Thank You Father Rother!

Yesterday, the 28th of July, my in-laws and I headed out on the Northwest Expressway going – you guessed it – northwest to the little town of Okarche, birthplace of Father Stanley Rother. It was a hot, windy day on the Oklahoma plains, a good day for a pilgrimage.

Our destination was Holy Trinity Catholic Church, in Okarche, where we arrived a little before noon. For those who don’t know, a pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place or shrine; it can cover a long distance, or be a search for some exalted purpose or moral significance. In my case, this was a personal spiritual pilgrimage undertaken in honor of the 28th anniversary of Father Rother’s martyrdom. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve long wanted to tour this town, worship inside the church and perhaps even visit the grave of this inspirational priest. Several times, I planned to take my children, but something always came up. We had called our family homeschool, Father Stanley Rother Academy. We said the prayer for his canonization every morning as a part of our daily prayers … but somehow we never made the short trip to Okarche. I felt a little sad as I arrived and saw just how close the town was to us.

When we drove up, Channel 4 News¹ was interviewing a woman in front of Holy Trinity Church about why she had come today. She had tears in her eyes when she spoke about her admiration for Father. Was it my imagination, or did the questions coming from the interviewer and the camerawoman sound hostile? I handed the woman a tissue when the interview concluded.

Holy Trinity is a beautiful Gothic-style, stone and brick church, which is a well-known historical landmark in the area. Built in 1903, it is older than our state, and its outer magnificence is only surpassed by its interior serene beauty. I had come to do an hour of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in response to the write-up in our diocesan newspaper, The Sooner Catholic. (See page 15 of the July 12, 2009 edition for the article.) Even though my in-laws aren’t Catholic, “Mom” and “Dad” joined me for Holy Hour. It was their first experience of this particular Catholic tradition, but they were very used to attending other Catholic events with me, beginning almost twenty-five years ago when they attended our wedding in the chapel at RAF Mildenhall, UK.

After Adoration, we admired the small collection of memorabilia at the back of the church devoted to Father Rother, including some of his vestments. Then we photographed the outside of the church, including the statue pictured above, and went to lunch at the local Tower Café. Just as our food was set down before us, a nice-looking gentleman came up and said, “Didn’t I just see you over at the church a little while ago?” He was specifically addressing my father-in-law who said that yes, we’d just come from there.

With the warmest possible voice and manner and a smile as wide as an Oklahoma plain, he said, “I thought I recognized your bald head! Hi! I’m Tom Rother², Stan’s youngest brother.”

You could have picked me up off the floor … if Tom hadn’t sat down right next to me and blocked me into my booth seat! He proceeded to stay for the next twenty minutes—or so—and ‘shoot the breeze’ with us about “Stan”, their family, Oklahoma and Indiana—where my in-laws are from, farming, families in general, and just general ‘down home’ folk’s talk which just showed that farming and farming folk don’t know anything ‘bout state lines. Tom Rother, I discovered, was just a bit younger than my in-laws and they had a world in common. I reveled in just being the ‘fly on the wall’ for most of the conversation.

Tom had us laughing and feeling like we’d known him all our lives. As he was getting ready to leave, he said, “You are coming to Mass later at 5?” as if it wasn’t so much a question as a statement, and Dad said, “We should be coming back through just about then.”

We did some other sightseeing but we were back at Holy Trinity in time for Mass, after which Tom, and his lovely wife Marty, took us out to the graveyard. There we learned more family history, saw the family plot and gravestones and even encountered a representative and source for copies of The Shepherd Cannot Run ($10) and DVD, No Greater Love… The Story of Father Stanley Rother ($10), both of which I was looking for and will be reviewing in the not too distant future.

As we drove home, my own heart and spirit were soaring with gratitude and love. I have no doubt that Father Rother arranged everything, through Our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe in the Communion of Saints!

Father Rother, your brother and his wife are such warm and wonderful people. I look forward to meeting you too someday! Thank you!





