I am a follower, a copycat, an imitation, an echo, an acolyte, a disciple, a docile lamb, a "me too," a protege.
I am NOT: a heroic solitary, a self-made man, an originator, an individual, a creative genius, a self-starter, an inventor, an independent thinker, a founder, a lone wolf, a pioneer, a "modern man," a postmodern, a mastermind, or even "my own man."
From the magisterial Rene Girard, via his protege, my mentor, Gil Baile, I know: we humans, created to image God, are always and everywhere and in every way mimetic...we imitate.
Ultimately, we mimic our Creator...or the Adversary, Lucifer. But these are themselves always mediated.
The primal question, Dear Reader: Who do you follow?
I follow Jesus Christ, my Lord, Savior, God, Brother, Companion, Model. He himself is a mimesis, in his humanity and in his divinity within the Absolute Event of Love that is the Trinity, of his Father.
He comes to me personally in solitude: in prayer, worship, Eucharist and sacraments, his Word. But he comes to me mediated, within his Body the Church, through mentors who are themselves proteges, however flawed.
So, working backwards from the present, I esteem and thank my mentors and praise the Lord.
For several months, I have been watching Pope Leo XIV as he radiates peace, reconciliation, listening, stability, modesty, quiet, fidelity, compassion, confidence, integrity.
During these same months I am under the influence of Stephen Adubato, less than half my age, a Memores Domini, a disciple of Luigi Giusani and Dorothy Day, a student of hip-popular culture, edgy, ironic, humorous, bohemian, erudite in an eccentric fashion, curator of the substack Cracks in Postmodernity.
For over a year my leader in our local Catholic jail ministry is Jim Collery: ex-Marine, formerly UPS manager (I myself was a mere supervisor), solid, common sensical, balanced, good natured, devout, unpretentious, salt-of-the-earth guy.
For well over a year my formator in our volunteer hospital chaplaincy was the riveting, effervescent, Jesus-loving, Spirit-filled, Presbyterian, Princeton-educated, Reverend Cyndy Wilcox. Much younger than myself. Exploding with life. Helped me talk with the homeless in the ER and those in the psych floor. Demonstrated how to bring the love of Christ, explicitly or covertly, to everyone of any belief. I never figured out her politics or her theology: She is so hip (liberal?) but so in love with Jesus (conservative?) She seems like a NYC radical and a Southern Evangelical! So Cool!
For over a decade, until her death in 2022, Sister Joan Noreen of Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist, was our spiritual guide. A holy woman. Her presentations (about classic Catholic stuff like papal teaching, saints, prayer etc.) were inspiring: something from heaven. Spiritually intelligent, her taste in speakers and literature was impeccable. She spoke with authority, unchallenged in the group, except by me. She was strict with me. For example early in the papacy of Francis, she sternly rebuked my criticism and directed me in obedience to read two of his homilies every day. I will tell you: he was a terrific homilist. Strangely, I took morose delectation in her angry punishment of me. It was as if I was reliving all the discipline we received from sisters in Catholic grammar school but now from a posture of confidence, affection, peace, and good humor. I was her problem child. Once she told me she would never have excepted me into the community except as a favor for my daughter Clare whom she loved. She also told me, when I made my promises, that I was her favorite.
In founding, with family and friends, our Magnificat Home, residence for low income women, I was especially inspired by Dorothy Day, Catherine Doherty, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Jean Vanier, and Father Benedict Groeschel and the Friars of the Renewal. Our home has its own personality, contrasting with those, but influenced by them.
Around the end of the century, I spent time "walking" with two different Neocatechumenal communities. Through the catechists, I was discipled by Kiko Arguello, the singular lay spiritual genius of our time. This deeply effected me: especially the deep awareness of sin. We are all of us...a mess! It is so good to realize this. So relaxing! So nice to be free of moralistic stress and guilt. This influence continues through my son who is deeply engaged therein.
Providentially, at the same time I came in contact with the 12-step tradition of Bill W. and Doctor Bob and attended meetings of various sorts (even Emotions Anonymous and adjacent groups like Suicide Survivors Support and the Recovery Groups of Dr. Lowe for the nervous.) All of this made me comfortable with human frailty, starting with my own.
Throughout my adult life, (but not recently), I was blessed with wise, holy confessor/spiritual directors: Neal Doherty S.J., Fr. Paul Viale, John Wrynn, Fr. Tim Tighe, Fr. Raymond McKeon.
Additionally, I have been steadily edified by intimate friendship with "older-brothers-in-Christ" John Rapinich, Brother Ray Murphy, and Merryl Jacobson.
Throughout my mature adulthood (ages 29-71; 1978-2013) my theological mentors were John Paul and Benedict. Very strong influences. A third figure of importance influence: Hans Urs von Balthasar. These were themselves mediated to me by the remarkable Communio school of theology closer here at the John Paul Institute in DC: David L. Schindler and son David C., Antonio Lopez, Paolo Prospero, Nick Healy, Michael Hanby, and the entire school. Adjacent to Communio is the Communion and Liberation Movement of Monsignor Luigi Gisanni, in which my daughter Margaret Rose is engaged, which has also effected me with their annual New York Encounter and other.
