Message for July 25, 2024
“He was the best teacher I ever had,” and, more to that, “He was the only mentor I’ve ever had.” “If I’d not met him, my life would have been different; my life would have been a lesser thing!”
Monday I attended the funeral of an extraordinary priest and person, Fr William N Dougherty, O.S.F.S., who had taught at major Catholic high schools in Philadelphia, PA and in Alexandria and Fairfax, VA, as well as at Catholic University and Virginia Tech. His classroom day never ended since students flocked in after classes ended for explorations, discussions, banter and mirth, and then his students all seemed to have kept in touch with him their lives long! He respected people and engaged them in their lives, giving the permission to think, to try things, encouraging them to become what God was calling them to be, for all their previous reluctance at finding the courage. He taught us all to trust God and others and ourselves, and in that, he remade our worlds.
Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 6: 30-34) showed how the people followed Christ all the more as he sought privacy and rest. The Lord’s “heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd”. Their thirst for His help is palpable.
My advisor at Harvard Medical School, when I was doing the PhD in biochemistry, would wonder aloud how Catholics could ever let themselves be called “sheep”. Fair enough - except for this - that there are all too many instances of folk acting just like that but instead selecting bad shepherds, rather than The Good Shepherd.
Weekend newspapers (The Pilot) mentioned Pope Francis honoring Fr J Bryan Hehir, former pastor of St Paul’s by making him a Monsignor. Fr Hehir’s extraordinary gifts remind us how in Fathers Kelly, Sheehan and Boles, we have been blessed with dedicated and exemplary pastors. Whenever I think of them, I have a grateful heart.
There are also the chief good shepherds of our lives whom we tend to overlook: our parents. How they taught us of God’s great love through their own for us! How they taught us the faith, and hope amidst adversities and how much love and friendship are at the very heart of life! May the good God reward them all! “Thank You God for Everything!”
May God Bless You Each and All!
Father George Salzmann OSFS
PS. I’m back from the funeral afar: I owe you coffee or lunch or a walk in The Yard to hear how you are doing, what you’re now up to and what you pray the future holds. Let’s do that now!
