WHEN THEY WERE WEAK, THEY WERE STRONG

By Robert R. Schwarz

preface to an upcoming series of articles

               "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness"    

             Jesus speaking to the apostle Paul  (2 Corinthians: 12:9)

Many years ago I was dismayed by the death of two friends whom I had considered paragons of human strength—emotional, physical, and intellectual. Their deaths left me confused about what should define human weakness and strength. Now, decades later, I am impelled to resolve this confusion by reporting—I am a former newspaper editor—on the lives of eight unique people who appeared to the world as anything but paragons of strength.

First, a brief word about those two friends: One friend, whom I shall call Dillon, was a college varsity wrestler and cross-country runner who later wore captain bars as a U.S. Infantry paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. He married a smart, classy woman who lovingly bore him three children and saw that they were raised on a good ole fashioned regimen of American morality and patriotism.  Dillon became vice president for an international consulting company, managing several hundred employees.  According to Dillon, drinking with boys was part of the job. "You find out what the competition is doing at the hotel bar," he once told me.  Dillon could come home at 3 a.m., fall asleep on the living room floor watching television, then rise at 6:30 a.m. with full steam for work.  "Dillon has amazing recuperative powers," his wife would say.  After twenty-five years of riding the corporate high, Dillon's "powers" were not recharging so quickly. "I can stop drinking anytime I want", he explained in a huff to his wife after walking out of his first and last AA meeting.

One afternoon Dillon , his wife and I were sitting in my home making arrangements for a funeral.  I knew of the reoccurring troubles Dillon’s drinking had brought to his work and family life. I turned to him and, as if asking an academic question, said: "Dillon, would you sacrifice anything for the love of you wife?"   He thought for a moment before realizing he was being confronted about something that was off limits, bad manners. "Oh," he said, dismissing my question as unworthy of much thought, "you mean the drinking."  e said He  He said no more, and, unfortunately,  neither did his wife or I .  But the point was made: Though you love your wife dearly, Dillon, do you have the courage, the guts to do something extremely vital to your family's happiness?  

     A couple of years later, Dillon , now separated from his wife and drinking a tumbler of vodka before noon, sat down one day to measure the combat zone he was in. The mind that once sorted out directives for cadres of managers and handled the self-sacrificing logistics of raising two daughters and a son, was not about to think that Dillon, for the very first time, could not help himself.   Next, he tried to rise from his chair but couldn't.   The legs which at college could run three miles in less than 15 minutes and which once could   seize the ground after a chute drop from ten thousand feet up, had suddenly become paralyzed.  Dillon—I know God loved him-- died a few weeks later.  

My other friend was Dr. Rudy Sunburg, a psychiatrist whom I met in an interview for a series I was writing about a mental health center.  He was 42 then, a tall, balding, cigar-smoking good ole North Carolina boy with an I-like-people personality. Rudy had a hearty laugh which compensated for the barely tolerable puns he told to staff and patients alike. Everyone wanted claim friendship with Rudy.   He was a fun-loving father to a Mexican boy he and his wife had adopted soon after Rudy had left a successful general practice for psychiatry.  We and our wives bonded during the years Rudy and I served on    the board of a county mental health association.

Rudy was a card-carrying atheist, a fact which seemed to bother no one, that is, until Rudy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. My wife and I often visited Rudy in his home.   Pain had forced him to sleep in a hardback chair at night, facing the back of the chair and resting his head on folded arms.  A few days before Rudy was hospitalized, I looked for an opening to say what I knew must be said to a good friend.  I waded in:  "Rudy, what if you're wrong about God and everything.  At least cover your bases and—".  I was still too young in the faith to know what next to say.  Rudy politely listened, then smiled.  He had heard it all before.

 The next week I visited Rudy at a Chicago hospital Lutheran General Hospital. Still the atheist,  Rudy  joked about the morphine which constipated him so much that it required a nurse—a friend of his-- to  give him relief by hand.   A Jewish lady chaplain entered, and we all talked and made witty humor.  Though Rudy was expected to easily go several more rounds with his foe, he died— quite unexpectedly, I thought--the next day.

Later, I couldn't help but ask myself: Had Rudy  not ever  been  aware of  the love of God ? Did he believe he was facing the absolute end of him—forever?  If so and if he saw his last days without any meaning and without cessation of horrible pain…I couldn't bear to carry this thought any further. I now understood, in my gut, why hope was a necessary virtue.

