Monsignor Francis Meehan Seeking the Face of God: 50 Years of Prayerful Reflections

Contents

Forward

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

Biography

Forward

We need and want to remember Monsignor Francis Meehan. His life was God’s gift to us. His gentleness, his friendship, his priestly ministry, his teaching and preaching, his pastoring and mentoring, were all gifts to us. We miss his physical presence in our lives. This book of his prayerful reflections, written down and saved over the past 50 years, is one of his final gifts to us. We can remember him, and keep his presence alive, through these words that he left us.

Father Fran was told by his doctors that he may have less than a year to live. He was honest about sharing this fact with certain people. But he did not want any special drama. He faced his death with a certain grace, quietness, gentleness and at the end, with acceptance. He struggled with breathing, with aches, with limited energy, and with some confusion. Yet he still prayed, celebrated Mass, counseled and offered confession until he could no longer perform. His lived his final years at St. Charles Seminary, a place that he lived and loved, since he lived there on and off over the past 50 years, as a seminarian, a Seminary Professor, and a Confessor and guide to many seminarians and priests. He lived his final weeks at St. Joseph’s Villa, in the prayerful friendship and fraternity of his fellow priests. Yet one of his last wishes was to publish these reflections, written from the time he was a seminarian. He wanted to share His life’s passion, that of seeking the face of Jesus and the God that he believed in and loved so much. He wanted to share his years of experience, wisdom and learning, and yet also his weaknesses and temptations. He loved living out his love of Jesus in the celibate relationship and service as a Catholic priest. He loved the Church that he ministered through, even with its weaknesses and scandals. He loved teaching and preaching. He loved learning and sharing his insights. He loved the seminarians, and his brother priests. He loved and respected the religious sisters whom he ministered with or whom he was friends with in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. He taught and ministered with the Immaculate Heart of Mary community (being a professor at Immaculata College), the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Sisters of Mercy and as well as many other communities. And Father Fran loved the people whom he served as a Pastor at Sts. Simon and Jude Parish in West Chester, Pa.(and the Saturday morning prayer group of many years) and the many other parishes that he preached and ministered. The intimacy of his personal faith and love are felt in these reflections. The struggles to pray, to be kind, to serve others well are heard in these reflections. The desire to put his theological mind and spirit at the service of the church community and the world community are seen in these writings.

These reflections are gathered into 8 chapters, with some common themes. These groupings are arbitrary, subjective and not always in chronologic order. Father Fran agreed to this order during his last months. The first two chapters are some reflections on his prayer life. He shares his life long journey to seek God and the Jesus that he loved through his prayerful relationship. He prayed every day and many times a day. He struggled with his human tiredness, distractions, head and backaches, and temptations during prayer. His reflections reveal a primer as to how to pray. Yet they also reveal a gentleness, and simplicity and yearning to allow this loving God to enter his life. Chapter Three contains life-long reflections on his special friends, the saints and scholars who brought him closer to God. Fran shares his friends with us. He shares their spirit and writings and their journey to know and find God. What a simple and deep treasure are revealed in these writings. Father Fran has many brief meditations on faith and love, and especially on sinfulness and God’s great mercy that are grouped in the Fourth Chapter. He prayed and read and thought deeply about vocation, celibacy, married life, and ministry, and these are gathered in Chapter Five. After Father Fran retired as a Pastor from St. Simon and Jude Parish, he returned to live at St. Charles Seminary. He still gave his life to the service of the Church by extensive reading, reflecting, and writing on the place of the Church in our culture. He was always thoughtful and nuanced. He reveals the strengths, the weaknesses, and cautions to different theological and cultural trends. He thinks and writes in a prophetic way. He writes of Cardinal Ratzinger and now as Pope Benedict with refreshing insights. These prayerful and theological reflections are contained in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 has various writings on social spirituality and morality. Since Father Fran was a moral theologian, he writes with deep insight and wisdom. He was influential in the modern American Church in his writings on the U.S. Bishops Peace Pastoral, the nuclear disarmament movement, and the Gospel nonviolent call. Yet, he followed in the Cardinal Bernardin’s model of a seamless garment to morally stand for respect for the sacredness of life on all levels, and preached and wrote with deep insight on the abortion issue. Finally Chapter 8 contains a few but very personal reflections on his dear relationship with two of his brothers who were also priests, as well as some intimate thoughts on dying and facing his own death.

