Cardinal Francis George: A Friend of Mine

You could say all friendships start with a heavenly origin, and you’d be right, but Cardinal Francis George and my friendship especially is. I met him at his funeral, which I grant you, is an odd place to meet someone. I had never heard of him before the funeral, but I came home from class that day and turned on EWTN because a friend to all, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, was giving the homily. There in those twenty minutes was the beginning of a friendship between Francis George and me.

We weren’t born in the same town. I don’t know if we shared the same hobbies, apart from a love for writing. From the outside, you probably wonder why or how I wanted to get to know this Chicagoan churchman, who was known for his sweet smile. When I learned about him in the broadcast of his funeral, one thing about him resonated deep with my soul: his suffering.

When Francis George was thirteen, he contracted polio. He knew God had called him to be a priest since he was a little boy, but when the time came for him to enter the seminary, they wouldn’t take him because of the polio. The tenacious spirit of Francis George persevered, and he got in touch with the vocations director of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who came to see him and told him if he could walk across the floor, he could be an Oblate.

What does this have to do with me, an eighteen-year-old girl at the time of his death? I was born with cerebral palsy. Though a mild case, and not exactly the same, it and the effects of George’s polio are similar. He wore braces. For the first ten years of my life, I did, too. He limped. So do I. He fell every once in a while. I do, too. He was in a gnawing amount of pain every day, and so am I. Herein lay all the knowledge I needed to want to be friends with him.

Lest you think this is a “misery loves company” situation, it is the complete opposite. I recognized in him the same spirit I desired to have. Francis George’s life was truly an oblation, a sacrifice, to God, and he was keenly aware that his sufferings were united to the cross of Christ. His faith was the foundation of his life, and he lived in the unshakeable conviction that, in the words of Sr. Marian Sartain, O.P. “Jesus is beautiful, and Jesus is everything.” It was the Cardinal’s suffering that gave witness to the world that Jesus is, indeed, beautiful because his life, devoted to God, will bear fruit beyond my lifetime, and there’s only one thing to say: thanks be to God.

In my own suffering, God has given me insight into the cross that I would never have asked for willingly, and it is the sweetest gift. Only my Catholic faith makes sense of this paradox. For so many years as a Protestant, I understood suffering on a level that only my Catholic friends understood, and I always wondered why. That is, until I learned about redemptive suffering. To use Mother Teresa’s words, “ . . .it is the kiss of Jesus.”             In that limp is the truth that God alone suffices. Redemptive suffering was my beckoning home to Holy Mother Church, but so was the Eucharist. Not only am I united with the Lord Jesus in His suffering on the cross, but I put that suffering in the chalice as it is held up at Mass and offer it back to God as the purest act of love and unmitigated devotion. As a Catholic, I finally know why it was given to me: to give it back to God. As sweet the gift of suffering is, sweeter still is the gift of receiving the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, the source and summit and strength of my life. When the priest and says, “The Body of Christ,” and I say, “Amen,” it’s not just “amen” to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, also “yes” to the sacredness of my suffering. Nourished by the Eucharist, I can continue each day to say “yes” to the life the Lord has given me. Francis George, nourished by the same sacraments, did the same.

Francis George contracted polio when he was thirteen and he therefore knew an earlier life free of physical suffering and pain. That memory is a cross all of its own, and I will never understand that sacrifice. However, as I know our crosses are fashioned for each one of us, he carried his well. I can only hope to do the same.

Fr. Thomas Roscia, the CEO of Salt and Light Catholic Media, related to Francis George that in all the circumstances the Cardinal had been in and the difficulties he had been through in the web and flow of the sufferings in the Church, that his fire, his ardent love for the Church, remained. George told Fr. Roscia that Jesus Christ was his hope, and one of the great joys of him being Archbishop of Chicago was all the saints he met in the archdiocese and beyond. I agree with him—it is so much easier to keep the flame burning when you know you have a friend in the fight with you. It will always be the honor of my life to say that Francis George is one of mine.

