The gospels note carefully how Jesus called people to follow him. They tell us when and where it happened. It was along the lakeshore in Galilee that Jesus called Peter and Andrew and then James and John as they’re fishing from their boats. And they followed him. After awhile, he sent them to other villages in Galilee, to the people and places they knew, to bring the good news of the gospel to them.
I mention the call of the disciples because one of Fr. Sebastian’s favorite stories was how God called him. It wasn’t at the seashore or in church, for that matter, it was at the Blue Lantern, a diner down by the cathedral in Scranton, long gone now.
At the time he had just finished 3rd year high school and Sebbie got a job there washing dishes, then waiting on tables, then as a short-order cook and eventually as a bartender. Most days he’d walk down to work from his home in Taylor. He’d stop at the cathedral to say a few prayers and then if he had some money from tips, he’d drop something off in the poor box The times were tough then, he said, and he was lucky to have a job in a place like the Blue Lantern.
Well, one day, one of the customers– his name was John Maloney, a local teacher – said to Sebbie “ I think you would be a good priest.” Now, Sebbie was completely surprised. He’d never thought about it. He didn’t think he had the education or the qualifications. He wasn’t capable of it.
But John persisted. “You can do it!” And he arranged for him to see Fr. Boniface Buckley, a Passionist from Scranton, and after a few years studying at Central High School Sebbie entered the Passionists and was ordained a priest. Incidentally, over the years, John would call Father Sebastian periodically, usually at 8:30 in the morning, to keep in touch with him and see how he was doing.
Jesus called Sebastian, as he did his first apostles, from where he was and sent him to those he knew best. The great Italian artist, Duccio, painted a picture of Jesus calling Peter and his brother Andrew from their boat and as you look at them you can see how much they belonged to the world they lived in. Their hands are firmly on their nets; they know this world through and through. And that’s the world Jesus first sent them to, the world they knew best.
It was through people like John Maloney at the Blue Lantern that Jesus called Sebastian first, and then through his family and friends, and then through the Passionists. They recognized something in him. He was good with people like them, he knew them and appreciated them and, like Jesus, his heart went out to them. A priest called like that is usually the best kind of priest.
He had the common touch. After ordination Father Sebastian preached missions and retreats in English and Slovak; he was vicar and rector at the Passionist houses in Baltimore and Riverdale, NY. But probably his most notable ministry was as director of Passionist Missionaries, in Union City, NJ, where he raised funds for the Passionist missions in this country and throughout the world.
He was really good with people, and he showed it in the simplest of ways. As they sent requests for Masses and prayers, people would mention someone they had lost, or a sickness that weighed them down, or troubles they were having with their children or their relatives or their friends. Father Sebastian would sit down and write them a letter. He didn’t type; when computers arrived, he didn’t use them. He wrote handwritten letters in a simple style that brought the blessing of God to those who needed it. Handwritten letters by the thousands.
Unfortunately, he had to give up that ministry some years ago when he began to fail physically, but every once in awhile, someone will tell you that he or she got letters from Father Sebastian that meant so much to them. They heard Christ speaking through him. The founder of the Passionists, St. Paul of the Cross, was also great letter-writer. Some say he wrote more than 15,000 letters in his lifetime. Father Sebastian beat him easily.
He announced the gospel, not in learned lectures or eloquent sermons, but in simple, heartfelt letters and gestures and words. “ How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!” St. Paul says in our first reading. Fr. Sebastian was that kind of priest. He brought ordinary people the beautiful blessings of Christ wherever he went.
His goodness was predictable. It was goodness of the simplest kind. We who knew him know that Fr. Sebastian was a man of routine. He had a goodness you could count on. On Monday nights back in Union City, Sebbie cooked supper. “What’s on the menu at the Blue Lantern tonight?” we would say. You could count on it. Every day he would come up from his office and call his mother in Scranton, until she died. “What’s the weather like there?” you could hear him say. Later, we got the weather report from Scranton. You could count on it. He lived predictably. You knew where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, every day. You could count on it.
He had a predictable dedication to his community, his priesthood, his family, his friends, his Slovak heritage, and especially to the call of God he heard at the Blue Lantern years ago.
Today, we give him into the hands of God, who is also predictable. We give him to God, the Father Almighty, to Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead, to God who promises resurrection and life everlasting, to God who is true to his promises.
As he called Father Sebastian long ago, now he calls him again. “Come, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”
May I close with a suggestion, as we remember this good man. These last few years in a nursing home had to be difficult for Father Sebastian as he struggled with sickness and memory loss. We know by faith that this is an experience of cross of Jesus. We also know by faith that a predictable God rewards those who share in the mystery of the cross.
At the moment of death, God gives graces of all kinds. On the day Jesus died, the earth quaked, tombs were opened and a Roman soldier suddenly believed. Could we ask God as he receives Father Sebastian into his hands, to send us more vocations. Somewhere, may someone ask a young man or a young woman. “Did you ever think of becoming a priest, or a sister, or a brother?” We need the blessing of vocations like Father Sebastian’s.
Fr. Victor Hoagland, December 2, 2011
The Basilica of St. Ann, Scranton, PA
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Father Richard Leary, a Passionist priest and missionary, died at Immaculate Conception Monastery on December 11, 2011 at the age of 93 years old. He was born on August 19, 1918. He was the son of the late Moses L. Leary and the late Lena (Chapman) Leary. Brother of Mrs. Dorothy Millette of Eastham, Massachusetts and Catherine Dowhan of Burlington, VT. Father Leary graduated from Cathedral High School in Burlington, Vermont in 1936. He attended Saint Michael College, Winooski, Vermont and Holy Cross Seminary, Dunkirk, New York. Father Leary entered the Passionists – a Roman Catholic Religious community of priests and brothers dedicated to the Passion of the Christ, contemplative prayer, the popular preaching of parish missions and retreats, and overseas missionary work – in 1938. After completing his novitiate at Saint Paul of the Cross Monastery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he professed his vows in 1939. After studying at Saint Gabriel Monastery, Brighton, Massachusetts and Saint Ann Monastery, Scranton, Pennsylvania, he received his BA in 1942. He then studied theology at Immaculate Conception Monastery, Jamaica, New York, Our Lady of Sorrows Monastery, West Springfield, and Saint Michael Monastery, Union City, New Jersey. He was ordained to the priesthood at Saint Michael Monastery, Union City, New Jersey on April 29, 1946.