 A colleague of Rudy’s, who also was a pastor, wrote a book for strong-willed people who were sinking into a final abyss. Its title, Let Go and Let God, I unwisely thought then, was wimpy.   
            So, my definitions of human weakness and strength have gradually reversed themselves with aging. Now, at 76, expressing my empathy—or lack of it--for so-called weak or so-called strong individuals has, it seems, put me at loggerheads not only   with the culture of the  middle-class suburb in which I live, but with that of the world. I take no pride in this stance, for it is neither unique nor rare—just unpopular. 

The eight people I now write about (and loved, though not nearly as much as I should have) are becoming an endangered species.   There is Bull,  an ex-felon and Shrek-like character whom   my first  wife and I palled with in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York ;  Bapin,  a  brilliant  blind-deaf  man from India whom I met during his training with a Leader Dog; Philip, a modern-day hermit, when he's not stocking furniture at the department store that has benefited for his 45 years of selfless loyalty and  honesty; Aji  and Fadme,  a poverty level   man and wife who emigrated from Iran to escape religious persecution and a hopeless economic future;  Karl and  Lucy,  friends who care for each other's mental and physical afflictions; and my brother, Lester,  a disabled  veteran who has survived five decades of paranoid schizophrenia , much of it in   spiritual warfare.   I have begged off from profiling myself as either weak of strong for dread of my wife chastising me for both understatement and overstatement.

My personal need to  redefine human strength and weakness was also prompted when I recalled the inner strength of those " weak" people  who, despite being brutally clubbed and chewed by police  dogs,  kept on  marching in Selma , Alabama. I reacted the same upon rereading an account of those defenseless men even more brutalized in Gandhi's 1930 Salt March.  And then there was the Wall Street Journal    article that appeared a few days after Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs. In describing  the SEAL's training  as the hardest training in the world , where only 10 to 20 percent of trainees  graduate, Lt. Cmdr. Eric Greitens , himself  a SEAL   in the U.S. Navy Reserve, wrote: " Almost all the men who survived [ his own  training class ] possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more that a 'fist' of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose."   

While my eight friends made no bloody freedom marches nor were forced to the limits of human endurance, each I believe, deserve Purple Hearts. Though it might appear that in writing this I have tiptoed into waters of discourse  too deep for me,  know that  I chiefly  want to  give recognition ,  to sing a song  to my eight friends .  No one ever has nor likely will do this. My enthusiasm for writing this report is not too unlike that of what I imagine some old wagon train scout had experienced   when riding back with news about the trail ahead.

 

             I have changed some names, places, and dates. This liberty and a few others, I assure you, do not significantly alter facts or meaning.

 

THE END

rrschwarz7@wowway.com

©2011 Robert R. Schwarz

             

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A Young Priest's Journey of Faith From Poland to Arlington Heights

By Robert R. Schwarz

 

 

The priest is a man anointed by tradition to shed
blood, not as soldier, through courage, not as

the magistrate, through justice, but as Jesus

Christ, through love. The priest is a man of

sacrifice; by it, each day, reconciling heaven

and earth , and by it, each day, announcing to

every soul the primordial truths of life, of

death, and of resurrection .

--Fr. Henri-Dominique, O.P.

On August 2, 2003, a 23-year-old man disembarked at O'Hare International Airport after a 10-hour direct flight from Warsaw, Poland. He glanced curiously around—his first look at America—before being shuttled to the immigration line then took a deep breath and asked himself: What have I done?

The lone, apprehensive traveler with kind blue eyes and jaunty walk was Krzysztof ("Chris") Kulig, and he had come to this country to become a Catholic priest. Though confident his calling was from God, thoughts of inadequacy pestered him. Herded through the airport's terminal and hit by a barrage of foreign mannerisms and speech that to him sounded like alien babel, Chris was painfully reminded that he knew no English and was, in many respects, still a country boy from a small village in southern Poland. He had forgotten that tomorrow was his birthday.

In a moment, along with l2 other Polish seminary candidates who had been on the same flight, he would be greeted by the rector of Abramowicz Preparatory Seminary, Fr. Andrew Izyk, and the vice rector of University of Saint Mary of the Lake Mundelein Seminary, Fr. August Belauskas. Showing his visa to the immigration official, Chris' preoccupation with the challenges ahead was an echo of what the late Saint Josemaria Escrivá wrote: In Love with the Church: A priest is expected to bring love and devotion to the celebration of the Holy Mass, to sit in the confessional, to console the sick and the troubled; to teach sound doctrine to children and adults, to preach the Word of God… [and] to give counsel and be charitable to those in need.

