You're Sweating

necrology
noun
1. a notice of someone's death; usually includes a short biography [syn: obituary]
2. a list of people who died recently
WordNet® 2.1, © 2005 Princeton University

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On a Saturday afternoon this past May, I sat in a church office in New York City staring out of the window in an absolute state of shock. "If this is what I am supposed to be doing, why do I feel so awful?" I asked the pastor of my church, three days after the first sleepless night in which I realized that I was going to join the seminary. "Because you're in mourning" replied Father Joe. "This is a big deal." "So, am I going to be over this in a few weeks?" "Uhh... not quite" was Father Joe's response.

I was certainly nowhere near over it when I sat down with Father Michael Hunt, CSP in New York for my first interview. As I have alluded to in the past, my decision to enter the Paulists was a sudden one. While in actuality, priesthood has been something that has been knocking around my head for the past ten years, two years ago I believed I had made a final decision against it. The idea of giving up the possibility of ever kissing a girl bothered me; the possibility of not having a family gnawed at me. So even after the big sleepless night on Holy Thursday when I realized that the time had come for me to make this step in my life, those personal feelings and ambitions were still hitting me… hard.

“You’re sweating… do you sweat a lot?” I had been telling Father Michael my life story, up to and including my anxieties and emotions surrounding my becoming a member of the clergy; I had indeed not noticed the growing circles under my arms. I wish I could say that I could see past my own emotions when he started telling me his life story, including when he mentioned that he had been in treatment for Multiple Myeloma Cancer and the interruption it had caused his ministry. I wish I would have bee able to see past myself at that moment, but I have to confess that I was too drowned in my own drama for it to make much of a dent.

Still, we talked some more, and I couldn’t help but be taken in by his openness and friendliness. Towards the end of the interview, he asked “Hey, I have family with your last name. Do you have any relatives from New York?” I told him that most of my family was from Brooklyn, and as I said this I noticed that his face did in fact look a lot like my grandfather’s. “Most of my family is from Manhattan, but we do have some relatives from over that area, so there might be some crossover… look into it!”

When I came back to New York after the novitiate started in September, he greeted me with a “Hey Cousin!” We talked for about an hour and I had to break it to him that after checking with my father, it turns out that our family trees did not overlap – I had to confess that I was a little disappointed when I learned the truth. It wasn't until later that I learned that Father Michael was indeed an active blogger who made frequent posts and regularly read others... when he found out I had one he even left a comment on one of my posts. He was a Paulist I was definitely looking forward to getting to know more… at a time when I was feeling out of sorts, he went a long way towards making me feel at home.

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During before we begin Morning Prayer as a community, the necrology of that particular day is read. For those of you unfamiliar, the necrology is a brief biography of the Paulists whose anniversary of their death is that particular day. It serves as a reminder that I am now part of a larger community, something that is indeed larger than myself, something that has existed long before me and, God willing, will last long after me. And next year on November 6th, Father Michael Hunt will be added to the list.

He had been failing for a few weeks, and we received the word that he had passed at age 64 over the Paulist list serve with the subject line “Alleluia.” To show where I was at upon my initial reading, my mind went immediately to a miraculous recovery. But after realizing what had actually happened, it served as a reminder that I was in a new place, and even if I should have been doing so before, would be asked to look at things in different ways from now on. This is where faith came into action in response to the passing of one life into another... a new response to mourning. Still, when going back and reading Father Michael Hunt’s final blog post, I took some comfort to know that this lovely man was also continued to struggle with the many issues of change.

Getting old and dependent
One of my housemates here at the Paulist residence has just been admitted to a nursing home. He is well into his 80s and has been falling. Mentally and spiritually, he's fine but age has taken its toll. He has left a large emptiness in our house and for me as a friend of his. We all say the same things about how it was the best thing, how it is good for him and how good the home is. All true but also the way for us who remain to stave off thinking about old age and its necessary limitations.

Michael Hunt’s two blogs:
Westside Paulist (older posts)
Michael CSP (recent posts)