Over 25 years (1977-2013), at UPS, mostly in supervision, I was without a mentor. I was on my own. Given a gentle temperament and a personality already formed by seminary/Church, I was an exception, an outlier in a macho, dog-eat-dog, kick-ass managerial culture. We supervisors as peers were friends and mutually supportive; the managers above us defensive, often hostile, and always pressuring us for performance. I enjoyed the challenge of the work and the friendships as I survived on competence and relationship skills. A friend said I was the most underrated supervisor: a compliment, in a way?
Through the 1970s, 1973-80, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal greatly impacted my own spirituality, our marriage and indirectly our family. Ralph Martin has been the strongest influence even to the present as my own journey has mirrored his: drawing deeper into our Catholic roots. Immediately and intimately, we were closely, deeply guided by a remarkable groups of devout Charismatic women who moved into Jersey City and directed our prayer group under Father Jim Ferry's People of Hope community: Patricia Brennan (Charity), Marge Jarocz (Dominican), and several gifted lay women Kay, Betty, Gloria Jean, and Joan. More distantly, I was guided by a remarkable group with immense intellectual/spiritual gifts: Clark, the Ranaghans, Scanlan, McNutt, Manning, O'Connor, Francis Martin, McConnell, Montague, Ruth Carter Stapleton, Cardinal Suenens, and more recently Mary Healy.
Contemporaneous with our charismatic engagement, I taught religion in St. Mary H.S. Jersey City with remarkable Charities of Convent Station: dear, admirable "big-sisters-in-Christ" Maria Martha Joyce, Alberta, and Peggy McCarthy. Each a gifted, holy woman. Each with endearing eccentricities. Superb friends.
Another Charity of Convent Station, again contemporaneously in the early 1970s, Sister Virginia Keane engaged me to assist her in a marvelous ministry in Duncan Housing Projects in Jersey City. She welcomed me and entrusted me with a simple catechesis for mostly non-Catholics. She lived in the projects herself; she was deeply engaged and much loved there. An inspiration for me.
In the years immediately after college (1969) and early in our marriage (1971) I studied at Woodstock Jesuit Theologate, NYC, where under mystic-theologian Joseph Whelan, the strongest single spiritual influence on my life. Secondly, I was also taught by the Avery Cardinal Dulles, arguably the greatest Catholic American theologian of our time. At the same time I very the best liberal Protestant theologians at Union Theological. I enjoyed some marvelous friends: a Puerto Rican, Tony Petrosky, who taught with me at Puerto Rican Community Development Project; an ex-seminarian roommate George Lissandrello living in the emergent gay community of Manhattan's lower East Side; Peter Murray and some other Jesuit seminarians.
In college (1965-9), Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellen, Illinois, we were proctored and instructed by fine Maryknoll Priests, but always from an emotional distance. Philosophy professor Fr. Tom McGinn had a big impact on my as he taught both 19th century and medieval thought. Here I saw the immense contrast between the Masters of Suspicion (Hegel/Marx/Nietzche/Darwin) and St. Thomas as mediated by his heirs (Newman, Gilson, Maritain, Pieper). Obviously: I went with the later. Ever since, I have enjoyed an underlying intellectual clarity and certitude in the oppression of modernity and the chaos of post-modernity.
My singular personal mentor of the time, so significant for my own identity and self-esteem, was Pat Williams, librarian, ex-Marine, voracious book worm, husband/father, maverick-eccentric-lay-intellectual. Perhaps the most positive influence on my personal development. More intellectually, ending college I was passionately impacted by the iconoclasitic/anarchisti/yet/mystical/traditional teachings of Ivan Illich.
My high school years were happy and serene in Seton Hall Prep, a good school with lots of fine priests. I did not have a close or influential relationship. The same for the brothers (grades 5-8), sisters (k-4) and priests in our parish.
It goes with saying that my early influences were mother/father; rich network of uncles/aunts/grandmothers/older cousins/friends. Equally, in adult life my wife. Increasingly, my children, their spouses and children. These are, of course, organic often egalitarian and not what we mean by mentor/protege.
You see, Dear Reader, that I have been miraculously blessed. Is there anyone alive...in NJ? USA? the world?...with a richer network of influence? Possibly not!
Perhaps my singular grace is that I follow: that I am drawn to such people. That they have attracted me; inspired me; attended to me; responded to me; guided me; cherished me. They number over 60. Less than half priests: a balance in style of the clerical and lay. About 20 women, just over half of them religious; strong feminine influence. All were older than me except the last four; it is hard to find older mentors at the age of 79! About 15, one quarter, are alive. Just under one half, 30, I knew personally. Other than our Lord Jesus, I am not specifically discipled to any single figure; but the most important would be Pat Williams, Joe Whelan, John Rapinich, the Catholic Charismatics (led by Ralph Martin) and the Communios (led by John Paul.)
Whatever in me is true, good and beautiful springs from my encounter with these 60 mentors, as well as a rich network of family and friends.
May God bless each and every one of them: living and deceased!
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