Again Chris breathed deeply. Ahead was four difficult years of studying in a language he would have to learn to read, speak, and understand well enough to pass not only exams but also to work effectively as a parish priest among many families immersed in a wide spectrum of American culture.

Growing Up

"I never thought I would someday become a priest," Fr. Chris told this writer in one of several interviews we had in the spring of 2011. There seemed to have been no "mountain top" experience for him, no voice from a burning bush but rather, he said, the momentous decision evolved through the years of growing up in his hometown of Zegiestow. Close to the border of Slovakia and once part of a fashionable resort area known for its healing mineral waters, nearly every one of Zegiesgtow 1,200 inhabitants is Catholic. The village today is farmland, lying in a valley beneath hills covered with pine and oak. "We're lucky there because when storms come, these hills absorb them," Fr. Chris said.

His parents, Janina Skalniak and Adam Kulig, and his two older brothers and three sisters still go to mass each Sunday. "There are no exceptions," Fr. Chris said as he related his days as an altar boy who rose at 4 a.m. to catch the 5 a.m. train for the 32- kilometer ride to high school. He was on the soccer team there. His father is a forester, as was his grandfather; his mother is retired cook who worked at Catholic retreat houses. "When I go home to visit, my mom plans a different menu for me each day (his favorite is a cheese-stuffed ravioli or sweet cheese Pierogi)".

The Kuligs are a middle-class family. With some pride, Fr. Chris mentioned that the family "always had bread on the table." He remembers when food was rationed during his childhood in the waning years of Soviet-imposed communism. To deal with the shortage, each of the Kulig children shopped at a different store. "There was a time when there was no food in the stores," Fr. Chris said: "I remember the revolution of 1989," it was the year when the spirits of Polish people soared because the Solidarity-led coalition government led by Lech Walesa was formed, leading to the eventual fall of communism.

His Formation as a Priest

Inspired by Pope John Paul II and priests in his own parish, the young Chris Kulig now wrestled with whether to become a priest himself. His father wanted him to become a forester and his mother wished her son to remain near home. Procrastination was fueled by fear of failure, of not making the grade at the college level seminary in Tarnow. With that lilting Polish accent of his and a voice lowered almost to a whisper-- as it occasionally will today when making a solemn point during a homily-- he explained how "that kind of disappointment would turn a blessing into a curse for me."

The decisive moment came soon after high school when, during the l999 canonization Mass of St. Kinga in Stary Sacz, Poland, he heard John Paul II say: "Saints draw life from other saints." The words struck a chord with the teenager. "Without any delay," he was to say later, "I decided to be a priest." He took—and passed—an exam at the Tarnów section of the faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków. "My mother was shocked."

Reflecting on his four years of living among 279 other seminarians and faculty instructors —the first year being crammed into one dorm room with 14 other students-- Fr. Chris fondly remembers the dramatic body language of his Italian instructor, Fr. Boleslaw Marganski, and the creativity of his cosmology professor, Fr. Michal Heller. At first he disliked being restricted to the seminary building all day except for one hour, and for that he needed permission. "But I learned to like it later for the discipline it taught me." He failed a few exams but found the studying not difficult. To prepare himself to better defend the faith, he read several books by authors who challenged the Christian faith.

In his fourth year at Tarnów Seminary, Fr. Chris faced a critical decision: to stay in Poland as a priest or leave his native land for America to help fill the void there of priests.

Coming to America

The decision was sparked by a visit in September 1999 by Cardinal George of Chicago, who ostensibly came to Poland (a country he knew was blessed with a large number of priests) to encourage seminarians there to consider being ordained in America. The Cardinal explained that this would make it easier for a young seminarian to adjust to the Catholic Church in America and to American culture. Reflecting on the Cardinal’s invitation and discussing it during an exchange of emails and phone calls with former classmate (Fr. Robert, now a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago), crystallized Fr. Chris' decision to come to America.

"Yes", Fr. Chris exclaimed, "I knew I would be leaving everything, my family and friends and coming to a new culture. It would be like jumping into a big ocean, and I didn't know if I would be able to swim well or not. The language was the big thing. And I would be greeted at the airport by someone I had never met."

