VIRIDITAS: SOUL GREENING
When I look over my life and meditate on all the gifts I have been given by God, it is truly amazing. In prayer, I can only thank the Lord for all I have received because I don’t deserve any of it; none of it was earned by myself. But the doors that have been opened by our Catholic faith are tangible and real.
Last year, I came across the opportunity to work with the students at Saint Louis School. I had visited Hawaii previously and was very impressed on seeing how the students interacted with their teachers, respected their parents and exuberated great love. They were just so amazingly in touch with their faith and the aloha spirit. I know Saint Louis graduate Marcus Mariota has received national attention, but I found all kinds of examples of the students making a difference in the world that didn’t reach the front pages of the newspaper. I was only an outsider then, a teacher from Texas. But I said that I wanted to be a part of that school family. I received the added bonus of being able to reside in Hale Malia Community to be with our younger Marianists in religious formation.
There is a holy and saintly Marianist I lived with, whose story I would like to share. Brother George Dury was a teacher who taught for 50 years in our Marianist schools. After that milestone, he volunteered to go to Malawi, Africa, where he spent another 20 years planting over a million trees. In his late 90s, he again volunteered to offer his service in the novitiate. It was at that time, when I was in spiritual boot camp, that I met him. He was about 4 foot 2 inches, but what a saint, a positive holy man. He was willing to share his experiences of living the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, stability, and living in a third world impoverished nation. He also shared how to teach and find joy in everything from grade school, to middle to high school. Because of Brother George’s holy model, I also aspire to be a Marianist saint like him.
Another interesting point of his life is that he grew up in Columbus, Ohio, speaking German during World War I. He recalled that suddenly one day the whole family switched to speaking English. From that example, I learned the part of the Marianist charism that speaks of adaptation and change. I learned that when you struggle from moving from one language to another, or from one culture to the next, or in any transition in life, that the Blessed Mother Mary is there to help embrace us in the tough times, in the loss of one to the rich gain of another.
When I prayed over leaving Texas, there were many positives to let go. Coming to Hawaii has been blessed with even more positives. George helped me learn that transition. So a lot of times in my prayer, I leave it to the Blessed Mother who knew what it was like to go into exile when Joseph said, “We are leaving.” She knew what it was like to leave behind and start anew, especially in the loss of her son.
Father Patrick T. McDaid is a Marianist priest who grew up in Adrian, Michigan. He took his first vows in 1996 and was ordained in 2008. He is the chaplain of Saint Louis School and resides at Hale Malia on the slopes of Kalaepohaku.
