Blessings come at the most unexpected moments

    Dominican Father James Marchionda has been all over the world preaching retreats, and no matter where he goes, his message essentially comes back to his own doorstep.
    A person’s relationship with God, Father Marchionda says, is the foundation of a life of happiness, purpose and peace.
    Father Marchionda uses music – most often African-American spirituals – to drive home his point, as he did last week at the annual Catholic Administrators Conference in Bay St. Louis, Miss., for principals and pastors from Louisiana and Mississippi involved in the ministry of Catholic education.
    Jumping down from the speaker’s platform to a nearby piano, he belted out the first few bars of “It’s Me, It’s Me, It’s Me, O Lord, Standin’ in the Need of Prayer.”
    Father Marchionda said the point of the spiritual, as a subsequent verse makes clear, is that it’s “not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standin’ in the need of prayer.”
    “I have discovered what most people pray for is that God will really change the person next to me – that God will change my husband, that God will change my wife, that God will change my children, that God will change my parents,” Father Marchionda said. “No, no, no. It’s not my brother or my sister who should be the concern of my prayer. We need to assume responsibility for our prayer. I need to be humble enough to say I need help, I need growth.”
    The power of music to animate a life came shining through for Father Marchionda recently when he was asked to perform at a nearby Protestant nursing home. The night before the concert, he wrestled with selecting a meaningful repertoire for 100 people in wheelchairs, most of whom never had seen a man dressed in a white Dominican cassock.
    “You can imagine the look of horror on their faces,” Father Marchionda said, laughing. “They thought I was the Angel Gabriel coming to take them home.”
    He decided to plumb his old music books for cultural favorites from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s – “the music of their lives.” As he started singing, most of his audience had their heads tilted down and their eyes closed. But with every song, someone recognized the tune and a head would pop up.
    “All of a sudden, a man who couldn’t talk began mouthing the words with me,” Father Marchionda said. “The music was bringing people to life, like our church hopes it will bring people to life and give people a deeper sense of God.”
    At the end of the concert, Father Marchionda made sure to say goodbye to every person in the room. “I wanted to make sure they all knew that they counted for something,” he said.
    The last man in the room was strapped into his wheelchair for safety. He was turned to his side and shriveled up almost into a ball.
    “He was a tiny, little, frail man,” Father Marchionda said. “I went to place my hands on his shoulders, and as I did, he belted out, ‘Father, can I ask you a question?’ It scared the heck out of me. I said, ‘Yes.’ I figured he was going to ask me to get him out of there. But he said, ‘Before you go, Father, could I give you my blessing?’
    “Wow. I knelt down in front of his wheelchair and this old man prayed and prayed in front of me. I left there with tears in my eyes. Here I was, trying to let people realize they had dignity and were full of life and beauty. I left there in tears because this man, who was more bent than anyone else in the room and who couldn’t get around on his own, still knew he was a blessing, and he had a blessing to dispense. Nothing about his condition defined his faith. His faith defined his condition.”
    All Catholics, especially those in leadership positions, need to remember every day that they, too, have blessings to dispense.
    “It’s not easy being a priest in the church, and I know it’s not easy being a principal or administrator,” Father Marchionda said. “But guess what? You are a blessing because you are a blessing to the children. They receive from you what they will not receive from anyone else.”
    When Father Marchionda’s mother – one of those Italian mothers who had “more statues than furniture in her bedroom” – died seven years ago, he was able to care for her during her final two months.
    “She was always scared to death of dying until she came to die,” Father Marchionda said. “After all the busyness of her life, the only thing that really counted was her relationship with God. I was sitting by her side with my three younger brothers and all the kids and grandkids, and she started crying like a baby. I jumped up and thought this was really a preaching moment for her priest son. ‘Why are you crying, Mom?’
    “She finally regained her composure and said, ‘Jimmy, hasn’t Jesus been good to us?’ I said, ‘Yes, Mom.’ And then she said, ‘Do you think we’ve thanked him enough?’ I realized, at that moment, she was preaching to all of us. That became the occasion of the most peaceful death you could ever think of.”
    For those of us left behind, his mother’s story comes down to this: “There’s no reason to wait. God lets you do everything you do. Thank God.”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].