Year 30

A priest no longer a priest and a layman not quite the layman shares 30 Years of Ministry.

Originally published in June 2023, this article was originally entitled Year Twenty Nine.

I republish it today, June 11, 2024, with the change in title.

I praise God and give him thanks.

________

Today I celebrate my 30th anniversary of ordination as a Catholic priest. 

It took place in Lansing, Michigan, on June 11, 1994.

It was a beautiful day with two bishops present, many priests, family, friends, people from across the diocese.

I went on to serve in various parishes in the diocese. 

On March 13, 2013, I told my bishop that I was considering a personal leave to discern marriage.

He was kind and gracious. It was at that moment Cardinal Bergoglio was elected the Bishop of Rome. 

At the time I was the pastor of my childhood parish of Our Lady in Flint. MI. I served that community for two years.

It was there where I grew up and where I buried my parents and my sister Maria. 

I was granted a personal leave in August, 2013, and I was officially laicized in February of 2016. Valerie and I were married in the local Catholic Cathedral in July of that year.

It too was a beautiful day, with seven priests present, family, friends, and former parishioners.

To this day I have not stopped ministering to God’s people, from my nineteen years of service in various churches in the diocese, to my ministry in a Protestant hospital where I completed my Clinical Pastoral Education and later at two Catholic hospitals, the former an experience of grace, the second being a source of trauma, and presently with hospice serving the dying.

I remain a Catholic, and attend Mass where I was married.

I like the low key ambiance of weekday Mass.

The work I do today is beautiful and heavy. 

It brings me joy and sorrow. 

I visit those with terminal illnesses, those that are dying. 

They come from a variety of religious traditions. Most are Protestant, but there are many Catholics as well.

I provide them and their families a compassionate presence, words of consolation, and love, from God, and me, with others. 

This includes the hospice teams of Doctors, nurses, social workers, aides, volunteers. 

It takes a village to care and support someone who is dying along with their families.

For Catholics who are members of a local parish, I do reach out at their request to their priest and parish community for support.

The priests and parishes often respond affirmatively and provide spiritual care and the Church’s sacraments.

I remain grateful for their presence. 

There are Catholics I encounter who are dying and they often desire God’s grace and God’s mercy. 

Maybe they haven’t been to Church or even confession for many years, have no ties to any local Church, yet desire to die in peace, with the blessing of God. 

Finding a parish priest for these souls is a little more difficult, and sometimes futile. Some priests ask too many questions which renders them ineffective for these folks in their final moments.

It isn’t impossible to find a priest for these people, but the work involved sometimes makes it too difficult. 

What do I do in situations like this? 

I minister to them; I remind them of God’s love; I pray with them, read them scripture, and even sing to them. I bless them with oil; maybe I hear their confession, and grant them absolution, reminding them of God’s love and presence at a moment in time when they often feel most alone in the world. 

Some families have me bury their loved ones as well. They often say, “you were the only minister they knew when they were dying, the only one who came to visit them, so they ask, can you offer the prayers of God for them as we lay them to rest?”

It is my privilege, my honor, to do as they request.

The baptized Catholics I serve know I am a laicized priest, they know I am married. They know I was once a priest yet they also know that my ordination remains just as valid today as it did then. 

Some call me Father, some Chaplain, some by my first name. It does not matter to me, never has, even when I was a priest serving in a parish. 

I never present myself as a priest, but if they ask, and they often do, I tell them the truth, I am a laicized priest who left active ministry in a Catholic Church honorably to get married. 

As one little old lady said, when finding out, “Oh Father, I am so happy for you.”

All this seems to have renderd me persona non grata to some in Catholic Churches and institutions today.

The Catholics on the streets and in the pews, they welcome my ministry, others in higher places, not always so much.

I am reminded of Jesus’ response to John, when the latter said:

“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”

Jesus replied:

Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

My work is in His name, and His name only. 

His power and grace flows through those I serve as it impacts me with grace.

It flows from Him through me to those I serve.

We are His eyes, His ears, His hands and feet, His Word.

Nothing more.

Laudem Dei.