¹ I was told by a friend at work today that she saw me on the news last night. Ah! My three or four seconds of fame and I missed it! We didn't get home until almost nine and then we had a whopper of an Oklahoma hail and wind storm come through which left us without power for two hours, split our pear tree down the middle and knocked over the freestanding basketball hoop blowing out the rear windscreen of one of our old cars. Guess I was just a little bit busy... ☺

² The second picture is yours truly with Tom Rother standing behind Father Rother's grave.

What is that?

The Icon of Initimate Love

Twenty six years ago, in July I visited a cathedral store in Galway, Ireland and found this interesting icon.

The back of my icon reads,

THE ICON OF INTIMATE LOVE. (Russian 16th Century)

An icon of great tenderness, gentleness, love! Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, stand together in affectionate embrace. The dignity, royalty, and warmth of their love is symbolised in their red robes. The green pallet on which they stand lifts them high above the darkness of fear and loneliness. In the background, a cloth, draped between their two houses, expresses the mantle of blessings bestowed by God; Blessings on wife and husband and on their families. This icon is frequently presented as a wedding gift in the Orthodox Churches.

Today is the feast day of Saints Joachim and Anne. Not only am I named for Saint Anne, but a year after finding this icon, almost to the day, I met my husband; we were married the following April. The icon has had pride of place in our bedroom in all eight homes we've lived in for twenty-four and a half years of marriage now. As many of you know, icons aren't just pictures, but windows into the Divine; they are deeply symbolic, rich in meaning and meant for prayer.

It is my belief that the Blessed Mother's parents brought my own dear husband to me and has watched over this poor foolish sinner all these years. Now I humbly beg their intercession for my own dear daughters. If it be their vocation to become wives and mothers, may they be as blessed as I have been and continue to be, with a husband who is wise, kind, good and above all, loving.

Dear Saints Joachim and Anne, please watch over and love my daughters as you once watched over your own child, Our Lady. Amen.

Love In A Fearful Land

"We diocesan priests have lost our historical sense. If Stan* had been a Jesuit, twenty books would have been written about him by now."

~~Fr. John Vesey to his fellow priests during a Tulsa-Oklahoma City clergy week 5 June 1984

*(Fr. Rother)

Although not what I was expecting – a straight biography of the martyred Father Stanley Rother – Love In A Fearful Land is an interesting and worthwhile book, especially during this Year For Priests because it brings together in one book three incredible priests who never had the chance to meet all together in one place, although two were both friends of Fr. John Vesey.

The author, Fr. Henri Nouwen, the best known of the three, has written over forty spiritual books and yet he was in the middle of a writing slump at the time Fr. Vesey asked him to tell the story of a quiet Oklahoma farm boy who became a priest, traveled to Guatemala in the late 1960s and fell in love with the people there. Writing this book brought Fr. Nouwen out of his slump.

Love In A Fearful Land is agonizingly brief, as was the life of Fr. Stan, this gentle yet strong priest, beloved by his parish. You will probably want to study the all too few surviving pictures of him; I know I did. He is always smiling and so is everyone who is with him. Despite the constant danger he lived in, Fr. Rother was not seeking martyrdom; he just believed a shepherd’s place was with his flock.

On the night of July 28th shortly after midnight, three men broke in to the rectory and attempted to kidnap Fr. Rother as was the practice of the time. There was a civil war in Guatemala in 1981 and the government was powerless – or claimed it was anyway – to stop roving bands of terrorists from kidnapping anyone perceived as a threat. Once kidnapped, the individuals were brutally tortured, killed and their bodies left by the side of the road or worse yet, never found. It was considered far better not to be taken alive. Father Rother, apparently put up quite a fight before he was shot twice in the head. The room where he died is now used as a chapel by his ‘flock’ who has already proclaimed him a saint.

Here is the prayer for canonization the Archdiocese of Oklahoma has written in his honor.