The Archdiocese of Chicago paid for his traveling expenses, and now, on that August day, as he waited for the immigration official to stamp his student visa, the same thought flashed again: What have I done?

Housed in the Chicago parish rectory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, he was given intense courses in English for a year at the Bishop Preparatory Seminary and at University of Illinois at Chicago. "I was bombarded with English five days a week from 9am to 12pm and 3pm to 9pm. It was very difficult for me. Sometimes you just look at the teacher and ask: what is she asking me?" Vocabulary challenged him the most, made even more difficult because students were from different countries and could not apply their newly learned language skills by interacting with each other when outside of class. Administrators purposely situated Chris and the other Polish seminarians in environments where they were forced to communicate in English.

"I really didn't have too much difficulty adjusting to the American culture. The only discomfort I felt was when walking down the street and I had to refrain from returning a wave or smile to a child—all because of the sex abuse scandal. I had smiled once or twice in passing a child and my friends told me  'never, never do that again'."

He was amazed by how "fast everything is in America…there is no time for spontaneity. Everything is by appointment. In Poland, for example, when an adult child wants to visit their parents, they just go to their home." Fr. Chris was equally surprised to discover that, unlike in Poland, supermarkets in Chicago supply free paper or plastic bags and are bagged by staff. But if Fr. Chris had any epiphany during those four years he studied at the Mundelein seminary, it came when he sensed a profound difference between the hope which Polish people have in the ability to overcome daily living obstacles and the hope he himself now felt, that in America "just about anything could be fixed here, but not so in Poland."

A Deacon, then Priest at St. James

In November of 2006, Fr. Chris was assigned as "a transitional deacon" to St. James in Arlington Heights, an upscale suburb northwest of Chicago. On weekends he lived with Pastor Bill Zavaski in a residential home next to the parish office. He would later move permanently to an adjacent home and shared it with Father Jim Hearne and now with Father Joji Thanugundla from India. That next May 19th, Mr. Krzysztof Kulig stood in Holy Name Cathedral waiting to become—for life—Father Chris Kulig. In the pews were his parents and a sister (who had traveled from Poland just for this occasion) and Fr. Zavaski. "It was very beautiful," he said. "I found myself asking: Can I really do it? Can I really take that huge responsibility of being a priest?" Minutes later, this 28-year-old Polish immigrant approached the altar and prostrated his wiry five-foot-eight-inch body face down on the cathedral floor. Parallel to him, their faces also pressed to the floor, were l3 other candidates: four from Poland, two each from Tanzania and Kenya, two each from Mexico and Peru, and one born in Chicago. "I will never forget how cold that marble floor was. One of my classmates was crying and shaking….When Cardinal George put his hands on me, I felt relief, I felt that the Holy Spirit was saying: Don't be afraid. I knew that God's grace had brought me this far." He now was one of more than 27,000 diocesan priests in America.

Soon he was being embraced by his family. "I was so happy I cried." Later came a celebration party for him at the White Eagle restaurant in Niles. "It was like a wedding."

His parents and sister listened to his first homily at St. James, a parish of 4,000 families and seemingly uncountable ministries. He told the congregation that Sunday how grateful he was to God for everything, especially his parents. "I was nervous, so aware that I was considered the new kid on the block, and was—and still am—learning English. But I felt welcomed. I never felt that people looked at me through the prism of my nationality but at who I am as a person, how I treat them."

For his first two years at St. James, Fr. Chris read his homilies, which he had written out. Nowadays, he said he trusts in the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He can’t recall his sentiments upon hearing his first confession other than he felt very humble—and says he still does—and was acutely aware not to judge anyone. "I knew that a priest cannot be prepared for any confession because everyone comes to him with something different to confess. I knew I had to give my personal understanding of that person, how I could help him or her be a better person, not to dismiss the confession by simply saying: 'your penance is to say ten Hail Mary's." As for his first funeral, he was surprised to be wearing a white rather than a purple chasuble as worn by priests in Poland.

A Typical Day

"Tell us all about your typical day," I asked this priest with the cropped dark brown hair whose movements were characteristic quick as he pulled two magazines from a bookcase in his small office and then turned to check his email at the desktop computer. "I'm sure your parishioners would truly appreciate knowing more about all that a priest does for his salary." We both laughed.

