-for and promised and now present woman (Genesis 3, Revelation 12, Galatians 4). She is the new woman freed and united and so freeing and uniting us brothers and sisters with our home and duration to be trustful before our Creator and helpful among ourselves His creatures.

Mary la Morenita, the little brown one, with Joseph, leads us to share Jesus and His way for us with our brothers and sisters in the new evangelization today, the second five hundred years in America and the third thousand years in the world at large since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus for our redemption especially through His passion and resurrection. She with Joseph invites us to be missionary disciples in the merciful revolution of Jesus for people today. She wants us like the Spanish newcomers and the Aztec natives at the time and place of Juan Diego to be one family of friends of her and Joseph and Jesus.

Father Don

Christmas, the Christ Mass, His and Ours

Pope Benedict XVI visits the Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square, January 2, 2012 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

We prepare together and singly to celebrate the birth of Jesus anew with his friends, especially Mary and Joseph.

Jesus grew in age and wisdom and grace originally, offering self for others playfully and passionately and happily, as lover and fighter and guide wisely and generously, trustfully and helpfully, humbly and mercifully, before His merciful Father and us His brothers and sisters, people and angels with our earth and universe during our time and eternity by His Breath (Luke 2). We want to grow with and like and through Him Child of Mary and Joseph and of His Father and His Holy Breath. He is our brother and friend and savior, our family team player and champion and revolutionary freeing and uniting us to be His humble merciful family of friends of Mary and Joseph. With and like and through Him we aim at living this is my word and heart for you, this is my body handed over and my blood poured out for you (Luke 22).

Our story, our song during our life and history and forever is Jesus our good samaritan merciful to us miserable, half dead by the roadside (Luke 10).

We meditate prayerfully. We remember our past. We anticipate our future. We face our present in the light and fire of Jesus and His friends, especially Mary and Joseph. We are aware of us persecuted brothers and sisters. We are aware of us brothers and sisters thirsting in our heart and conscience and every misery. Jesus blesses our ongoing conversion to be better, more truthful faithful merciful honest affectionate (not false fickle cruel cheating lustful). He is the light and gift we celebrate. We want to catch and spread the fire of His mercy revolution (Luke 12).

A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you friends and family members, all and each.

Father Don

A Christmas Greeting

Love: Agape, Offer for Others, Mercy, Friends, Family of Friends

The oblate cross given to each
Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate
at their oblation (vows) for life.

At the heart of the Catholic way of Jesus for us is love. Jesus Himself embodies love humanly. He personifies mercy humanly. This is evident in the bible and in the liturgy and in Church teaching. This is evident in His family of friends, the saints of heaven and purgatory and earth, past, present, future, especially His Mary and Joseph. This is the need of our heart and conscience and every misery.

Reading St. Thomas leads to his focus on love as offer of self for others, and, if faced with the misery of the others, mercy. In 1956, my third-year theology second semester at the Gregorian, my choice of a class in preparation for the written paper needed to obtain a license in theology was Bernard Lonergan on gratia operans in St. Thomas. Lonergan was my favorite teacher and Thomas my favorite theologian; that determined my choice easily. In studying gratia operans in the Summa, love in the context of grace attracted me, particularly I II, q. 110, a. 1, utrum gratia ponit aliquid in anima. To say God loves us means He makes us good, He makes us friends. The paper became "The Mystery of Grace and the Love of God." Love offers self for others. Love does not use others for self.

Some years later, in the wake of Vatican II and during my mission to Sweden as an OMI priest, my personal study on the side into Swedish Lutheran theology led me to discover Luther in the Heidelberg dispute of 1518 holding much like Thomas that God's love differs from our love, His love makes us good. My personal exploration into Swedish theology led me further to Anders Nygren and his Agape and Eros. Nygren's view distinguished agape, new testament christian love (lutheran love) as opposed to caritas  (catholic love), a compromise between christian and hellenistic love. Caritas brings to the fore mutual love of friends, dependent on grace changing our human hearts and lives and history. This intrigued me.

