For the past several years I have been putting off a total knee replacement surgery. The need has come and gone. Some seasons have been rough, others not at all. But this past spring, as hobbling around became a way of life, it became clear that I would need the surgery.
I went under the knife (or was it a chainsaw?) for a total knee replacement in the skilled hands of Dr. Henry Kim from South Bend Orthopedics. Then I came to Holy Cross House for physical therapy.
Situated on the north side of St. Joseph Lake, Holy Cross House overlooks the lake and has spectacular views of the campus, especially of the Main Building and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It serves as an infirmary for Holy Cross priests and brothers with state-of-the-art facilities, and devoted and capable staff members who come from many different places — South Bend to Rwanda, Michigan to Togo.
Most of the CSCs living here need care around the clock; many are at the end of life. Most don’t want to be assigned to live here because, unless you’re one of the four priests on the staff, this will be your last obedience. We jokingly refer to Holy Cross House as the takeoff strip. From here, we take off for heaven.
At any given time, there are also several guys, like me, who are there for a short time to rehab. Visitors, staff and the other priests and brothers at Holy Cross House provided me with great graces and surprises during my stay.
I have the great privilege of working with Notre Dame’s Transformational Leaders Program. Several of my students have remained on campus for the summer. Many have come to see me at Holy Cross House.
Their visits reminded me of the beauty of humanity and our varied ways of life, a foretaste of the Kingdom of God where people of every race and language and way of life will sit together at the Lord’s heavenly banquet table.
When a rising sophomore from Ghana came to see me one day, I introduced him to a physical therapist’s aide from Togo. Within a minute, they realized that both of them spoke the same West African language, Ewe, from birth. I loved watching them talk with each other in their native tongue. You could feel the warmth between them, discovering this connection far, far from their homeland.
A rising junior from Rwanda visited the next day. One of the nurses, also from Rwanda, spoke to him in Kinyarwanda. Within a moment, they were like two friends catching up.
Another student from Zimbabwe stopped by to say hello. Of all things, one of the nurses who is from South Bend is married to a man from Zimbabwe, a native of the same city as the student.
We are made for each other.
That’s true within the Holy Cross community as well. The Prayer of the Faithful during any Mass we share includes the petition, “For the men of Holy Cross House, let us pray to the Lord . . . ”
Holy Cross House is the second biggest religious community on campus. Only Corby Hall has more religious assigned to it. As much as possible, the priests and brothers at Holy Cross House pray together and share meals together three times every day. There is a religious superior, three assistant superiors and a house council.
The religious of Holy Cross House come from every ministry within the congregation — college professors and staff, rectors, missionaries, pastors and more. Some were in the seminary together 50 years ago, but have not lived under the same roof since.
Every personality is represented. I once heard someone say, “If you have met one Holy Cross priest, you have met one Holy Cross priest.” The truth of that statement is clear among the men of Holy Cross House.
As in any community, there are guys who get along and guys who don’t. When I had just been ordained in 1984, I worked with a priest who was at Holy Cross House during my stay. We were not compatible then, and I don’t think that we would be now.
Nevertheless, I am reminded that there are as many ways to holiness as there are people on the earth. I don’t think any two guys at Holy Cross House have traveled the same journey to holiness. I find them all to be good and faithful religious priests and brothers, inspiring and edifying me on my own journey.
I asked Father Paul Doyle, CSC, one of the assistant superiors at Holy Cross House, to give me the sacrament of the sick. Father Paul came to my room to anoint me the night before my surgery. Father Paul has a gift of bringing people together to pray for any reason, to celebrate, to encourage, to enjoy the presence of God. True to form, he came with six other staff people who participated in the sacrament. I felt cared for and prayed for.
When we are sick, we have a tendency to make ourselves the center of the world, concerned only with our illness, our suffering, our pain. I once heard that the main purpose of the sacrament of the sick is to prevent from those receiving the rite from closing in on themselves while focusing on their illness. We need the grace of the sacrament so that we do not become completely self-absorbed.
The grace of a casual interaction can have a similar effect. One day as I walked to exercise my repaired knee, a priest asked how I was doing. I said my recovery was coming along, but I still had a fair amount of pain.
“I understand, but remember that Jesus had a lot more pain on the cross than you have now,” he said.
I was really struck by his words. This priest has spent most of his life living in South America working against repressive regimes, taking serious risks for the benefit of humanity. His few words reminded me of the importance of keeping the Gospel at the center of life whatever earthly challenges we’re facing.
I was assigned to a lunch table with a priest I had never met. He’s a riot. He seasons his salad every day with delicious anchovies and olives that he orders from Amazon — not exactly faithful to his dietary restrictions.
“I thought that you are on a low- to no-salt diet,” I said. “And you’re eating anchovies which are nothing but salt.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “That’s why I only put three anchovies on my salad and not six.”
What do you say to that? And when you are in your mid-80s, does it really matter if you stick to the diet?
Though I hope to die like Pope Francis — working one day and dead the next — I cannot know my fate. I look at the guys here at Holy Cross House and wonder who I will be. Will I have Alzheimer’s? Will I be confined to a wheelchair? Will I constantly be falling asleep? (OK, I do that now!) Will I be happy or disgruntled?
This much I know from my encounters at Holy Cross House: God is always at work in each one of us in unique ways. Despite our individual differences, his purpose is always the same — to draw every person more deeply into his love and mercy.
May God help us to recognize that reality and celebrate each other. We don’t have to wait until we take off for heaven. We can sit at the Lord’s banquet here and now.
Father Joe Corpora is associate director of the Transformational Leaders Program. He is a priest-in-residence at Dillon Hall and one of 700 priests whom Pope Francis appointed in 2016 to serve as Missionaries of Mercy. He has written three books, The Relentless Mercy of God, Being Mercy: The Path to Being Fully Alive and Doing Mercy: A Path to Contemplation.