A photo of my family. My sister, Rose, is standing to the far right.
As we celebrate All Saint Day and anticipate the upcoming Vocation Awareness Week beginning November 7, I want to share this essay I wrote while on retreat in 1995 about my sister, Rose, and her influence on my priestly vocation.
This reflection was written on May 11, 1995, during my annual retreat at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Wernersville, PA.
Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D.
Archbishop of Louisville
Solitude invites us to explore the depths of our being and examine the roots and first urgings of our call from God. During this retreat, my prayer on vocation over and over again turned to thoughts of my sister, Rose. May this reflection on Rose and her influence on my vocation be to God’s glory.
Rose was a few days shy of 61 when she died and entered into eternal life on All Saints Day, November 1, 1990. Almost seventeen years separated our births – she was the oldest and I, the youngest. She was wedded in 1949 and moved to State College, where she resided until her death.
So, how could she have had such a profound influence on me? I was a little three-year-old when she moved out of our house, and I barely remember her. My only image from that time was her and her new husband, Charlie, leaving our house after the wedding. I must have been sick that day and confined to the second floor during the wedding and festivities. (I wasn’t much for those celebrations anyway.) But the noise and excitement was too much to keep me upstairs. I remember a view of them leaving as I stood halfway down the stairs. No major emotion – beyond that of curiosity – is attached to my remembrance, but it must have had some impact. How else would it be so vivid 45 years later?
One of the photos we had at home pictured Mom and Rose standing on the back porch with me sitting on the banister, looking out obediently but aimlessly. The photo captured a tender smile on Rose’s face and what appeared to be a gentle holding of me and making sure I didn’t fall. Maybe Rose, the 18-19-year old, had a major role in my first 2-3 years of living that is now permanently etched in my psyche though not recallable. (Maybe I will try a bout of hypnosis someday if I keep getting more curious. Only kidding!)
My next connection with Rose and my vocation is her gift to me on Christmas of 1958 of a book entitled St. Dominic and the Rosary. I would have been in 7th grade. I still have the volume and should re-read it. My first reading about this active priest saint was the earliest event I can recall that evoked an attraction to priestly service. I was fascinated by Dominic, maybe because the story made very concrete the words I was hearing about religion in school and in Church. While it wasn’t until 10th grade that I can first remember thinking that God was calling me to the priesthood, a priest who served at St. Canicus during my grade school years remarked to me after ordination: “I figured you had a priestly vocation, even back then.” So maybe St. Dominic and his devotion to the Rosary brought forth that spark. My sister Rose’s interest in things spiritual surely did not hurt.
I’d see this love for things spiritual in Rose after I entered the seminary. It was in my first year that a major portion of orientation for the “new man” was the private but required reading of a two-volume Life of Christ by Daniel Ropes. Like anything required, it was dreaded by all I know, including myself. But I labored through it dutifully.
Easter break came, and Rose was visiting Mom and Dad and couldn’t wait to tell me about the most fascinating book she’d been reading on the life of Jesus – none other than the one I’d spent the previous 10 months dreading. I was amazed. First, I thought no one would have ever heard of something going on in a closed seminary and secondly, had they heard, what was the attraction? The conversation left me with a deeper sense of Rose’s spirituality, even as I was only slowly uncovering what the word meant. These remarks on Easter of ’64 coincided with the Vatican Council II, after which lay spirituality would become a buzzword, but right then it wasn’t. Yet Rose had the attraction to Jesus.
This active spiritual life also came through in the main source of my contexts with Rose over the next 25 years: her occasional letters. Visits were times of dialogue, of course, but too frequently, it was a crowd of 20 dialoguing all at once and didn’t foster much depth. Her occasional letters, however, were my window to her world and her spiritual life. (It’s sad that I didn’t keep any of these letters.) Never showy, the letters nonetheless showed a deep spirituality. Here’s what she conveyed that I still remember as having a strong impact:
- She sought to take an interest in me, not simply “how are you?” but some specific question related to something Mom had told her. It conveyed to me a concern for me and for my world.
- She’d often mention some spiritual book or her times at morning Mass and how she liked when the priest prayed for specific people (hint?) or how she got up enough nerve to tell the pastor that the modern Church deserves a crucifix in a prominent place. Her faith was active and meant something to her.
- Her love of God’s creation came through. Whether it was herbs and flowers or Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, her excitement came forth. I still remember her fascination with Wagner’s ability to recreate the sound and motion of the high seas through his music. She shared this only after she found I had discovered a love of opera. (Before she died, on one of her last visits, she gave me The Flying Dutchman, and I think of her as I listen to it.)
- She always ended her letters with words of “God’s love,” which I always sensed were more than perfunctory.
Some missionaries sail the seas to convey God’s love for others; Rose simply used her writing skills and spiritual sense to help her little brother.
As cancer began to claim Rose’s life on earth, it seemed to move quickly. I called, and we visited, first at Nancy’s (Rose’s daughter) and then at the hospital. But again, it was in the midst of a crowd, and even when we were alone at her bedside, words failed me.
However, I think of Rose every day that I am at St. Mary’s Rectory. On my dresser on the third floor right above the sock drawer, is a photo of Georgie and me under the Christmas tree, both touching a basketball one or both of us got for a present. I guess I was nine or ten. The photo has a double significance. It reminds me of the interweaving of my vocation with that of my brother George’s and how we who now share a rectory go way back. But even more deeply, it reminds me of Rose, who in her illness took the time (and gave the instruction to, I believe, Nancy) to get a photo enlarged and framed and wrapped as a Christmas gift for 1990.
And, so on Christmas day, eight weeks after Rose’s death, we unwrapped the gift, which captured a favorite pose of two brothers for my sister, Rose. How long she had the photos and what thoughts it evoked in her – we’ll never know. But, for me, it’s a reminder each morning of Rose’s long interest in me and her encouragement in my priestly dedication.
In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 14, the 13th verse, John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes:
“I heard a voice from heaven say to me: ‘Write this down: Happy are the dead who died in the Lord!’ The Spirit added, ‘Yes, they shall find rest from their labors, for their good works accompany them.’”
This verse accompanied Rose at her Mass of Christian Burial almost five years ago. She’d be the first to admit that “her good works” were the stirrings of God’s grace and love in her life, and I’d be the first in line to witness to the reality of those “good works.”
Thank God, our Lord used Rose and her good works generously in calling me to become one of his priests, and I will be eternally grateful to Rose and to the One who inspired her.
Msgr. Joseph E. Kurtz
