The news came to me by chance in early January. A parishioner asked if I had heard of the passing of the Rev. James Callan, who had been the priest at Corpus Christ Roman Catholic Church in Rochester NY, which I attended in my early 20’s. Now called Spiritus Christi after a battle with the Vatican, it was a foundational place for me that I have preached about several times. In fact, I had just told a Fr. Jim story in my Christmas Eve Sermon, which is why the connection was fresh.
I hadn’t heard that he had died on Dec. 13, or that he had been in treatment for cancer for several months. I hadn’t heard that several thousand people gathered for his funeral on Dec. 28. Amazing in an age of instant communication, on Facebook and email and Instagram, that I missed the passing of a hero. But it’s also not so amazing given that the tsunami of information we endure every day is also deeply compartmentalized and curated. Some news is still slow to arrive. Not every connection to the past is attached to the fly wheel of the present.
The news of Jim’s death came to me along with the passing of Jimmy Carter. It got caught up in the swirl of January liturgies and programming and the preparation for and fallout from a new presidential administration. I’ve approached it cautiously, a tender spot among so many these past weeks.
Fr. Jim Callan featured prominently in my journey of call to the priesthood as a woman, in the development of the vision I have of both a just world and just church, for what a parish can look like when wildly and recklessly reliant on the Holy Spirit for its direction and strength. It’s been more than 20 years since I’ve spoken to Jim. The priest that I see in my mind’s eye is still in his early 50’s, younger than I am now. He is walking around the large, old church in downtown Rochester with a coffee cup in his hand, which is how he liked to pray. He is hosting a group of us in his old house in the city and telling us about the parish’s commitment to the most vulnerable people in the heart of the city he loved. He is pounding out a song on the piano, which is how he began every morning. He is preaching in his matter-of-fact voice about an unjust world and suggesting its more rotten beams should fall.
The memories feel iconic. And in this way, Jim was probably a patron saint for me long before he died. He sits at the foundations of who I have become so many years later. When I first met him and the others who held leadership at the then-Corpus Christi, I was newly married, working in my first job as a newspaper reporter at the Rochester Times Union, acknowledging the first pangs of a call to ministry, seeing the church in a whole new way.
Because Jim is now with the saints in light, I know that he is even closer to me than he was in those foundational years. As close as God, as I find myself saying a lot these days. And given these days, and how challenging they are, I can reach out to him for example and guidance. What would Jim do as pastor and priest and citizen today? He would preach the Gospel. He would stand courageously with the poor and with all who felt frightened, vulnerable and threatened. He would open his doors to all – wealthy and poor, unhoused and well-housed, agreeing or disagreeing – and preach the same challenging sermon to everybody. And he would pray for us, for all of us. Which is what I need him to do now.
I share this story with you because in these troubling times it helps to reach out for such saints, people who made profound differences in their own troubling times, people whose faith endured, people who shaped us. These saints have helped God equip us for the times we are in now. Their work is not in vain, and their word is still at work in us, actively changing the world. If you find yourself struggling, reach out to whoever they are for you. As I will reach out to Blessed Jim Callan and ask him to pray for us.
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