'I'm not a morning person," he said somewhat apologetically, aware that I might have been at a weekday Mass when he had been a few minutes late. "I set three alarm clocks for 6 a.m. but sometimes don't hear them," he confessed with a wide smile. After showering, he has a cup of strong Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Commenting on his java brew, Fr. Joji Thanugundla, who shares the home with Fr. Chris, said: "I always tell him the coffee tastes better when he makes it. And he takes good care of our house and the yard."

After presiding over the 7:30 a.m. weekday mass, which is usually twice a week, he goes to his home office to check emails.  At 8:30 a.m. in his home, Frs. Bill and Joji and he pray their required Divine Office (three Psalms, the canticle of Zachariah, and petitions for families and the deceased whose funerals are that day). Fr. Chris doesn't eat breakfast. He's off now to the parish office; there might be a funeral or a Bible study he leads from 9:30 a.m. to 11a.m. He lunches at home, usually on leftovers from last night's dinner prepared by the priests' cook, Angie, a parish member who prepares the meal in Fr. Chris' home. The three priests eat together. His afternoon may entail a parish staff meeting from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., followed by a one-hour break. Evenings are often occupied with some kind of church meeting. "Every day is different….on Wednesdays evenings, for example, I am with RCIA team preparing new members to join Catholic Faith. There are different meetings which sometimes you plan these like wedding appointments or visitation at the wake. But some you can't plan, like sick call visit or going to hospital and being with a family whose loved one is near death… Honestly, when I'm really fatigued, I tell the office I won't be back for an hour and then I just go to my room and rest."

Fr. Chris is usually home at 9 or 9:30 p.m. and unwinds by watching the animated TV shows "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons." He may read a novel or something humorous. "Sometimes when you're preoccupied with your work and getting a bit depressed, laughter is needed….Sometimes I call my old Mundelein seminary friends and we might talk for hours."  Depending on his energy level at this late hour, he might slip in an instructional CD and practice his English pronunciations or just update the St. James Facebook page. He finds the late evening hours the best time to prepare for Mass the next day. In the summer, he enjoys the "inspiration" of insect sounds at night. e reHH In the "Magnificat,"  a monthly missal read by Catholics throughout America, he reads a meditation before going to bed. Lastly, he prays the following:

Thank you God for this day. Give me the strength for

another day and keep all my friends and my family in

your care.

Fr. Chris extended his hand to me. "You see this ring on my finger? It's a Rosary ring my mother gave me when I entered the Seminary in Poland. Many times while falling asleep, I touch this ring and say the Rosary and pray to my Holy Mother in heaven. I also remember my mother on earth.”"

Looking at the ring again, Fr. Chris' voice rose an octave as he explained what role the ring plays at weddings. During the ceremony, he takes it off and cautions the groom never to take off his ring as a convenient excuse to feel free from his marriage vows for an hour or two when out with the men some night at a bar. "Keep it on and you will be free of temptation," Fr. Chris exhorts the groom.

He and the other two priests hears confessions from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays in the parish center. “Many times though, people just telephone me and ask if they can seen me." He views a confession more like a "friendship, a conversation between someone I don't know but to whom I must relate." Most of the people he sees in the confessional booth are St. James members and are of all ages; men slightly outnumber women, and from time to time he hears a confession from a teenager. Many confessions begin with a question about morality or a request for advice on daily living, like: "Father, I'm not sure I'm on the right path" or the question: "Did I say the wrong thing to my spouse?" With marital problems, Fr. Chris keeps people focused on love and marriage vows. Quite often at the conclusion of a question and answer session in the confessional booth, finally come the words: "Father, can you hear my confession?" Fr. Chris himself goes to confession twice a year: before Christmas and Easter. For private prayers and meditation he occasionally drives to the church at Marytown in Mundelein and walks the grounds amid the beautifully landscaped Stations of the Cross.

Up Close and More Personal

Recreation , etc.… "I'm reading Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI. He also reads the magazines "Archaeology" and "Discover". He loves barbecued ribs and seldom goes out to eat because, he says, “I have a great cook.” Once every three weeks or so he gets a haircut in Mundelein from a woman barber whose been cutting his hair since his seminary days there. A camping trip to Yellowstone National Park was his favorite vacation in America, but “next time I’ll stay in a hotel.”

