My priest support group, which was established over thirty years ago, with Fr. Bob Beloin as one of the founding members, just began reading The Truth at the Heart of the Lie by James Carroll. Carroll, who served as Catholic chaplain at Boston University from 1969 - 1974 until leaving the priesthood to become a writer and weekly op-ed columnist for The Boston Globe, delivers what one writer describes as “a passionate love letter to the enduring beauty of the Catholic faith and a passionate indictment of the clericalism of the Catholic Church.” Early on in the book, Carroll describes his youthful experience of Jesus, and how that relationship changed for him through coming of age, adulthood and practicing his faith in the contemporary Church:

“Jesus was a boy, and then a man, with whom to identify as readily as one does with the face in the mirror. I would later learn that mountain climbers and solo sailors and long-distance runners sometimes experience what’s called a feeling of a close presence, an awareness of someone else unheard, unseen, but there! In the normal circumstances of an unremarkable childhood, I had some early version of that sensation of Jesus as my invisible companion – my, if you will, imaginary friend…Jesus somehow remained my brother. My heart had opened to Jesus, and Jesus made His home within my heart’s chambers. I would continue to feel some such innermost attachment to Jesus as I came of age and childish notions of “God” began to fall away. Once I started to entertain ambitions for my own life, Jesus emerged freshly as an image of the man I dared to want to imitate: love over power; mercy over condemnation; compassion itself.”

As a distance runner, I have experienced that “feeling of a close presence.” Often, it’s when I’m praying or thinking about someone on a run, living or deceased, when the Holy Spirit brings them into focus. With each breath in and each breath out, they become fully alive, moving with my every step on the other side of that very thin veil between this world and the Kingdom of Heaven.

During the post-run stretch on the Chapel steps this morning, I experienced that “feeling of a close presence.” It was here that I met Fr. Bob for the first time. As the summer intern for the Office of Small Christian Communities, I was sent to pick Fr. Bob up and drive him to Our Lady of Grace Retreat Center in Farmington, where he was directing a weekend retreat for our writing team. Even though he was seated when I arrived, and wearing a cast up to his thigh (which I believe he earned by taking a misstep off a boat earlier that summer) he was a giant: both in terms of his standing in the Church and his physical stature.

Today is the third anniversary of Fr. Bob’s entrance into eternal life. Reflecting back on the summer morning that I met him on these very steps, I remind myself that it was at a transitional moment in my seminary formation in preparation for priesthood. Although I wasn’t a child at the time (by then I was around 30), to use Carroll’s expression, “my notions about God were changing,” along with my understanding of priesthood and living out my Christian faith. In Fr. Bob, as co-pilot in the car that morning; as a retreat director that weekend; later as a mentor; and then, for a moment that was all too brief, as a brother priest—“Jesus emerged freshly as an image of the man I dared to want to imitate: love over power; mercy over condemnation; compassion itself.”