J.M.J.
On December 18, 2017, Pope Francis declared
the Reverend Father Patrick Joseph Peyton, C.S.C., (1909-1992) to be
“Venerable,” meaning that the virtues he practiced are considered to be heroic.
Who is this Irish-born priest who is recalled for his dedication to Christ and
his love for Our Blessed Lady and her Holy Rosary?
County Mayo was the home of this priest, who
was the sixth in a poor family of four girls and five boys. Patrick would drop
out of school as a young man but, as an adolescent, he sensed that God was
calling him to the Holy Priesthood.
The nineteen year-old Patrick and his brother,
Thomas, decided to immigrate to the United States and settled in Scranton,
Pennsylvania. In 1932, both men entered the Congregation of the Holy Cross in
Notre Dame, Indiana.
Despite experiencing a serious health problem
in October 1938, which was determined to be tuberculosis, Patrick eventually
entered Holy Cross College in Washington, D.C. to prepare for Final Vows and
was ordained, with his brother Thomas, to the Holy Priesthood on June 15, 1941
in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre
Dame in South Bend.
It was not long before his well-known work of
promoting devotion to Our Lady and her Holy Rosary began to span many miles.
A reflection on Father Peyton’s efforts offers
the following points for our reflection and application.
1. His labors always adhered to the will of
his Superiors. He lived his Vow of Obedience, imitating Christ in His submission
to His Father.
2. “From the Cross to Life.” The cross of
physical maladies is a heavy one. But joy results when it is embraced! Father
Peyton’s grave bodily trials did not stop him from giving himself completely to
God’s plan. And whenever the Will of the Lord is accepted, the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ is made manifest in that person’s life.
3. Father Peyton shunned not the economically
destitute, the wealthy, the unlettered or Hollywood luminaries. He neither
feared the famous nor was enamored by the jet-setting way of existence. He invited
all to participate in the building of the Kingdom of God by honoring His
Ever-Virgin Mother.
4. Father Peyton did not shy away from doing
the “big things” for God, like the Rosary Crusades and Rallies, the
intercontinental travel and the making of movies. Precisely during the
frightening period of the “Cold War,” he exhorted all to travel the path of
peace.
5. “The Rosary priest” did not allow his
spiritual life to take a back seat to his prodigious work. He did not forget
that, first and foremost, he was a Religious and a Priest, notwithstanding his prestige
and authority. In 1962, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart of the Knights of Columbus
wrote about his time with Father Peyton: “His great piety, his unflagging zeal
and his intense earnestness carry you away. You feel that you are in the
presence of a saint and you want to share with him his hopes and aspirations
and contribute what you can to the success of his efforts.”
Father Peyton is remembered, too, for his
oft-quoted saying, “The family that
prays together stays together.”
He was concerned
about the welfare of the family. During a Rosary Crusade, he said: “The
restoration of family prayer is a basic need, and if it is given the chance it
will prove itself to be the most efficacious and powerful protection against
the dangers of our age.”
How apt his words
are in our twenty-first century: “The person with the Rosary in hand has the
key to learning the most important of all lessons: the love of God for us, the
destiny He has in store for us and the way he is helping us to reach that
destiny.”
On June 3, 1992, Father Peyton, with Rosary in
hand, died in San Pedro, California and was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery located
at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.
(With gratitude
to: www.holycrsscongregation.org; www.wikipedia.org; “The Rosary
Priest” by Father Richard Gribble, C.S.C., in Columbia (March 2018),
pages 22-25.)