Friends…When he needs to "vent," he telephones former classmates or talks to Fr. Zavaski, whom he considers a close friend to whom "I can open up to…whether he agrees with me or not, he has that gift of listening well." Said his home-sharer, Fr. Joji: "We laugh, we share, we discuss—all in good spirit. Fr. Chris is friendly and very responsible." Another close friend, Sr. Joanne Grib of the nearby Sisters of the Living Word convent, describes him as "a deeply spiritual man who has a deep respect for all people. He’' a gentle, kind man who is a dedicated priest. We have a lot of laughs together." With a laugh she added: "We both love movies, and as much as we'd like to go to a movie together, we wouldn't want to scandalize the parishioners." Sr. Joanne consults with Fr. Chris when organizing her evening Bible classes.

Political leanings… He chuckles at this, then thoughtfully comments: "I try to follow what the candidates are saying and disagree with them sometimes." Does he favor Democrats or Republicans? "A little of both," he answered.

Milestones in his life…The many people who have "helped show him the way in life."

Celibacy… "When I visit my family in Poland and see my nephews running around, it is sometimes painful knowing I cannot have biological children. But I married the church."

Biggest disappointment…That seminarians at Mundelein are, in his opinion (challenged by Fr. Zavaski ), not taught enough things relevant to today’s  world.

Major needs of St. James parishioners…That "they experience the presence of God in their lives and the treasure of the Catholic church. From the recent parish survey, which I am still reading, I personally find out that parishioners hunger to learn more about their faith." This is not an easy task, he added, because of the mix among parishioners—healthy as it is—of traditionalists (those who want to see the church return to some of the pre-Vatican II practices) and of modernists (those who want greater freedom in how they express their faith).

What disturbs him as a priest…Church leaders—both clergy and laity—who openly criticize  high leadership positions without knowing all the facts about an issue. It saddens him when people don't proclaim Jesus Christ as head of the church but would rather proclaim themselves or their own particular church as the final word.

Agreement with what the church teaches… He has personal opinions but chooses to "obey" church teachings. (After this interview, Fr. Chris during his homily at next morning’s Mass, exhorted everyone to go home and think about their "obedience to Christ" not to obey what they personally prefer to obey. He cautioned his parishioners that although people interpret church teachings differently, due in part to the natural changing of human language as time passes, the spiritual language of the church remains the same and is universal.

             What drives him… "I'm trying to be as humble as I can. I hope people don't read me as arrogant. I just want to present Christ the best I can as a young priest." Again his words seem to echo those of St. Escrivá : A priest is no more a man or a Christian than any ordinary lay person. That is why it is so important for a priest to be deeply humble.

How He Battles with Satan

Fr. Chris is candid about his own temptations. "Sometimes there are doubts about things you do, things that make you sort of empty." When this occurs, he is helped by meditating on the life of the saint, Padre Pio, who helped many people battle evil. "I know I am vulnerable …and sometimes I pray again and again in that moment of temptation, asking God to give me wisdom and strength. After I have been victorious in overcoming the temptation, then the important thing is that I be grateful to God."

Our interview of several hours ended with Fr. Chris relating what he described as his "worst experience ever of doubting the presence of God in his life." He grew increasingly emotional as he told the story of when his youngest sister, Annette, 23, flew from Poland to visit her him in May, 2010.

Fr. Chris had been summoned to the immigration office at O'Hare, where his sister was being held and disallowed from entering this country despite possessing a legitimate visa. He was not allowed to see his sister, who was being held in an adjacent room. Separated by a wall and that he was absolutely helpless to do anything for her, was perhaps the most agonizing moment in his life. "They didn't even tell me that they were about to put her back on the plane to Poland for another ten-hour flight!" He went home, he said, and "cried like a kid,"asking God : Where were You? "I doubted that God existed if he could allow that to happen." He burned with anger from the unfairness, the insensitivity, the gross mistrust of those particular government employees. "For the first time in my life I was so weak. Then I looked up at the crucifix on my wall. In that moment of pain, I realized how "helpless" Christ was when he hung there on His cross, helpless like I was."

"I offered up all my pain to him then and knew it was a victorious moment."

THE END

rrschwarz7@wowway.com

©2011 Robert R. Schwarz

NOTE: This is the last Exodus Trekkers interview

article until next September. All seven previous
articles will remain posted on this web site
and will be reprinted in the summer issues of
the St. James bulletin . Your comments are
invited.