Francis George told the parishioners of his beloved Archdiocese of Chicago they were his legacy. I like to think, as his friend, I am grafted into that legacy and I ask for his prayers every day. One day, we will meet each other, free of polio and CP, and I’ll have the opportunity to hug him and thank him for helping me get there, but until then, there’s much to be discussed.

For Such A Time As This

I’ve written this over and over in my head numerous times, and each time, it seemed to be lacking. How do you adequately express someone’s influence in several paragraphs when you could could write a seven volume series about it, I wondered, but with the nostalgia of school starting back and seeing plaid skirts and saddle oxfords everywhere once again, my heart longed for this outlet. I have been trying to put my thoughts together about Mrs. Steffan for months, but it was far too raw and my heart still too broken. Here are all my feeble and less than excellent attempts put into one to tell you just how grateful I am, for such a time as these last eight years, that God would give me one of the greatest honors of my life: knowing and loving Peggy Steffan.

Mrs. Steffan wasn’t just my sophomore and senior theology and Anatomy and Physiology teacher. She understood me in ways that I never understood how except for the fact that she is one of the greatest people I’ve ever known. Her discipline at times was tough, but I have never respected anyone as much for it, but also no else could have disciplined us like she did and not have gotten flack from her girls. I saw it. They’d back-talk other teachers all day long, but if they were smart, they would think twice before disrespecting her. She is the only person I know that could say one word and a gaggle of girls would shut up quickly: “Ladies!” That quick, sharp tone would make you sit up straighter every time. She was indeed our disciplinarian, but she was also our first line of defense, our confidant, and the one who pushed us to do hard things because she believed we could.

I could tell you stories about her all day long. For example, the time I heard her say, “I’m right here,” as she was coming up behind me when I got stuck in the mud during the night hike at Tremont, and I’m pretty sure the peace I felt in that moment was the same peace Mary felt at the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel told her not to be afraid. Or, the time in Anatomy and Physiology we dissected cats and the cat Rachel, Beth, and I dissected was pregnant. Mrs. Steffan was so giddy about it, all the while I was trying not to hurl. I can’t say it wasn’t cool, but it was a little (okay, a lot) gross and the smell was terrible. Or, the time we went to the Motherhouse at St. Cecilia’s and I sat next to her at 6:15 AM Mass and my stomach growled the entire time. I kept apologizing and she kept chuckling.  She’s also the reason I zip lined for the first time (and Taylor Herbers- I couldn’t have made it up the stairs without her), the reason I have always been a searcher for the truth, and the reason I hold faith as precious to me as I do. I could go on forever, but you neither have the time nor the attention span to read hours worth of stories, I know that, but the point is, Mrs. Steffan was a constant in my life from my very first day of high school.

There was never any question that I wanted to be like her when I “grew up,” and I felt so honored to be her pupil. I nor anyone else ever would have thought that two years after I graduated high school, I would be her pupil again, but this time for the harshest of reasons. This time, she would teach me what it looks like to share in the sufferings of Christ. This time, she would show me how powerful a legacy can be. This time, I would learn how deep the hole is that is left in your heart when your hero enters eternity. This time, she didn’t give me a test in Scripture Studies, but her cancer diagnosis tested my faith. I yelled and screamed and fought with God. I asked Him over and over again why it had to be her out of all the people in the world and why it couldn’t have been me.

I painfully started to learn that God was showing the world through her what it looked like to truly walk through the valley of the shadow of death and have no fear because he was with her. I also knew that if she had accepted this, never complaining once, then I needed to accept it, too (and Lord knows had she known about the fights I had with God about it, she would have given me that look that said, “Young lady, don’t you think you need to get your act together?”).  As much as I didn’t like it, He couldn’t have had a better choice servant to show us how to live, how to suffer, and how to enter eternity.