Later, pursuing a doctoral degree at the Angelicum, my choice for the dissertation was a comparison and contrast between Thomas and Luther and then between between Anders Nygren and Bernard Lonergan. This became "The Christian Meaning of Love, A Study of the Thought of Anders Nygren" (1976). My conclusion after reflecting on Nygren's Lutheran thesis of agape and his antithesis between Lutheran agape and Catholic caritas is to suggest a new lutheran catholic position. Love makes us good, love makes us friends. The love of God makes us good, makes us friends. Our love, graced by His love, makes us brothers and sisters good, makes us friends. His offer of self for us mercifully in our misery makes us offer self for others mercifully in their misery to His image and likeness. His grace changes us, transforms us, turning us from enemies to friends, from sinners to saints. His grace does not merely pass through us, does not merely cover us, but truly converts us, makes us anew, trustful and believing and hoping and helpful and loving justly and chastely--to be sure, always struggling to stay and grow so in our life and history.

Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Paris,
cornerstone by Cardinal Guibert, O.M.I., of Paris.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Nygren also contrasts more radically Martin Luther and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), lutheran agape vs. atheist nihilist (humanistic relativistic) eros. He interprets Nietzsche (Ecce Homo, The Antichrist [1888]) as advocating a re-evaluation of all values, love of self against love of others, eros against agape. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, my religious congregation, celebrated the 150th anniversary of their papal approval and naming in 1976. Our founder St. Eugene (1782-1861), who lived during the french revolution and the napoleonic empire and their aftermath, is often likened to the bishop merciful to Jean Valjean in Les Miserables of Victor Hugo. For Nietzsche, misery was due to mercy and called for cruelty. The superman is cruel and so human, the human weakling is merciful and so inhuman. For Eugene, misery was due to cruelty and called for mercy. Cruelty uses the other for self. Mercy offers self for the other in misery. This was another impetus to my reflection on love as offer of self for others, as mercy for the miserable.

Love relates self to the other. Love that uses other for self is eros. Love that offers self for the other is agape. Love that offers self for the other in misery is mercy. Mutual love that offers self for the other makes friends and family of friends. One in mind and heart of two or three or more persons makes one community, a family of friends (Acts 2). One soul in two or three or more bodies makes a family of friends (the classical Greek description of friends: mia psyche en duo somasin). Caritas joins two or three or more persons as a community, a family of friends cherished and beloved.

Benedict XVI in Deus caritas est (2005) suggests erotic agape (passionate love). Jesus and His friends, especially Mary and Joseph, love and offer self for the others, especially in their misery, passionately and playfully and happily. This is their desire, their drive, their yearning to be gift, oblation, offering for our merciful Father, our Lover, and our beloved brothers and sisters by His Holy Breath, His Holy Love, with and like and through His Child, His Beloved Word, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph in His pierced Heart.

"Ecce Homo," by
Joaquín Martínez de la Vega (1845-1905),
via Wikimedia Commons

We meet Jesus wonderfully in the Gospels of Luke and of John and in the first letter of the latter. Jesus the good samaritan stops to help us robbed and beaten and half dead by the roadside (Luke 10). He comes to set us on fire with His merciful love (Luke 12). He hands over His body for us and pours out His blood for us (Luke 22).

Jesus thirsts for us in our thirst as we meet at the well of life and history (John 4). He gives us His new commandment to love our brothers and sisters together and singly as He loves us, to wash their feet in their need to be served (John 13). He wants us to be friends (John 15). He makes us one as He and His Father and His Breath are one, as He and Mary and Joseph are one, His family of friends to the image and likeness of His Family of Friends (John 17).

God is love, passionate offering of self for others. Our merciful Father sends His Child Jesus to us and through Him sends His Holy Breath in us who are miserable to make us His family of friends to Their image and likeness (1 John 4). Ecce Homo. We behold the man Jesus (John 19). He is our merciful burnt-up offering of self for us His miserable brothers and sisters. He is our way to be radically and fully human.

Father Don

Revelation, Attitude and Action of the Family of Friends

The Lower Church at the Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth

November 18 this year marks fifty years since the constitution Dei Verbum, "The Word of God," was solemnly taught by Vatican II. Revelation is the story and song of us people and angels together and singly now in time and always in eternity. Revelation is the action of our merciful Father through His beloved Child, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, by His Breath, revealing and gracing us to be His family, His city, His kingdom of friends (Jn 15, Ex 33), not isolation of enemies, opening His Heart for us. His action calls for our action, our graced free yes totally of mind and heart, not our free, sinful no. This is the new and final covenant.

