Conceived in the love...tender, passionate, innocent, sacramental, erotic, faithful, fruitful, reverent, romantic, masculine/feminine, spousal...of Ray and Jeanne Laracy for each other. Baptized into their quiet, ardent Catholic faith. Gifted with two brothers, six sisters and a rich extended family.
Catechized into the sacramental life by 20 years of Catholic schooling with the Sisters of Charity, Christian Brothers, diocesan priests, laity, Maryknoll and Jesuit priests; in the thriving, expansive, serene, urban, ethnic, Roman Catholicism of post-war America.
Upon learning, around age 7 or 8, of the starving pagan babies in China, gripped by a obsession to respond to such suffering, I paced furiously back and forth in our home in Orange, NJ, thinking and bursting with concern. From this flowed as well a lifelong aversion to inordinate, conspicuous wealth.
Nurtured intellectually in adolescence by voracious reading, novels and non-fiction, along with a steady diet of America, NY Times, and Maryknoll Magazine, all staples of the wholesome, vibrant Catholic liberalism of the period.
Blessed, at Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, by a safe, steady quasi-monastic routine (study, work, prayer) where I made lifelong friends and enthusiastically observed the immense changes in Catholicism after the Council and in society in the cultural/sexual revolution of 1965-9.
Befriended and mentored by Pat Williams: marine, price fighter, librarian, father, family man, librarian, autodidact, brilliant free thinker. Recruited by him into catechesis, a vocation that was to define my life.
Studying philosophy of the middle ages and of the 19th century, encountered the sharp combat between the sublime intellectualism of Aquinas/Maritain/Gilson and the despairing irrationalism of Marx/Nietzsche/Freud...the heritage of faith and reason against that of suspicion, resentment, violence. Gained thereby an intellectual clarity that has served me ever since.
From Ivan Illich...ex-cleric, iconoclast, genius, mystic, anarchist, eccentric...received a profound critique of modernity in its toxicity as malignant technocracy-bureaucracy and a preference for the small, the simple, the convivial that allowed me to live in our bourgeois, dystopian megapolis with companionship, freedom, joy and agency.
Uncertain of the priestly vocation, left the seminary to immediately fall passionately in love with Mary Lynn, court her passionately but patiently, marry and live happily ever after.
As a mendicant theological student at Union Theological and Woodstock Jesuit seminaries, enjoyed above all the mystic, saintly Joe Whelan S.J. and secondly the remarkable Avery Cardinal Dulles S.J. The first exemplified the conjunction of holiness and theology, the second the epitome of Catholic scholarship.
In Cursillo encountered Jesus Christ as God and man, as my personal Lord and Savior and thereby overcame my low Christology, a defect in my faith I had imbibed in my liberal college years.
In Charismatic Renewal ecstatically surrendered to the movements of the Holy Spirit and thereby was delivered from my steady, low-level liberal guilt complex about not doing enough for the poor. This was a major watershed moment in my life. Happily, we shared it as a couple. It deepened and intensified our Catholic faith, opened us up in ecumenical love for Protestants, and relieved the shrill, moralistic oppression of the messianic, political liberalism.
As the Cultural War intensified, I became a dedicated Warrior.
Enjoyed collaboration with partners, especially religious women, in Catholic schools with Jesuits, Sisters of Charity, Dominicans and Felicians at five schools over a dozen years.
Enjoyed the exquisite delights of being father to seven and partner to the best mother of our generation. We were blessed to raise our family in a spacious home, in a rough but decent neighborhood, a good parish, with fine Catholic schools in Jersey City. Our children's Catholic faith was strengthened by a range of evangelical experiences: World Youth days, Magdallen College summer programs, NET retreats, charismatic conferences, and others.
Employment in UPS, mostly supervision, for 25 years provided our family economic security and gave me a challenge and provocation to growth in manly character.
The persons and pontificates of John Paul and Benedict, as well as the theological school of the Communio school in Washington DC, immensely deepened and enriched my theological vision.
Engagement with the 12-step program brought a serendipitous relaxion of compulsions against chastity and even more euphorically freedom from persistent, underlying, unrecognized fears and anxieties.
Several years of "walking" with a Neocatechumenal Community in NYC and NJ engaged me with the remarkable, radical catechesis of Kiko/Carmen, confirmed me in my most countercultural-Catholic intuitions, and triggered an early retirement from UPS supervision to seek God's will for me.
Our daughter Clare invited us into Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, a small, classically Catholic association founded by the saintly, gifted Sister Joan Noreen which synthesized elements of our faith. As a couple, we have especially benefited from prayer together of the daily office.
Walking the Camino of Santiago across northern Spain and probing God about his will for my life I received a clear, intense impulse to open a residence for people in need of a home. Family and friends eagerly worked together and so we opened Magnificat Home, a blessing for many women, for our family and above all for me myself.
Recently, we moved from Jersey City to Bradley Beach, a charming town at the Jersey Shore where we are enjoying a lovely environment, great jparish, a ministry of prayer with the sick in a local hospital, and more relaxed lifestyle.
Grandchildren. Need I say more?
The good news: there is even more than the above. Friendships, worship experiences, priests, parishes, religious, movements like Communion and Liberation and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal...to mention a few.
And better news yet: The Best Is Yet to Come!
Deo Gratias!
Suggestion: The above might serve as a sort-of or in-lieu of a eulogy at my funeral. "Eulogy" means "to speak well." It pleases me to "speak well" of the many blessings I have received and to share that Joy with all who have participated in them with me.
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