Delivered at St. Eugene Catholic Church in Oklahoma City on March 4, 2015
Two giants of the Oklahoma priesthood have died within the past 3 ½ months,
with the death of Fr. John Vrana death this past November and Fr. Bill Ross’ death this past week. These two were good friends for many years.
The author of the Book of Wisdom could have been referring to either one of these wise priests by saying, “he reached the fullness of a long career for his soul was pleasing to the Lord.”
Fr. Vrana and Fr. Ross were both passionate about peace and justice, about learning from the poor and being their voice. Both had a depth of understanding about life and matters of faith which produced wisdom.
One of my brother priests shared how when he was a seminarian that Fr. Vrana had shared with him the following words of wise advice: “The whole of life lies in the verb of seeing.” Of course, Fr. Vrana was not speaking about physical eyesight, but the ability to see beneath the surface of ordinary things to the shining presence of the divine hidden there.
Although he never said it in exactly these words, Fr. Bill Ross’ insight, which inspired his life and ministry could be expressed in this way: “The whole of life lies in the verb of listening.” For Bill listened to others not only with his ears, but with his eyes and his heart. The Bill Ross way of loving others, the way he most naturally and daily gave himself away to others was by giving them his full and undivided attention. He spent the whole of his life listening to others with compassion and care. But he could only do so in such a generous way because he had first spent time listening to Christ Jesus, because he daily gave his attention to the Lord Jesus on the mountaintop of prayer.
God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth in order to listen to what being human is all about from the inside out. In the greatest act of love the world has ever seen and will ever know, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity emptied himself of all divine privilege in order to become one with us. The Incarnation bespeaks the nature of love, because love demands you be where your beloved is, that you understand what they experience. The challenge for the first disciples and for us lies in listening to the teaching of Jesus and listening carefully to the Word of Love resounding forth from his life and death and resurrection.
Peter and James and John are commanded by the Heavenly Father on the Mt. of the Transfiguration to listen to his beloved son, because they have failed to listen to what Jesus is teaching them. Before going up the mountain, Peter professed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But when he hears that Jesus will be a “suffering Messiah,” Peter stops up his ears and instead demands that Jesus listen to him— suffering and dying are not part of the Messiah’s job description. Peter receives a strong rebuke from Jesus, and then Jesus uses this as a teaching moment, instructing Peter and the rest that if they want to come after him, they must deny self, take up their cross, and follow.
To all who will listen, the cross is the key to understanding the mission of Jesus and his followers. The cross, which is sheer folly to unbelievers, becomes the wisdom of God for believers. In order to give oneself away in love (“to take up one’s cross”), one has to deny those self-centered parts of one’s very self which are obstacles to loving others.
To follow the Crucified and Risen Lord, one has to take up the cross of self-giving love like he did, and live for others like he did, make one’s life an offering to the Father. Bill Ross gave his life away in love of others by listening with love to their suffering and pain, sadness and sorrow. He gave the gift of himself by listening carefully to the Crucified Lord speaking to him through his broken body, and thus Bill brought healing to the suffering body of Christ.
Bill listened with compassion to Christ speaking to him through those who were
“poor in spirit,” and he gave himself in love to the Christ living and suffering in them. People came to him carrying so much pain, and Bill’s caring attention lifted their load and lightened their burden. He listened carefully to married couples whose hearts were broken and helped them to find a way forward to a new and deeper way of loving each other. Bill listened compassionately to priests who had been humbled in a very painful way, by choosing to leave the priesthood voluntarily or by being commanded to do so. He ministered to these men who were often forgotten by the wider body of priests, but who were never far from his mind and heart.
Bill sat at the bedside of many who were close to death, and through his gentle guidance, empowered them to tell the story of life and find meaning there, find Christ there. Then they were able to surrender their lives freely and joyfully into the hands of God. During his almost 61 years as a priest, Fr. Bill Ross listened with care to thousands of Confessions in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, welcoming these “poor in spirit” who came to him with their aching need for God’s saving mercy. Penitents found as they spoke to Bill in the Sacrament, as he listened without condemnation, that Christ was taking the weight of their sins away. Members of his own family would bend Bill’s ear during times of crisis and come away knowing better what it meant to be a “Ross.”
Parish Staff members would come to him with the challenges of ministry and find strength to keep on doing their important work with love. By skills Bill had painstakingly learned and practiced, he had his own particular stethoscope which he used to listen beneath the spoken word to the hidden language of the heart. In doing so, Fr. Bill Ross brought healing to many individuals, and I was one them.
Early in my priesthood, I went to Bill for several counseling sessions to work through a sorrow that had lingered in my life over the death of a loved one. He kindly and gently helped me to express pain buried deep within me, which I did not know I carried, to touch that part of me with Christ’s healing love. There are thousands of others who experienced the healing touch of Christ through Bill Ross when they came to seek his wise counsel, and that healing came in how he listened with all his being to what was being said, in how he listened with love.
Not only did Bill Ross listen with love to the “poor in spirit,” but he also did so to those who were materially poor. As he did so, he listened to and loved Christ present in the least of his brothers and sisters. Before Pope Francis would rise to the papacy and challenge Catholics to go out from the comforts of their church buildings into the world to the poor, to those who live on the margins of society, and find Christ there, Bill Ross was already doing this.
Pope Francis says we should go beyond “doing” something for the materially poor by taking time to know them and learn from them what it means to depend daily on God’s providence. Bill did this for many years in his ministry to the inmates at the prison in Lexington, and even continued to ministry to them in some way after leaving his pastorate in Purcell. “When I was in prison you visited me…” and Bill did, reaching out to touch Christ crucified in those who had everything stripped away from them, even their freedom and their dignity. He listened to their stories and gave them back their dignity as a gift.
Bill listened to the homeless by living with them, for a short period of time. He wanted to know what it was like to be homeless, and to hear their stories. So a few years ago Bill spent 3 days downtown at the Jesus House, eating and sleeping with those who had no home. He did this “undercover” — no one knew he was a priest except for the staff, which gave him a chance to listen to the homeless tell him their stories and give them back their life as a gift.
By his ministry with and for the poor, Fr. Bill Ross helped prepare the Church and the world to welcome a Pope who would take the name of a saint who had espoused himself to “Lady Poverty.” Who challenges us, as Bill did, to listen to the poor with compassion and be their voice.
For all who were paying attention, the last six weeks of Bill Ross’ life on this earth were a time when he taught us in his weakness how to listen to the eternal song of love, which is at the center of the universe. In his overwhelming experience of God’s love coming to him through the love of others during these past six weeks, and by listening carefully to these expressions of heartfelt love, Bill Ross came to a deeper understanding of the primacy of love. He heard loudly and clearly during his last days on this earth that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. Not even dying or death itself. He listened carefully to the saving truth that God is for us, not against us. That God is for us all!
By doing so, he challenged us to be there for each other, to be there for others.
He reminded us that we have the power within us, this gift of the divine Spirit of love, to reach out and touch others in love and bring them the deepest healing of all. That they might know they are never alone — that God walks with them,
even through the valley of death.
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
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