After canceling the event in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Parents of Priests organization in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland resumed its Palm Sunday tradition of attending Mass at the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist and gathering afterward for a coffee and conversation with the bishop. This year’ event took place on March 28.
“Thank you for sharing the gift of your sons,” Bishop Edward Malesic said as he acknowledged the group as Mass began.
He also told the congregation about a suicide bombing outside a cathedral in Indonesia that morning that injured about 20 people. “Pray for them and for all who just want to worship freely,” he added.
During the homily, Bishop Malesic shared a story from his seminary days. It was two years before his priestly ordination and that summer he was working at a parish near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Parishioners Pete and Helen invited him to their home for dinner on night.
While sitting in their living room, he said he admired the beautiful work in some of their wood furniture and asked if they had purchased the items from a local Amish craftsman.
“No, Pete made it all,” Helen said.
Pete invited the bishop to see his shop in the basement, showing him his lathe, table saw and other tools, as well as some new pieces that were underway. “Each of them was gorgeous and each of them was made with much care,” Bishop Malesic said.
In another room, there was a display of pewter goblets, which Helen said Pete also made.
The bishop knew his parents were going to purchase a gold chalice and paten for him as an ordination gift. “That’s the chalice I usually use here at the cathedral,” he explained, but he thought he might like to have another chalice and paten – possibly for use during Lent. He asked Pete if he would be willing to create a chalice from pewter and wood and a paten from cherry wood. He said he wanted to think about it, but Pete called the bishop back to the house the next day and agreed to make the items on one condition: that he remember Pete and Helen’s two sons whenever he celebrated Mass with the chalice and paten.
About 20 years earlier, their sons – Anthony and John – went fishing on the Susquehanna River. One fell overboard and when he didn’t surface, the other jumped in to try and save him. Both were swept away by the river’s notoriously strong current and undertow.
The bishop promised to honor Pete’s wishes. “I also promised to tell the story at least once every year. This will be my 34th year of telling this story,” he added, pointing out that he was using the chalice and paten during Mass that day.
“One brother risked his life to save the other. That’s love. Love goes out of itself. Love is willing to put one’s life on the line for someone else – like a brother willing to die for another brother, or a parent for a child or a soldier for a buddy – or Jesus for us,” the bishop said.
When he uses the chalice and paten, he said he remembers what fills it, “consecrated bread and consecrated wine. The sacrifice of Jesus himself that became his body broken for us and his blood poured out for us. His life was given for ours. And the love of Jesus for us will endure until the end of time – and for all eternity. He is the one who was willing to die for us. He is the one who loves us to the end,” Bishop Malesic said.
He quoted Scripture, saying, “Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself … coming in human likeness, becoming obedient to the point of death, to death on a cross.”
“In other words, when we were sinking in our sins, Jesus jumped out of the safety of heaven and into the dangerous waters of human existence. He came to us, not to condemn us, but to pull us up. And, in the process of saving us, he died. But we know the end of the story. He rose again – and restored us, resuscitating us and breathing into us saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
Bishop Malesic said he’d like to think that Pete, Helen and their sons, Anthony and John, “will not be counted among the dead, but among the living because they ate Christ’s body and drank his blood, the same thing we do today. Jesus comes to us today, to save us once again, like he always does. Because of that, today and always, ‘Our knees should bend and our tongues confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”
After Mass, the bishop mingled, chatted and took photos with about two dozen members of the Parents of Priests who gathered in the cathedral rectory parlor. He told the group he’s looking forward to the day when they can gather safely in a larger group – and without masks – so they can get better acquainted.