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A memorable
Father's Day gift
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
It was Father’s Day. The excitement of the previous day was still much
on my mind. I had been privileged to ordain three men to the priesthood:
Father Daniel Duff, Father David Hasser and Father Christopher Roberts.
The cathedral was packed. It was a moving liturgy, an answer to many
prayers. At
the ordination Mass, as an introduction to the Penitential Rite, I noted
that the reason for gathering was obvious. We had come together as
people of faith to worship God and to invoke the Holy Spirit through the
intercession of the saints of the Church to confirm the call of the
three men about to be ordained to the priesthood and to pray that they
might become holy priests. At the same time, I noted, all present needed
to recall our own call to holiness, and the fact we do not always live
up to God’s expectations of us. All were encouraged to acknowledge the
sinfulness we allow to become part of our lives so that we might receive
God’s healing and forgiveness.
This was still in my mind as I boarded an early morning Father’s Day
flight from Indianapolis to Minneapolis. The flight was overbooked. Six
volunteers were needed to step down. That’s always a message that when
the plane finally leaves the ground it will be packed to the gills.
I settled down on an aisle seat. The middle and window seats next to me
remained unoccupied until the last moment, when a young woman with babe
in arms arrived on the scene. I recalled being on a flight some years
earlier, when a mother with baby announced that she was about to make my
day as she took the seat next to me. On that occasion, the flight
attendant found her a more comfortable spot, presumably one with an
empty seat next to her. I heaved a sigh of relief. Flying is not a joy
ride in itself. The shrill cries and gyrations of a baby don’t help.
But, on Father’s Day, the scene was very different. It seems the mother
who pulled the same row I was occupying had two tickets. The baby was 6
months old, give or take a month or two. Although Mom had to hold the
child during take-off and landing, there was plenty of room to do what
mothers do when they find themselves on an airplane with a youngster
that young.
Once airborne, my traveling companion moved to the window and strapped
the baby in the middle seat. The marvels of her new play area seemed to
fascinate the baby. When she had completed all there was to explore in
and around her, Mom’s purse became an even more fascinating world for
exploration. The scene was quiet and peaceful for the better part of 30
minutes.
When the restlessness began, Mom held her baby in her lap, rocked her
back and forth, and began to rub the little girl’s back. Eventually the
inevitable crying began. Fortunately, the battery in my left ear hearing
aid had gone dead. But, it was not the healthy cries of the baby that
won my attention. Rather it was the patient attention of that young
mother for her baby.
The ordination had been an occasion to pray for three men who were
committing their lives to people young and old to whom they have been
called upon to minister for the rest of their lives in the single
celibate state. The ordination was an emotional moment for the men
ordained, for their families, for me, for the many who had encouraged
them in their vocation and who had been praying for them for years.
There in that crowded airplane I found myself observing another form of
ministry: a mother showering her love on a child who, like every child,
demanded non-stop attention and energy and who would continue to do so
for years.
There was no indication that my traveling companion was a person of
religious faith. She may not have been. Yet, there was a sense of
holiness in how she quietly and patiently went about mothering her
little one.
Isn’t it a shame, I thought to myself, that as adults we have no
recollection of those months and years when we were totally dependent on
our parents? Isn’t it a shame we don’t remember the love showered on us,
the messes cleaned up, the demands made, the tantrums endured? As often
as not, it seems to me, it is the idiosyncrasies of our parents that we
remember, the many “no’s” that restrained our childhood steps toward
independence, the arguments during our teenage rebellions. And, if all
that escapes memory, there is often the challenge of being patient and
understanding of elderly parents who can become quite skilled in laying
guilt trips on us as we do our best to care for them in their latter
years, years often tormented by dementia.
At the ordination, all were urged to pray for the men being ordained. As
the baby on that plane slept in her mother’s arms, I couldn’t help but
think how important it is to pray for the saints in making who give
their lives selflessly to their children.
Parenthood truly is a vocation. A call to holiness, holiness found in
doing ordinary things out of selfless love with patience and joy.
Sitting there during an hour and a half flight on Father’s Day was a
privileged moment. I had a profound insight into the beauty of a
vocational call different from my own and far more demanding. It isn’t
the first time family, friends and others have provided that insight, of
course, but for some reason it was especially powerful on Father’s Day,
2007.
During the final segment of my journey, I was seated on the aisle again.
This time two adults filled out the row. All was quiet. No crying. But,
there wasn’t anything inspiring about it either.
As I continue to urge people to ask God to choose a member of their
family for the priesthood of our Local Church, it is also important that
we pray for those whom God is calling to marriage and parenthood. Our
youth, in particular, need to be urged to understand that God has a plan
for each one of us, a personal vocation to which the Lord calls us. We
all need to listen for the voice of God and discern how God wants us to
use our talents and gifts to achieve our destiny: holiness. In the case
of the canonized, it’s found in the unusual. For the rest of us, it’s
far less dramatic, like faithfully living up to the expectations of our
state in life with joy as God calls us to do. |