"Lake of Gennesaret" by Nicholas Roerich, via WikiArt

The action of our merciful Father through Jesus by His Breath began with our creation, was renewed after our sin early on in our need with His promise of our redemption through Israel and the Messiah and the fulfillment through Jesus and His gathering His Church, the new Israel, for His world. His revealing and gracing action through Jesus in His Church is handed on through tradition and scripture. Tradition is the followers of Jesus hearing the apostles and breaking bread and sharing and praying together (Acts 2). This tradition was written in twenty-seven books, now called the scriptures of the New Testament, by six apostles and two apostolic men: Matthew, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude, Mark (connected to Peter), and Luke (connected to Paul). These human writers were inspired by the principal writer, the Holy Breath of Jesus from His Father. Because these writings are so inspired, they are truthful in their proclaiming the way of our salvation. They are interpreted humanly according to their aim, their form of communication, and as part of the whole of scripture, and as inspired by the guidance of the apostles and their successors the bishops, shepherds of the gathering of the followers of Jesus.

The New Testament scriptures include the identity and life and mission of Jesus and the identity and life and mission of His early followers and friends. They are historical in their truthfulness and faithfulness to the realities they express, not necessarily in details of the time and place of each event. They involve accounts of Jesus and His early followers, letters of some of their leaders, and the promise of their future and present. Jesus and His followers accepted the Jewish scriptures that are accounts of the creation of the universe and the human family, of our sin early on and the promise of our redemption, of the formation and development of the people of Israel, the promise of their prophets, the guidance of their sages.

The Garden Tomb, photographed by Phillip Benshmuel, via Wikimedia Commons

Scripture, the seventy-three books—forty-six of the Old Testament and twenty-seven of the New Testament—is at the center of the life and mission of the Church, the gathered and sent followers and friends of Jesus. They need to be made readily available to people with encouragement to hear and read them. They are a necessary source for our thought and prayer and service, for homilies and catechesis and theology. Word and sacrament go together.

The teaching of Vatican II on revelation is preceded by that of Vatican I, Dei Filius, "The Son of God." As John Paul II explains in his encyclical Fides et ratio, "Faith and Reason," revelation is viewed in Vatican I in its nature of transforming gift and in Vatican II in its role for our salvation. St. Thomas reflects on the act of faith inwardly as involving credere Deo, credere Deum, credere in Deum (II-II, q. 2, a. 2): believing God revealing, believing God revealed, believing in God revealed. To believe means to trust God revealing to us, to believe what He reveals to us, to live our trust and beliefs with love and justice and chastity. We trust and believe and live in God our Father and in His Child Our Jesus and in His Holy Breath. This is our outward confession and profession of faith in the Apostles Creed, in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed that we pray and sing often liturgically. This is our story and song. This is the meaning and goal of our life and history. As Their family of friends, we make ours the attitude of the Family of Friends that is our merciful Father and His Child our Jesus of Mary and Joseph and His Holy Breath, our Lover and His beloved Word our Jesus and His Love.

Father Don

The Synod of Bishops and the Church, Catholic and One, Apostolic and Holy

Jesus makes his friends and witnesses a gathering of people, catholic and one, apostolic and holy, His Church for His world, His brothers and sisters, past and present and future. The Synod of Bishops is a manifestation of this reality. Synod, etymologically from Greek, means "road together" (syn-odos).

The Church of Jesus is catholic and one. She is catholic, embracing people together and singly of each time and place, of each gender and race and color, of each nationality and culture and enslavement and language and history, of each age and ability and era and continent, of each originality. She is one, gathering and sending these people in the same way of Jesus for His world.

The Church of Jesus is apostolic and holy. She is apostolic, the movement of people hoped for and promised to Israel and the nations and started by Jesus Himself with Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene and Martha and Mary of Bethany, the apostles, especially Peter and John and Paul. His movement was begun at the time of the apostles and was guided by them and their successors, and is so now, the bishops with and under the bishop of Rome. She is holy, her goal is the family of friends of Mary and Joseph and Jesus, offering self for the others wisely and generously, trustfully and helpfully, humbly and mercifully, playfully and passionately and happily, to the image and likeness of the Family of Friends that is our merciful Father and His Child our Jesus and His Breath, that is our merciful Lover and His Beloved our Jesus and His Love. She is the gathering and sending of our Jesus from pentecost to the parousia. She is His movement of us people and angels with our earth and universe during our time and eternity, His bride with His word and sacrament and sacrifice for His world, crucified much by outsiders and often by us insiders.

