We Are Family
When I tuned in to ESPN’s coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals’ June 12 game in Pittsburgh against the Pirates, I was amazed at what I saw. The Pirates – my hometown team – were wearing a modern take on the team’s 1979 uniforms. That season resulted in the Pirates’ last trip to the World Series, which they won; and that team’s unofficial song was the pop/disco hit “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge.
In that moment, I decided that God wanted to make sure I “got it” when I sat down to write this column.
I saw “family moments” everywhere on June 11-12 during three Masses – the Ordination Mass of Father Tyler Tenbarge, Father Ambrose Wanyonyi and Deacon Homero Rodriguez, and the Masses of Thanksgiving our two new priests celebrated.
That’s to be expected, right? Is that what you’re thinking? Yes, of course; many of the family moments included parents, siblings and close family.
There were others, however, that I found even more impactful.
During their homilies, Bishop Charles C. Thompson (at the Ordination Mass), Father Alex Zenthoefer (at Father Wanyonyi’s Mass of Thanksgiving) and Benedictine Father Denis Robinson of St. Meinrad (at Father Tenbarge’s Mass of Thanskgiving) all made mention of our new priests’ decisions to “give themselves to Christ.”
From here, it’s clear that they also have given themselves to us; you, me and everyone.
We hear often that men who enter the priesthood take their bride in the form of our Church when they are ordained. From here, I have come to understand that they also adopt us.
Father Robinson suggested during his homily that priests provide us with the opportunity to encounter God the Father. Bishop Thompson and Father Zenthoefer said similar things. After all three Masses, people greeted Father Wanyonyi and Father Tenbarge like loving children have greeted their fathers since … forever.
In deciding to marry the Church and adopt us, our new Fathers also gained untold numbers of brothers; heck, they have scores of new brothers right here in our 12 counties. More than 50 of their brother priests participated in their ordinations, and many were at Annunciation Parish’s Christ the King Church (Father Wanyonyi’s Mass) and/or Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Haubstadt (Father Tenbarge’s Mass) to concelebrate.
It’s impossible for me to fully comprehend how their lives have changed – and how Deacon Rodriguez’s life will change when he is ordained later this year, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I imagine these young men will, themselves, need some time to take it all in and process it.
What I know without question at this point is that their respective families have grown significantly because all of us – at one time or another – will interact with them as children interact with fathers, albeit mostly in spiritual ways. We will seek them out for guidance, to talk about problems, to confess that we “screwed up” and seek mercy and forgiveness. We will share the most joyous moments of our lives with them – and some of our saddest times.
In them, we will see and experience God the Father. From them, we will receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of God the Son in the Eucharist. Also from them, we will be renewed through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which already is flooding out of them and into our lives.
We … you, me, our new priests and deacon, and our existing priests and deacons … are, indeed family. What a blessing!