In the weeks since her passing, I’ve realized how blessed I was- how blessed we all were- to be graced with her presence, her love, and her rock-solid faith “for such a time as this.” I would be a different woman today if I hadn’t known her, and because I love her still, I’m a much better woman. She’s still in my contacts and our picture is still on my lock screen. I think about her constantly and there’s been a million and five things happen in the last two months that I hope she knows.

The Sisters of Mercy founded Immaculate Conception Cathedral School and their founder, Catherine McAuley wrote in the second line of her Suscipe, “[God], Teach me to cast myself entirely into the arms of Your loving providence with the most lively, unlimited confidence in Your compassionate tender pity.” If anything sums up the life and legacy of Peggy Steffan, that does.

She will always be my heart.

 

A Principal Who Instilled Great Principles Within Me

If you think of your high school principal, you might not smile. And, if that’s the case, I truly am sorry for you. 

You see, Mrs. Hermsdorfer was (is) in my corner. She had an open-door policy I took advantage of. I needed her. Why? Because life is hard. And sometimes it just stinks. She understood. She let me cry and she made me laugh. She was there for me. 

I didn’t make things easy for her. I fell down an entire flight of stairs. On numerous occasions, she would have to bandage my knees, or my ankle, or . . . hand-eye coordination and I aren’t personal friends. 

She taught me it was always too early to throw in the towel. She always had more confidence in me than I had in myself. And some days, it would have been easier to not to face the music, but my music is too loud not to face. She taught me it was much more beneficial to push through than to throw the towel in the fire and watch it burn into flames. 

She taught me it was okay if you got on your knees to pray and nothing came out of your mouth-  tears just flowed from your eyes. Tears say just as much as talking, sometimes. And when your body is racked with pain, tears come much easier. That doesn’t make you love Jesus less. 

She taught me how to live filled with joy even when it would make all the sense in the world to not live that way. No matter what she was going through, I never saw her not filled with contagious joy. It’s because “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) is a command not a suggestion. 

She taught me how to love well because, simply, when you have loved well, you love others well. 

Mrs. Hermsdofer was my mother on campus, a great source of encouragement, and a confidant. 

Every time I think of her, which is quite often, I think of her with immense gratitude and a whole lot of love floods my heart. 

I will always be indebted to her for the way she took me under her wing and loved me as one of her own. My friends, that is life-changing and life-giving. 

She spoke life into my often weary heart and loved me through. 

Everyone should have a Mrs. Hermsdofer in their life. She’s my hero. 

Love you SO much, Mrs. Hermsdorfer,

Meggie ❤️

  

A Teacher Who Taught Me Way Above Her Pay Grade

  
Freshman English. Not many people’s cup of tea, but I loved it- English was always my favorite subject in school. 

The first two months of my high school career were hard. It was new to me and I was new to it. I cried on the way to school everyday. Rough puts it simply. 

Freshman English at 12:35 was my saving grace. In the high school world, it was my haven of rest. I laughed (a lot) in that class. I was able to “be me” and not feel guilty about it. 

Mrs. Alsobrook was my cheerleader. She taught me how to express myself in writing, and how to use it as an outlet- the Lord knew I needed one and I think she did, too. She had us journal 20 minutes a week and it was the highlight of my week. I knew I could trust her as I allowed my heart to flow through that pen for the first time. 

She taught me how to be a young woman of class, charisma, courage, and conviction. She taught me how to hold fast to what I hold dear and not compromise. 

She was an example to me of how to be a woman of prayer, how to pray without ceasing, and how to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might (Ephesians 6:10). 

She taught me how to be a dignified southern belle. Embrace the drawl. Drink a Coke. Say “y’all” often. 

She was a friend to her students and she believed in them, whether or not they thought so. It was a lot easier to do her assignments knowing she had full confidence in my ability, even if I didn’t. 

If not for her, I would not be writing this tonight or writing for enjoyment ever. 

I praise the Lord He called her to teach. I needed her influence and impact in my life. 

So to a teacher,  a friend, and such a sweet prayer partner, I will forever be indebted to you. All my love.