The Synod of Bishops is a manifestation of the Church of Jesus, catholic and one, apostolic and holy. It was September 15, 1965, during the final period of Vatican II, when Paul VI created the Synod of Bishops as a way for the bishops of the world to advise the bishop of Rome in the future shepherding the church doctrinally and practically. Paul VI held four ordinary synods and one extraordinary synod, ordinary with members chosen primarily by the respective conferences of bishops, and extraordinary with members designated primarily as the acting presidents of their respective conferences of bishops. Their themes chronologically were the state of the church after the council, the relation between the conferences of bishops and the bishop of Rome cum et sub Petro (extraordinary), the servant priesthood and justice in the world, evangelization, catechesis.

John Paul II held six ordinary synods and one extraordinary synod. Their themes chronologically were the family, reconciliation, the interpretation of Vatican II twenty years later (extraordinary), laity, seminarians, consecrated and apostolic members, bishops. Benedict XVI held three ordinary synods. Their themes chronologically were eucharist, word of God, new evangelization. John Paul II gave the post-synodal apostolic exhortation on catechesis and Francis gave the post-synodal apostolic exhortation on new evangelization.

Francis has held two synods, extraordinary and then ordinary, on marriage and family. These synods follow the rhythm of see, judge, act (present practice, doctrine, future practice) during three weeks in October. We see the challenges of the present practice of people, we judge these challenges in the light of doctrine (the teaching of Jesus and His Church), in this light and fire we act to meet the challenges of people today. The doctrine of marriage and family is the teaching of Jesus and His Catholic Church for married couples and their children, for families. The practice involves language, words and deeds, symbols able to touch people today in their challenges.

The process of the synod is talks of members to the assembly and then the conversations of members separated into thirteen language groups. The members are guided by a working document prepared beforehand and translated into the needed languages. Press briefings are given each day in various languages. This process is completed with voting on a final report made from the deliberations of the language groups of bishops. Then sometime afterward, the bishop of Rome gives an apostolic exhortation responding to the synod advice provided by the bishops. In these last two synods, there are different views of whether the process has been open and free or controlled and manipulated. Concern has been expressed about the working document itself and about its various language translations or lack thereof, about the leadership of the synod and of the drafting committee of the final report and of the theologians doing the writing being appointed by the pope and not chosen by the members of the synod. The pope on his own streamlined the annulment procedures and formed a new central department of laity, family, and life.

A high moment at the end of week two was the listing of four new saints by Pope Francis. They include a priest from Italy, a consecrated woman from Spain, a married couple, the parents of St. Therese, from France. The last working day of the synod, the ninety-four paragraphs of the final report, given as advice to the pope, were approved by two-thirds of the 270 voting members, as needed for consensus. The largest number of negative votes was for the three paragraphs in the third part on the mission of the family today that deal with discernment and integration (§84, 85, and 86). The language of indissolubility was kept, of disorder not. We await as a result the response of Pope Francis to the advice of this two-period synod of bishops on marriage and family.

The revelation and grace of Jesus come to us humanly with our limits and in spite of our sins. We Catholic people and theologians and bishops and popes with our limits and in spite of our sins are blessed this human way that our merciful Father reveals to and graces us through His Child, our Jesus of Mary and Joseph, by His Breath, to make us His family of friends.

Father Don

The Communion of Saints, My Mother Irene, Our Mother Mary

Oblates of Mary Immaculate chapel at the National Shrine. Photo by Bob Garrow from My Year of Faith.

At the closing of the church year, we celebrate All Saints November 1, All Souls November 2, Christ the King the last Sunday, this year November 22. Jesus makes us people saints, His friends. He makes us a communion of saints of heaven and purgatory and earth, His family of friends. He makes us His city, His kingdom during time and eternity, the city, the kingdom of His Father by His Breath, us brothers and sisters people and angels with earth and universe, our family with our home and duration.

