Letter Two

The middle age

This began when we assumed the role of empty nesters. Everyone off to college, some doing spectacularly so, others gaining enough practical life experiences that propelled them to success soon after graduating, some both.

It was down to me to participating at our Parish with mass, being a lector, a eucharistic minister and thriving in all these categories which clearly our Master wanted me to do. Medical disorders continued getting in the way, but I stuck to the course. Without God, this would have been impossible.

Again, I am reminded of Martin’s message of following Jesus and doing His will and not mine. I found myself much closer to doing this versus the years I did not know how and therefore resisting His Will despite doing everything I could. It took a long fall down a deep well to teach me the ONLY way was His way. Now the decades of discernment came into fruitful play.

It was also the Fr. Andy years. This man’s sermons I so badly wanted to record. When I asked him, he answered “Oh my goodness no! We’ve got enough of that hubbub floating around now!” with a chuckle. Fr. Andy played a role in saving our parish, our community, our church though we don’t know how huge it was. I suspect it was massive. My perception was he had his finger in the dyke by insisting he would continue to say mass until the Parish Council worked up a beautiful and God driven plan to save us as a parish.

Going back to what the diocese decided on our first plan, the relief to me was incredible. St. Wenceslaus became my true home. We owned and ran our church. I helped in any way I could, excepting those periods when Jesus signaled me to ‘take a break’ by limiting, quite substantially , my physical abilities. But what a gift! Such a massive improvement in patience and more reasons to depend only on Him!

When Fr. Andy finally had to leave, we began our own mission, the incorporation of black priests into our Parish. I believe we were gifted with the first two because the bishop and whoever else makes such decisions, seemed to send us ones fresh into the missionary business from Africa, so that we could ‘train’ them in ‘Catholic American Culture’.

We were gifted with quite a number of black priests switching eventually to black priests from with the United States. I believe the second black priest taught us that ‘God is Great! ‘ and we would respond ‘all the time!’ and then the priest would repeat ‘And all the time!’ which we answered, ‘God is great!’. He began every sermon this way.

In a sense, these were the golden years for me at St. Wenceslaus. Fr. Andy baptized two of my grandkids and Fr. Elias one. I participated to the absolute limit of my abilities, I fell more deeply in love with our parish, our people, our Council all led by Deacon Martin as he followed the only way, our Master’s. Most importantly my love for Him deepened and keeps deepening faster, and I had loved Him all my life.

(0ver)

Please rest comfortably that Jesus’s will is the only way we can proceed. Exercise your right and obligation to pray daily, often, that we follow His will. This can be done almost every minute of every single day just by talking with Him, emphasizing our gratitude constantly for what He did and does for us.

Clement

fishtownproductions.com… clementcharles.org… clementcharles.substack.com

PS. It seems Martin is following me everywhere here. There are more roads (everywhere) that are named either Martin Rd (North, East, South, and West along with NE, SE, SW, NW) or Martin Way with the same extensions. There is also a St. Martin Abbey (Benedictines) and a St. Martin University about a mile and a half from our home. Whoever this Martin was, he must have been a super popular guy out here.

Saint Martin of Tours (c. 316–397) was a 4th-century Roman soldier turned monk and bishop, renowned as a patron saint of France, soldiers, and conscientious objectors. Famous for cutting his cloak in half to share with a beggar, he established early French monasticism and is a major figure in Western Christianity.

From Facebook and a page dedicated to Pope Leo

I once discerned for the priesthood with the Jesuits. One day, during one of my interviews, a Jesuit who was, at the time, the president of Loyola Jesuit College asked me which, for me, was the most difficult among the three vows of Religious life.

I looked at him and, with conviction, said it was poverty. I said this because Religious life restricted the ownership of property and wealth, and for me, I could go any length to help my family if they were in need.

But he looked at me and said he didn’t think that was it. He said that, for him, obedience would be the most difficult for me.

I didn’t know why he said that, but I remember telling him that I loved working under people who appreciated my efforts and that, when that did not happen, it could affect my work.

That was ten years ago. Today, I look back and see the truth in what he said. Obedience, for me, is difficult, not because I wouldn’t have been able to live it, but because it takes great humility and love of Jesus to obey authority even when you know you are right.

In one story about Jesus and St. Maria Faustina I heard, Jesus had told her to go to a place where He would meet her. Coincidentally, the Religious superior gave St. Maria Faustina a task to perform in the community at the same time. She didn’t know what to do. A dilemma. But she stayed back in the community and did what the Superior had asked her to do.

When Jesus later appeared to her, He praised her, saying: “By obeying your superiors, you have obeyed Me.”

Obedience is the most difficult vow Religious and priests take, yet it is what holds the Catholic Church together.

How do you see a Bishop who is out to frustrate you and still say: “Yes, my Lord”?

How do you see a Superior whom you know doesn’t like you and still say: “Yes, my Superior”?

Today, as Pope Leo XIV celebrates his first papacy, I ask all Catholics to pray for priests and Religious whose vow of obedience has placed them under undue pressure, that God’s grace may be sufficient for them.