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This Nun in the Blue Jump Suit Cautioned the Men: "Call Me 'Sister' "

 

                                                                      By Robert R. Schwarz

 

 

            There she was, a nun who at age l6 had vowed obedience, chastity and poverty, now working in the oil fields as a research chemist. For the next 20 years,  she'd be a co-worker among 1,400 employees, sometimes refining the language of  men and,  as one  boss said, "showing but  never telling" them how to live.

           Today, after her career in a company blue jump suit, followed by decades as an educator, Sr. Joanne Grib, lives out her vows as an active 76-year-old convent member of the Sisters of the Living Word in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Once pocketing her Rosary beads during trips to oil fields and steel and paper mills throughout America or Venezuela, you now see her holding them as she walks the St. James church   grounds. 

            We met on a March day in an activity room of Sr. Joanne's convent. The morning sun was casting long shadows across the outside garden where convent’s 70 sisters come to meditate and stroll. As I arranged my note-taking materials,  the room's  conspicuous silence  made me think of other close up conversations  with nuns, of those  privileged  peeks into a dimension of life normally veiled  from most of us.   In that respect, this white-haired nun with the brown eyes and brisk walk was not to disappoint me. 

            I encouraged Sr. Joanne to reminisce, and she did, talking freely with a healthy respect for facts.  In a self-effacing manner, she spoke with low, articulate tones, flashing an occasional grin over some memory that obviously humored her but which she chose to keep private.  It was St. Patrick's Day, and I complimented her on her teal green slacks and sweater and her shamrock-shaped earrings.  “I’m Polish and Czech,” she said, “far from Irish.”  She saw me gaze at the glass Celtic cross hanging from her neck. "It's from Ireland, a gift from a friend."

            We started at the very beginning. “I was born in Cook County Hospital,” she said, then quickly added: “In those days it was a reputable hospital.” e father H Her  Her father was a tool designer, who insisted that her mother remain a homemaker to care for their son and daughter. “I’ll take two jobs before you take one, “he promised.  Both parents were "staunchly” Catholic. From youth her mother had wanted to be a nun. She died when Sr. Joanne was seven. Sr. Joanne's dad married his wife's sister, who gave birth to two girls.

Our nun grew up on the city’s South Side in the St. Gall parish. "I've been going to mass daily since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

            In her high school senior year she took vows and entered the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph and became a postulate, then spent two years as a novice in a convent in South Bend, Indiana. Next came a B.S. degree from DePaul University in Chicago, followed by a master's degree in chemistry from Kansas State University.  “I wanted to be a pharmacist, “she said,” but the sister superior of my religious community said they needed a chemistry teacher. I didn't want to be a teacher, but in those days, it was ' no, sister, yes, sister.' "

            After teaching chemistry for 25 years, Sr. Joanne served a three-year term as school   principal. One day she expressed her desire to go into industry. She was given permission along with Sister Superior’s comment: “We certainly can use the money.”   Whatever money Sr. Joanne would earn throughout the life would be given to her "community." 

At Work in the Fields in a Blue Jump Suit

            Except for a four-year break to teach at St. Ignatius College Preparatory school in Chicago, Sr. Joanne donned that blue jump suit for the fields and laboratories of the Nalco Chemical Company, and then headquartered in Chicago, now in Naperville.  Did Nalco hesitate to hire a nun?   "No.  I went for an interview and they hired me on the spot.  Then they sent me all over America, to Rome, even Venezuela. I worked in paper and steel mills, in oil refineries. I was instrumental in getting lap top computers for the salesmen and in setting up a computer chemistry program for them. "

            I asked her what it was like working as a nun—the only one— among 1,400 employees and  many of them men who likely saw her as a  woman from a world they only knew from afar.  “Well, everybody called me ‘Sister.’  They also called me, though not to my face, ‘Nalco's Blue Nun’ because I wore a blue jump suit when I worked in the fields.  Blue Nun wine was popular at the time, and so when an occasional salesman took me home to eat dinner with his family, there was always a bottle of that wine on the table.  But in the beginning, the men were uncomfortable in my presence—until they got to know me.  I was very careful to let them know I was a nun.  I did clean up some of their language.

            I asked: "Any—well, how we can say it—'relational' problems?”

                        "One man was flirtatious and I had to tell him I was a nun.” The man explained, somewhat defensively, she related, that  he was from the South and thought she was too and that in the South  everyone calls a woman 'sister'  in the intimate manner he had called her.

            Asked if she ever help convert any Nalco employee, Sr. Joanne recalled that two  workers approached her one day to tell her that they had returned to the Catholic church after a long absence because of her behavior as a  "nice and caring" person.