At the end of our life and history, of our graced yes or sinful no to Him and His way for us, if we end as His friends and not as His enemies, Jesus will raise our bodies gloriously and halo us. Prior to this, He will vision and mansion us, He will dowry us. We will be His family of friends made through His passion and resurrection and ours with and like and through Him.

We look forward to meeting the saints, especially friends and family members. January 5, 1939, my mother Irene was killed on Highway 66 near Amarillo, Texas, in the panhandle, more precisely near Pampa. In the front seat were my father driving; myself, age 9, in the middle because carsick; and my mother. This was before seat belts. At the impact of the sideswipe collision with another car, she and I were thrown out of our car. She lay silent, blood streaming from her mouth, either dying or dead, me nearby unable to move because of injury. This was the last time she was ever in my vision. Because of my injury and long stay in the local hospital, it was not possible for me to participate in her burial from our home parish, Sacred Heart, Rock Island, Illinois. After that, some wonderful women helped me grow up and mature: Aunt Annie Nelson (she called herself a shirttail relation); Ethel my father's second wife and a friend of my mother from their time working together at a lumber company; Sr. Lucy BVM (Luciola then, a young woman from Chicago and our choir teacher). Most of all, Mary Mother of Jesus and of us each and all.

The Catholic teaching of Jesus about the communion of saints was a huge blessing for me dealing with my longing to be close to her, a longing even to this day at age 86. A few years ago, there was a movie that touched me deeply, "I Am David." It is the true story of a boy and a mother separated after escape from a Slavic communist nation and drawn together years later in Stockholm. At their airport encounter, he said, "I am David." My hope is to meet my mother in heaven and identify myself, "I am Don." She can tell me her story and song, and she can hear mine. May all we brothers and sisters together and singly rejoice in the hope that Jesus gives us during our time for our eternity.

In second year of college at an OMI minor seminary, we had a course on writing. From then, at age 20, this is my portrait of my mother, even now my memory of her:

Mother and her middle child early on

My mother was a loving and a lovable person. She loved people, play, life, and God. She was loved by everyone who knew her. 

Since her father worked in a foundry, her childhood was spent in the poorer section of town, yet she was happy and her large, brown eyes and mischievous smile radiated her happiness to others. The old maids of the neighborhood vied with one another in treating her to a piece of candy. 

She liked to play, whether it was with dolls or a baseball. Perhaps her fondness for play accounts for her low grades in school, since her mentality was of good caliber. She spent many an hour on the Sisters' platform for laughing or inattention. 

After graduating from high school and a brief business course, my mother worked in the main office of a lumber company. She was a favorite among the girls of the office. Her good nature was irresistible. The girls dubbed her "soft heart" because she was a shoulder to the unhappy and to the unpopular girls. However, in front of men, she was bashful and shy. When my dad, an employee of the same company, asked her for a date, my mother was swept off her feet. Her answer was yes; a year later, she was answering, "I do."  

Since my dad was earning a fair salary, they were soon able to buy a house of their own. In due time they peopled the house with three children. My mother was an ordinary housewife. She enjoyed playing with us children and experimenting with new recipes and patterns. 

My dad bought her many things. Whether he gave her an iron or an ice cream cone, she always received it with a childlike joy that fills the giver with happiness. Yet she was conscious of her poor relatives, and had a magic way of helping them; they felt they were doing her a favor. 

Civil war divided our family, since my mother was a Cub fan and my dad a Sox fan. Her favorite player was Gabby Hartnett. One of the thrills of her life was seeing a Notre Dame/Northwestern football game, for she was an ardent Notre Dame radio fan and one of their most loyal unofficial alumnae. 

When nearing her middle thirties, my mother was critically afflicted with cancer. An operation failed to cure her. Although she suffered much, she never complained. Once while we were shopping, she suddenly had such pains in one arm that she could not even hold a small package with it and had to go home at once. However, God spared her a slow, painful death; He took her life in an automobile accident. 

My mother had loved God in her own simple way. She strove to obey the commandments and was a loyal member of the Church. The memory of my mother often cheers the hearts of her family and friends. We still share her love; we still love her.

My mother Irene helps me appreciate Mary wife of Joseph, our Mother.

Father Don