A week from today, on the 28th of this month, I'm going on pilgrimage to Holy Trinity Church, Father Stanley Rother's home parish, in Okarche, Oklahoma. It's the 28th anniversary of his death in Guatemala. We've been praying for his canonization for many years now, but I've yet to visit his town or parish and ... always wanted to. If you feel so called, please join us in praying for a very special intention that day.

Fighting the Good Fight: The Father Peter Whelan Story Trailer

'Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD. Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow; there they shall increase and multiply. I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the LORD.' Jer 23:1-4

One such shepherd who ministered to the Lord's flock was Father Peter Whelan. In the final months of the American Civil War, this priest went into the hell-hole that was Andersonville Prison where almost 1 out every 3 Union soldiers died of starvation, malnutrition, diarrhea, and/or disease. Once inside that death trap, this brave shepherd said Mass, heard Confessions, anointed the sick, buried the dead and offered solace to all regardless of faith or hometown. They may have been Yankees to everyone else, but to Father Whelan they were God's own and in need of His Loving Care, which they received. God bless this brave and selfless priest!

Prisoner of Love

Hello my dear Prisoner of Love!

You are here! As always when I come to visit you, I find you locked up and waiting … patiently.

You just wait for me to come and pour out my sorrows or joys, my joys and sorrows, or whatever I want to tell you.

You WILL listen, truly listen and hear me, ME … all my cries, all my words, thoughts, everything … anything.

You simply wait … in love. You are a prisoner for love. It is Your love for me which holds You here.

And whatever I say, You will understand. Your love will sort through my rambling words, sifting out needs from confusion, making sense from so much doubt, worry and fear, because You love me so much, though I deserve it so little.

You are ALL Love, a Prisoner of, and by, Your own choice.

Some would call you a fool.

I call You, “My Lord and My God!”

Thank You, my dear Prisoner of Love!

Theology For Beginners

This is my second reading of Theology For Beginners -- mostly because I can barely remember the first. What I do remember was at the time (probably sometime between '02-'04) it didn't seem a book 'for beginners'. This time, perhaps due to the reading I've done in the interim, it was much easier to understand. It's still very theoretical. Theology, after all, being 'the study of' God -- the most impenetrable mystery of all time -- it now amazes me Mr. Sheed has made this book as accessible as he has.

There were many things I liked about this book including the explanation of spirit/soul/body and their relationship(s) to each other. The whole spirit-soul 'thing' actually made sense after reading this explanation, spirit being not only a key word, but the key word. It 'is the element in us by which we know and love, by which we therefore decide.' Souls, on the other hand are marvellous and they animate the bodies, the life-principles, of all living things including plants and animals. So my cat has soul, but not a spirit, if I understand Mr. Sheed correctly. However, the human soul not only animates the body, it has powers of its own, powers utterly outside the possibilities of matter. (p. 62)

And then there were other pearls of Wisdom scattered throughout which I tried to collect (highlight) and add to memory, such as:

- . . . evolution and creation. These are answers to two totally different questions. Creation answers the question why does anything exist, why isn't there nothing? Evolution is a theory as to how the universe did develop once it existed. Upon how it came to exist, evolution sheds no light whatever. (p. 58)

- We are born without sanctifying grace. That is what is meant by being born in original sin, which is not to be thought of as a stain on the soul, but as the absence of that grace without which we cannot . . . reach the goal for which God destined man. (p. 80)

- It is by the saints, and not by the mediocre . . . that the Church is to be judged. A medicine must be judged not by those who buy it but by those who actually take it. (p. 116)

Theology For Beginners is really very basic theology. For some it will just whet the appetite. For others, it will saturate. Whichever is the case, as Mr Sheed says in his Foreword, 'you cannot love someone you do not know. You cannot love God well if you know Him poorly.'

"While it is obvious that an ignorant man can be virtuous, it is equally obvious that ignorance is no virtue." ~~Frank Sheed

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