  "If there was gossip at the lunch table, I would get up and leave or change the subject," she continued. Another man still sends her a Christmas card along with a "good" donation to Sisters of the Living Word (S.L.W.) because she helped walk him through a divorce from a woman whom Sr. Joanne used to hear scream at her husband in his work cubicle.

            In  l992, Sr. Joanne transferred  from Sisters of  St. Joseph to her Arlington Heights convent, an order that began in l975 when 90 women of the Sisters of Charity (headquartered in Europe )" joined hearts and hands" to form S.L.W.  In 2000, Sr. Joanne retired from Nalco with a "juicy pension”. She took it in one lump sum and gave it to her community of sisters.

A Typical Day…Lots of Praying

            This nun’s typical day begins at five, sometimes five-thirty a.m., with a prayer, or the "morning office”, as the church calls it. It's followed by 20 or 30 minutes of meditation when she “just communicates with God.” Before breakfast she recites the Rosary.  Then she might teach a computer class at the Arlington Heights Senior Center or help feed the homeless at the nearby "Journeys from Pads to Hope”, where she also applies her PC skills to client data intake.    Bedtime is between 9 and 10 p.m., before which she prays the "evening office." There is always time for a "good” spiritual book (she is currently reading “The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything”).

            I should have known the answer to my question about her day off.  "You never get a day off from God," she instructed me. Of course.  The question of why she became a nun, however, caused Sr. Joanne to searchingly look out the window for a moment, as if neither she nor anyone else had ever really asked it. "Prayer, I guess, led to it,” she finally said.  She paused again, recalling something from many years ago. “They always told me I got my vocation from my mother. She always wanted to be a nun but never could. I didn't know about this until after she died. And then, by an act of God, I entered the very same religious community she had wanted to enter. “Sr. Joanne's eyes became teary.

            When we talked about her life challenges, the nun summed them up with three: remaining faithful, being patient with the senior citizens she teaches, and taking time for prayer—"you're tempted to neglect that sometimes and sleep in." She then admitted: "I guess I don't have any real challenges. Many times God seems a million miles away but you just keep working at it.” Sr. Joanne's eyes moistened.

What about spiritual warfare?  With that, we shared a laugh. "Oh, yeah," she said, a bit leery about where we might go with this.  “I pray constantly for wisdom and understanding and for a deeper spiritual life.  I'd like to be able to pray better, get rid of those distractions. “She said she handles distractions during mass or a homily by resolving in that moment to "see what message here Jesus may have for me…During the offertory I offer myself up to the altar of God… At the consecration, I am very aware that Jesus is coming into that piece of bread and into that cup of wine. Many times I leave [the morning mass] with Jesus still dissolving on my tongue. I have a deep love for the Eucharist and a deep desire in my heart to be more Christ like."

Since her trip to the Holy Land last July (a gift from her best friend),   the Holy Mother and the Rosary has become more alive for her, she affirmed.  Now when she recites her Rosary, she sees in her mind's eye those Holy Land churches and other sites associated with the mother of Jesus.

At this point, one had to ask if things came easy for her.  “I don’t know if they come easy. I make them easy. I'm free. God takes care of me. I don't have to worry where I'm going to get food or where I'm going to live." Her goal is to "spread the living Word of God."  This she does by teaching a weekly Bible class and by speaking only positive, “life-giving words" to people.

Does this nun have any regrets about a lifestyle which, since childhood, has been one of frequent self-denial?  Sr. Joanne sensed what I really wanted to ask. She became mellow, quite warm.  " There's always been temptations like  'why not quit and get married …you could have children of your own'…I love children. But these temptations are fleeting. I know better. As you get older, it's not that big of a struggle. The life here isn't that austere."

She waxed some delight—and some relief—when we went to questions about her recreation.  Yes, she does see a movie now and then (a James Bond or the recent "'Kings Speech”, which she found "fabulous ") and, on television,   she watches "CSI”, “Jeopardy” and ABC News. She likes to read mysteries by women authors and loves Chinese food.  She also mentioned the dice game “Farfell" which the sisters play.

Any big plans for the future?   "Keep on keeping on," she said as we parted in the convent parking lot. “By the way," I shouted to her,” who’s your patron saint?"

"Joan of Arc!”

Naturally.

THE END

rrschwarz7@wowway.com

©2011 Robert R. Schwarz

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