We watched them work, those brave men handling bulldozers with gentle care, lest the bodies of the dead be desecrated once more. And when their task was over, silence was the only accolade found fitting for their ministering on that hallowed ground, and the eulogy for all who died there.

On this second anniversary, we found ourselves reaching to the depths of our souls, remembering and awakening to a new dawn, where personal decisions to live lives more meaningfully stood side by side with an unspoken dread of an uncertain future.

Without realizing it, a first grader pointed the way to me at the first anniversary. As you may know, gold stars don’t quite seem to cut it with the younger set these days. A box could last forever. Along came stickers, sold not in a box but one by one. Expensive rewards, stickers. Should be enough. Not for Jimmy. After I had stuck a special flower on his paper, he looked up shyly and asked, “Could you write ‘Good job’ for me, please?”

I smiled back, printed the requested favor, and moved on to the other students, but I’ve mulled over his desire for the perfect symbol of success ever since: Good job!

Isn’t this precisely what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls -- the determination to do one’s job, whatever it might be; boring or exciting, in the public eye, or hidden behind the curtain, in the energy of youth and good health or in the diminished strength of illness or advanced age? And when we find such glorious human beings, are not we inspired and comforted, strengthened, and less lonely?

I suggest that Fr. John P. McNamee, author of the autobiography, “Diary of a City Priest.” (Sheed and Ward, $14.95; 800-266-5564) is just such a man. His book has been on my shelf for almost the last ten years, marked up, but always increasing in value, offering words of inspiration and wisdom as our Ground Zero continues to spread chaos beyond comprehension.

From Catholic catalogs that continuously fill my mailbox, I find advertisements on straight theology, books of devotions, tapes for music, but few books messing around in the lives of real people. McNamee writes about real people who inhabit his world of St. Malachy’s Rectory, 1429 N. 11th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122, in case you are ever in his neighborhood and want to stop in for a chat, or send him a letter of appreciation for his hard work in the Fourth World, U.S.A.

There’s nothing quite like a journey to the Fourth World to shake us in the First from out of our sleep-walking. And St. Malachy’s is definitely Fourth World. Yet, most any inner-city, U.S.A. is Fourth World. Different zip codes, but the same glass-strewn streets, stripped-down cars and boarded-up windows. The same despair in the eyes of the people, the same drugs to snatch kids from primary grades to run errands for the dope sellers. And too few shepherds to care.

What makes the difference at 1429 N. 11th St. is that McNamee is there, sharing a glass of beer with the parishioners. He works there. The doorbell and telephone ring all day and sometimes in the middle of the night. He also prays there. Not well, he tells us. Well enough, we think.

Like Christ, he falls along the way, falls into discouragement, impatience, doubts about the value of his work, of his priesthood, of his vow of celibacy.

“Lonely life, this priesting,” he tells us. “The church is almost cruel asking this loneliness of so many ordinary men and women ...Peter Maurin of Catholic Worker origins says we need to make a world where it is easier for people to be good.”

Of course, it is made easier for an Anglican or Lutheran minister who has converted to the faith. He, his wife, children and St. Bernard are welcome to move into the rectory vacated by a Catholic priest who finds celibacy too much of a burden. Justice gone awry.

Yet, loneliness does not lead McNamee into taking advantage of either children or women – easy possibilities in the midst of such pain and poverty. Rather, throughout the book, we sense a genuine reverence and love for women working in the ghetto: for mothers and grandmothers caring for children and teenagers under intolerable conditions, for Sisters teaching children, or ministering in the hospital.

At First Communion time, he gives each child a small woodcut print of a saint by the artist, Robert McGovern, signed and nicely framed so that the youngster can have something to help in troubled times. Most times are troubled on North 11th.

Again and again, we find McNamee seeking consolation from his favorite saints: Therese of the Child Jesus, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, along with those not yet canonized: Oscar Romero, Leon Bloy, John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Simone Weil.

Sounds old-fashioned, somehow, during this high-tech era, that a priest, overwhelmed with work and living in Fourth World conditions, would find inspiration and support from reading and prayer.

He doesn’t fly off to visit his private psychiatrist three states away, or pop pills, or become an alcoholic, or look for excuses to absent himself from his parish.

One day, after giving $20 to a parishioner in need of transportation money, McNamee writes: “I guess I believe in just being here, stuck here as so many are stuck here, not being able to see beyond the transit pass he needs immediately.”

This scholar, poet and mystic appears miscast. He belongs somewhere in a monastery, surrounded by his books, with a chapel for prayer, and people seen only by appointments made by a secretary.

Yet, this morning, his secretary, Ms. Marie Molchen, told me McNamee has a schedule, which she can’t make him follow, for there is always an emergency popping up, and the pastor goes after the sheep in trouble. Her joy of being part of the work force was apparent through the phone. She is retired and volunteers her work. I closed our conversation by uttering the usual, “God bless you.”

She replied, “He already has.” I believe her.

McNamee shows his appreciation of the little people in ministry as he relates his impression of a Sister whom he met while on a rare vacation/retreat in Ireland:

“Her lowly, unsung work seems her life in the best sense and she seems to need no other life or love or children of her own.

“What I want to say is that a piece of this Sister – and all human life comes in pieces that do not fit neatly together – represents a tradition, a piece of the Catholic Church that I can believe in. A piece which I hope we do not lose as we discard so much along the way. A piece infinitely more important yet invisible than all the hierarchical
and even theological nonsense. The New Testament is, after all, (and according to Simone Weil), a way of life much more than a theology.

“Nor do I want the hierarchy using the selfless miracle of this Sister, of her life and work to sustain and bolster their church as though we could not have her without all the bureaucratic nonsense. They live off her like parasites. The people support them and their nonsense when those who still do believe and contribute see the working church, they see this quiet Sister, and they as well as I can believe in her.”

With such sisters and priests and laity, the debris at our Ground Zero will be cleared away, and the Church will be built anew by those who do “Good jobs!”

Peace and hope to all.

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