February 15, 2022
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Please allow me a personal reflection about February 15th, a day that has a special significance in my family home. It was the birthday of my father. There was much to be proud of in the life of my father. He was a Marine who fought in the islands during World War II, and he was a member of the “greatest generation,” whose formula was GOD, FAMILY and COUNTRY.
My father grew up in the very neighborhood into which I was raised. He maintained a business, a local tavern, which was more like a community club than a drinking establishment. After closing the business when I was about five, he then drove a bus (CTA) for over 37 years. He only enjoyed four years of retirement before dying of colon cancer at the age of 69. He worked and lived for his family.
He was never more satisfied than just being at home with my mother and the “kids.” Once, I shared with my father a reflection of a college philosopher professor who held that the afterlife consisted only of a relationship to abstractions. He looked at me directly and said, “Look, if the afterlife doesn’t include you, your sister and mother, then I want no part of it.” I have come to also share in that wisdom. God’s presence is in each one of us and we will know the fullness of that love presented through the people who we encounter in this world.
There are certain gifts that a parent passes on to their children. In the case of my father, commitment, stability and support were all wrapped in love. My father was an ethical Catholic who followed the rules – Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, support for the religious sisters, and abstinence on Fridays (Pope Paul VI was my dad’s favorite pope because he lifted the mandatory abstinence from meat on Fridays, outside of Lent). He put food on the table and provided for the needs of his children. He never complained about any expenditure that assisted his children in the arts (music and dance lessons) and education (college and advanced degrees). We never took formal vacations, but as a family there were always the occasional packed picnic lunch and trip to various Lake Michigan beach sites.
There was always the stress on the importance of “family.” Throughout my life, I never doubted the fact that my father and my mother would, if necessary, sacrifice their life for me or my sister. His natural presence as a father supported in me a deep sense of the relationship to God as Father. I took from him that special sense of father, so that when I was ordained a priest and people started to refer to me as “father,” I accepted that the Church was my “family.” And I have always prayed that I would have the courage to sacrifice my life for the family if necessary. After all, blood is thicker than water, and Christ’s blood was shed for us to be one family – His Church.
I understand why “communism” needs to destroy the nuclear family. The bond that is created establishes relationships that challenge any who would try to interfere with that loving authority. It is the family that creates the foundation for a freedom loving society. In Familiaris Consortio, St. Pope John Paul II teaches: “The family has vital and organic links with society, since it is its foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service to life: it is from the family that citizens come to birth, and it is within the family that the first school of the social virtues that are the animating principle of the existence and development of society itself.”
In the past, my father would be challenged to blow out the many candles lit for his birthday cake. Today, I will light candles at the altar and celebrate the sacrifice of Christ which has assured his eternal life. Hopefully in my role as “father,” I will encourage the members of the Church – our family – to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
Sincerely,
Most Reverend Jerome E. Listecki
Archbishop of Milwaukee
