If you read these reflections, you know I love using stories! I share this quality with my older brother, Fr. Michael Newman, OSFS. Like many Oblates, we use stories in all of our homilies. Today, I’m going to tell another story; it is a hard story. However, I believe we have a spirituality that gives insight into the whole human story. Therefore, I do not need to hide from hard stories.
In August of 2020 my middle brother, John, died very suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. He was 38 years old. His funeral was the hardest thing I’ve done as a priest. I remember his burial very well. His grave is adjacent to the Oblate plot at Resurrection Cemetery in Toledo, Ohio. Six of my students served as my brother’s pallbearers. They carried him to his grave; then Michael and I prayed over his tomb using the ancient prayers for Christian burial. Those prayers have been recited over countless brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, wives, and husbands.
Following the prayers, we stood there at his tomb for 10 minutes as people began to leave. At that moment, a fellow teacher and friend from St. Francis, Brenda, came up to me and said, “Joe, your students are not going to leave you until you tell them it’s okay.” There, next to us were my six students, standing, waiting, and loving.
I didn’t want to go over there. These were my students, and I was their teacher. I’m supposed to be smart, strong, and invincible, but I was just weak, heartbroken, with red eyes from tears. I went to them, thanked them, and told them how much it meant to me that they were there. One looked at me and said, “Father, we wouldn’t be anywhere else. We want to be here.”
The message for Advent is quite clear, “Ready or not, here I come!” I fight this message and often say to the Lord, “Don’t come yet, give me time to become perfect. You don’t want to be near me now! I’m weak, heartbroken, with red eyes.” We hear from the Lord, “I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to be here. I am next to you, standing, waiting, and loving.” We respond back with the Responsorial Psalm from our first Sunday of Advent, “Lord, make us turn to you, make us turn to you, make us turn to you.”
May God be Praised!
Fr. Joe Newman, OSFS
Provincial
Toledo- Detroit Province
