Priest overcomes adversity to preach parish missions |
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Written by TOM KELLY, Special to the Chronicle
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Thursday, 25 March 2010 00:00 |
TOLEDO—A brown shawl is the only prop Oblate Father John Graden uses when, with his rich baritone, he launches into his 21st century portrayal of the biblical Hosea.
It comes as a surprise to learn he is an aging “comeback kid” who once had speech problems and a “scooped out” face paralyzed by cancer — and he overcame that to preach nearly 400 missions and head a small non-profit publishing business for his religious order, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
Father John Graden
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Fr. Graden, 63, is director of DeSales Resources and Ministries Inc., based in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Returning to his hometown to conduct a mission March 7-10 at Toledo Our Lady of Lourdes, Fr. Graden revealed in an interview how an experience at age 5 with his father profoundly influenced his outlook — and that he shrugged off the cancer because he had just read St. Francis de Sales’ “Treatise on the Love of God.”
Only 6 years old when his father, John Sr., died of leukemia, Fr. Graden treasures a moment the year before when the two came together on their home’s back porch during an approaching thunderstorm. The little boy stood in front, his head resting against his father’s chest. The elder Graden crouched with knees and arms around his son as lightning flashed and thunder roared. Fr. Graden recalls:
“His head was down next to mine and he spoke into my ear, ‘Johnny, don’t be afraid. I’m right here. It’s going to be alright.’ ”
Fr. Graden says he didn’t connect that with multiple “Do not be afraid” references in Scripture until years later. “But when people saw in me a confidence in God,” he said, “I began to wonder where that came from. In this image of my father, there was this security of being surrounded by strength; so it became … at least the occasion and the symbol of God’s presence.”
Cancer struck Fr. Graden at age 20. He had just made first vows after his Oblate novitiate. His large salivary (paratod) gland was surgically removed and the whole right side of his face collapsed; but later, through plastic surgery, it was built up with muscle. Scar tissue allows that side of his mouth to open only about an inch, but his beard partially disguises the paralysis.
During recovery Fr. Graden, had difficulty pronouncing B’s and P’s. He said he still practices self-therapy in the car, going through the alphabet while he’s driving: “I first take the consonants, then the vowels: be-be-be-be, ba-ba-ba-ba, bo-bo-bo-bo, bi--bi-bi-bi, bu-bu-bu-bu, u-u-u-u ….”
He says that has had some “real payoffs, because people have said my articulation is very good and they can understand me unless I go too fast.”
Young Graden entered the Oblates after graduating from St. Francis de Sales High School in 1964. College and post-collegiate studies netted him a bachelor’s degree in biology and two master’s degrees: one in divinity, and one in religious education.
DeSales Resources and Ministries, Inc. began in 1981 and conducts about 25 missions a year. Fr. Graden, director, is the main preacher, with 16 others (eight priests and eight lay people) working mostly part-time.
The center simulcasts an annual spirituality conference in several cities and has more than 100 books of Salesian materials (most by other publishers) in its catalogs, and Fr. Graden said it currently is publishing 11 works. The center has a research library used by doctoral candidates, and it sells five CDs of songs sung by Fr. Graden and meditatons. He says the center also gets $5,000 to $10,000 a year from sales of used books.
Much of Fr. Graden’s outreach to the poor is through the DeSales Resources’ promotion of the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging. CFCA, founded in 1981, is a lay organization committed to creating relationships between sponsors in the United States and children and aging persons in 26 developing nations. Its Web site says it has more than 310,000 sponsored children and aging. Besides promoting CFCA at all the missions, Fr. Graden for the past 19 years has been doing some 20 weekends a year for CFCA.
The priest looks at death a little differently now than he did at 20 with cancer. Then having just read St. Francis’ “Treatise on the Love of God,” he said, his reaction was “to be a hero for Christ” (“You wanted to be a priest, and you got a chance to die before you really made a mess of anything”). Since then he has had part of a lung removed, heart problems and a triple bypass.
Now, Fr. Graden says his concerns are how his death will affect family and DeSales Resources and Ministries. As for himself: “It’s ‘going home.’ I hope when it actually comes, I can have that kind of comfort with it.”
Regarding death of others, his basic approach is the same:
“Except that …. if somebody dies close to me, I’m going to be in tears. But the tears are my tears for my loss of them. If I can turn my attention to focus on them, then I can be happy that they’re going home …. So, this combination of sadness and joy, that’s what faith allows you to have.”
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 19:06 |
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