Father John Gerard Hillier

Article 128 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series Paragraphs 1680-1690 The most beautiful legacy my father left to his family is that he taught us how to live and he taught us how to die. During his lifetime, the words my dad spoke to us, and the example he set, were a perpetual lesson in how to live virtuously. Throughout his life, though deaf from the age of 21 and blind in the years before the end of his life, having battled years of sickness due to tuberculosis and many major surgeries that included the removal of a kidney and lung coupled with cancer and heart disease, my dad never thought of himself as disabled or needy, or otherwise less blessed by God.

Article 127 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series Paragraphs 1667-1676 For most Catholic families, the grueling task of cleaning out the family home following the death of one’s parents or grandparents includes years of accumulated paperwork, some collectables, bric-a-brac and, of course, sacrament certificates, medals, rosary beads, crucifixes, statues of countless saints (including every possible variation of Mary), relics, water from Lourdes, Fatima, etc., and blessed oil in honor of St. Anne, St. Joseph, St. Jude, and St. Peregrine.

Have you ever considered the fact that all priests, bishops and consecrated religious men and women first lived as members of the lay faithful, often as teenagers seeking to discern the vocation in life to which God was calling them, before they were ordained or consecrated to God?

Article 125 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series Paragraphs 1638-1642 This section of the Catechism begins: “From a valid marriage arises a bond between the spouses which by its very nature is perpetual and exclusive; furthermore, in a Christian marriage the spouses are strengthened and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and the dignity of their state by a special sacrament” (ccc 1638).

Article 124 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series Paragraphs 1621- 1637 Like some of our readers, my parents were married prior to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Although faithful Christians, however, my mom and dad were not permitted to exchange vows within a Nuptial Mass at my mom’s home parish, the Cathedral Church, because my dad had not yet converted to the Catholic faith. Instead, because my dad was a Methodist, my parents were married in a back chapel near the sacristy (reserved for those in “mixed marriages,” which means marriages between Catholics and Protestants, and “disparity of cult marriages” between Catholics and non-Christians). This, of course, was a compromise to what the Catechism calls “the celebration of marriage between two Catholic faithful [that] normally takes place during Holy Mass, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal mystery of Christ” (ccc 1621).