My wife Paula and I just celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary. Paula is from Dublin, and we experienced a fairy-tale, long distance romance long before there was any such thing as e-mail or Face-Time. We have been business partners as well as life partners, but most of all, still love being together after all these years.
Together we have three amazing daughters — Aisling, Ciara and Fiona. All three are currently in college. Each has her own unique skills and interests, but our favorite thing to do together is to go skiing. Some of my happiest memories as a dad are from our ski days. When I talk about my daughters, I always say that I hit the trifecta! I have been richly blessed.
I grew up in Naugatuck, CT, a blue-collar town just a few miles up the road but worlds apart from New Haven. As a kid, life revolved around school, sports and church. We played football under the lights on Friday nights, had paper routes and an epic Memorial Day parade. When I think back to my youth and my town, what strikes me is a sense of connection. Everyone knew everyone, and the same people you saw in church on the weekend were your friends from school, your coaches and teachers.
I’d have to go with Saint Ignatius. I think of him as a kind of spiritual warrior, and imagine if he was around today he’d be a Navy SEAL. I remember reading Father James Martin’s The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything and feeling that the pillars of Ignatian spirituality — finding God in all things, becoming contemplatives in action, looking at the world in an incarnational way and seeking freedom and detachment — really resonated with me. The fact that Pope Francis is a Jesuit has also piqued my curiosity about Ignatius, as I (like so many others around the world) have had my faith and commitment reignited by our Pope.
Contemplating this question also made me think about more contemporary Catholic heroes, people like Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Mother Theresa, Father James Martin and the many, many priests and nuns who have impacted me throughout the years. I think it is easier to relate to people like this because they are so real, so tangible. We can see pictures and videos, hear interviews, read their writings and understand the context so readily. For me it was a lot easier to come up with a list of living people who have impacted my life as opposed to a favorite saint. I guess I think of them as “saints-in-the-making.”
Something people don’t know about me is that I am an aspiring novelist. I’ve kept that mostly to myself but I figured making a public statement might help motivate me to get it done. It’s been said that most people have a good book in them — I think I have at least two!
Pictured left to right are: Joe Connolly and his daughters, Fiona, Aisling and Ciara. Photograph courtesy of Joe Connolly.
