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July 2, 2020Rother Feast Day July 28
On a hot day in June, Sister Maria Faulkner and Father Don Wolf, pastor of Saint Eugene Catholic Church and a cousin to Blessed Stanley Rother, led a pilgrimage from the farm where Blessed Stanley was born to his original burial site in Okarche. The pilgrimage marked the conclusion of the spring session of the Gospel of Life School and the beginning of the summer session.
“Blessed Stanley speaks to all of us of any age, especially to young people in his gift of self. As Saint John Paul II said, ‘to be fully realized, each person must give oneself away in love.’”
Father Wolf recalled Blessed Stanley’s father Franz as “stubborn” and his mother Gertrude as having a “kind heart.” Their son who was martyred for the faith and for the people he served had inherited a dose of his father’s stubbornness, but according to Father Wolf, it was the kind heart and soft tone of his voice that endeared him to the people of his mission in Guatemala.
The pilgrimage began with Mass at Saint James the Greater Catholic Church in Oklahoma City. The caravan continued to the Catholic Pastoral Center where Archbishop Coakley gave his blessing for the success of the pilgrimage.
George Rigazzi, archivist for Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, provided a tour of the Heritage Gallery at the Catholic Pastoral Center, which currently houses items that depict the priest’s ministry working among the indigenous Tz’utujil people in Santiago Atitlan.
The young pilgrims in the group were drawn to a photograph of Blessed Stanley holding the hand of a child in the community where he served as a missionary priest at Saint James the Apostle from 1968 until his murder by three assailants on July 28, 1981.
The next stop for the pilgrimage was Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche where Blessed Stanley was baptized on March 29, 1935. Father Wolf provided keen insight into the nature of the mild-mannered priest.
“There is a presumption about holiness that is not necessarily accurate,” he said.
Father Wolf explained that our expectation of a saint is of someone whose feet never touch the ground. The amenable visual would be of a priest growing up in a pious family in an idyllic farmland community. On the contrary, Father Wolf painted a picture that offered a more realistic image of the often harsh reality of farm life and growing up in the midst of a family as a backdrop for a mild-mannered priest.
The pilgrims left Holy Trinity to walk more than three miles to the cemetery where Blessed Stanley originally was buried.
Father Wolf said, “His life was given in service before it was given in blood.”
Katelyn Williams, who was part of the summer session of the Gospel of Life School and who is discerning a call to religious life, said the pilgrimage will have a lasting influence on her life. Melina Maloukis remarked that in a dream, Blessed Stanley had directed her to her present mission working with Sister Maria.
“He farmed those pastures. He served at Holy Trinity as an altar boy. He was baptized in that church and went to Holy Trinity School. He said his first Mass there as a priest. He is one of our own and someone with whom we can identify,” Sister Maria said.
Blessed Stanley was beatified on Sept. 23, 2017. Construction is underway for the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine to be completed in 2022.
Photo: Sr. Maria Faulkner, founder of Gospel of Life Disciples and Dwellings, and Grant Carro prayed over the former burial location of Bl. Stanley Rother in Okarche Photo Linda Schaefer.