Although a man and priest who struggled with personal weakness, he lived a life of integrity, faith, and commitment in the service of God, the Church and the human community. He was personally hurt by the priest scandal in modern times. Yet, I believe, Father Fran was a positive example and witness of all the very good priests who struggle every day to be men of faith, good moral living, and compassionate and dedicated servants of the Church. He would say that he was just one of the many faithful and good priests. But I believe that Father Fran does stand out because of his public witness as a moral theologian, public speaker and writer, and his reputation among his fellow priests and sisters, seminarians and parishioners as a very holy, gentle and faithful man.

On a personal note, Fran was a dear priest, teacher, mentor and friend to me. He awakened my mind and heart, as a teacher of moral theology, to God’s love of humanity as individuals and as a family; His preferential love of the poor and voiceless; His desire to live out the Gospel of nonviolence, forgiveness, reconciliation and justice. Many of my own thoughts and life work were given seed by Fran’s teaching. Yet he touched me on so many other levels. He showed that he could laugh at himself. And he helped me to laugh at myself and my foibles. He helped me to understand that God could forgive me, and that I could forgive myself for all my sins. He was understanding and compassionate in his thinking and relationships. He showed that intelligence needs to be connected with prayer and thoughtful people and put into action for the service of others. I loved Fran and miss Fran, as many of us do. I want to remember him in prayer often. I want people to remember him as a model priest, struggling every day to be prayerful, faithful and of service to others. I want to honor his memory by preserving his reflections in this book. This book is not meant to be read cover to cover. Use it as a meditation. It can assist us in our prayer. It can encourage us to read the lives and writings of certain saints in a new way. It can allow us to know God’s deep love and mercy for us as individuals. These reflections will put us in touch with different authors and writings and insights that would be foreign to us but will enable us to see the Church or some issues in a different light. Some of these writings will reveal Father Fran as very human, very sensitive and loving. They reveal a person who faces his death with faith and grace. Above all, this book allows us to remember our friend, and pastor, and priest, and the person that we loved. His presence and spirit are alive in these words.

Bill Mattia

November, 2011

CHAPTER ONE

PRAYERFUL REFLECTIONS THROUGH THE YEARS

To See the Face of Jesus

In all of these insights I realize more and more that there is a certain need I have to know Jesus better, and to love Him.

For this reason, I am asking for the grace of the Lord to show me His Face. That image of coming to know the Face of Jesus has caught me. I realize that I cannot pray to the Lord, Jesus, as though he were only a principle. Even if I see Him, as I do, as totally merciful, I cannot allow Him to become only a source of mercy that ends up focused on myself. Thomas Merton defined God as mercy upon mercy upon mercy. This is a wonderful truth, but I sense a need to integrate it into a more intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus.

For decades, I have always sought to know the Lord as a Person. In our rightful efforts to know the Lord as all Mercy, I realize that the Lord cannot become just a principle but a Face, a Person, who exudes mercy in a deep personal relationship of prayer.

This is not an easy accomplishment. I see it as only and totally the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift to be prayed for and longed for. I am comforted that Theresa of the Child Jesus seemed to want to know Jesus’ face, even taking the the Holy Face as part of her very name in Religious Life as a Carmelite.

Even at this time of my life, I just need to know Jesus better. I am asking the grace of having this inner love and inner recognition of Jesus’ face, his personality, his loving me as a person, and my loving Him as a person, all of this grace in an interior way, planted within my soul. One time in prayer this week, I had a little intimation of that. It was a quiet moment and I seemed to allow a certain consolation to be present more deeply within me. Nov.10, 2009

Invoking the Holy Spirit in Prayer

As almost a mantra, I find myself invoking the Holy Spirit, very quickly in prayer. The intention of this invocation is a simple petition, asking the Holy Spirit to take over the prayer, and to adjust me to what feelings should be, what my prayer should be, what my thoughts about a person or situation should be, without my thinking about it. This prayer is a very quick prayer, leaving the Holy Spirit do the work. I offer it up in a flash. It becomes implicit. This has been a grace over the last months, and seems now to be setting the table, as it were, for a little more quiet in prayer. April 19, 2010

Early Insights into Prayer: Seminary Years

Less Discursive prayer

When we cannot see or realize whom we are speaking to, or if philosophizing or theologizing about our prayer gets in the way, just give yourself over to the Mother of God as the Teacher of Prayer. As a child, like Theresa of the Child Jesus, just lay your head on the lap of Mary and be quiet.

Retreat: September, 1957

Guard against worrying about words on retreat –