| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MY FAVORITE PRIEST
Kindness in the rectory
By James Stephen Behrens
A very happy time in my life was the almost eight years I lived with Msgr. Emmanuel Capozzelli, the pastor of a small Italian parish in Montclair, New Jersey, the town where I grew up. They were good years in large part because he is simply a good and loving man. He was good to live with. The learning of goodness from him happened as naturally as breathing.
The rectory was small but comfortable since there was just the two of us. He has been there a long time and had accumulated many things over the years, most of which he kept in the basement. I was astonished at the number of awards, honors, citations, trophies and plaques that were given to him over the years by many religious and civic associations to which he had given his time so freely. He was recognized widely for his generosity. There were literally stacks of these awards on tables in the rectory basement. We lacked the wall space and shelves to display even a fraction of them, so there they gathered as the years went by. I never saw him look at them and never heard him mention them. Perhaps he thought that someday he would be able to go through them and feel some sense of accomplishment.
Living with him as close as I did, I saw a side to him not seen by many. It was the side to him that was not consciously planned or thought through. It was his at home “natural” self. It was a side that took such genuine delight in the ordinary things of life: a funny show on TV, a phone call from a friend, a walk down the street. He sang softly to himself in the morning and that alone added an air of calm joy to the house. He was and is a man whose real joy came from knowing that others were well and at peace. He went out of his way on a daily basis to make life easier for others. He seemed energized by giving himself away.
I also saw him take to heart and suffer with those who were hurting. He was and is shy about letting people know how he really felt when his heart was breaking. I saw him cry more than once when tragedy hit a family. I think that he wanted to show to others a more hopeful side of himself when the pain ran deep. Because we were much at home with each other, I saw how humanly he carried the pain of others even though he rarely let on that he did so.
We left the parish on the same day at the same hour. He drove off to a well-deserved retirement and I pulled out of the driveway on my way to a Trappist monastery in Georgia. We hugged each other and cried, but the tears came from a deep sense of gratitude for the goodness of those years that far outweighed the pain of moving on. I never asked him what he did with all those trophies and awards. I guess they are piled up someplace. Perhaps he looks at them every now and then to assure himself that he did some tangible good in his life, but I honestly doubt that he has ever looked at them.
It was a blessing to have lived with and loved a man who performed so well in the arena where no awards are given—the “place” of everyday life, a life that was ours for those too brief years.
If I am a bit kinder as I grow older, and find that I slow down a bit and take a sure delight in ordinary things, I will better know the real meaning of those trophies and what his labors truly accomplished in the many lives he touched. If the kindness that is his becomes mine as well, my gratitude will deepen even more—maybe I will even find myself humming a tune one early morning here in Georgia.
You are invited to contribute to this series by sending in an account of a priest whom you admire. Articles should not exceed 800 words. The best of these will be printed. Send to “My Favorite Priest,” c/o Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 10 Audrey Pl., Fairfield, N.J. 07004. If you have a good photo of the priest, please send that also. Enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope, if you wish to have your article returned. . . . Fr. James Stephen Behrens, O.C.S.O., is a Trappist monk at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Ga.—Editor
Back to Catholic Information Center On Internet's Main Periodical Page