We can feel the vibration

This is a true story. It came from a young priest who wrote me a beautiful letter which touched me to the core of my being.

It was sometime in June of 1967. I just arrived from the United States and was surprised to be appointed Rector of the Diocesan Seminary in Kubay, Jaro, Iloilo.

A beautiful, touching letter arrived from a young priest. His name was Tom Kearney. I had worked with him as fellow priest – assistants in St. Francis de Sales Parish in Belle Harbour, Queens, New York City.

We were still pastorally awed by the documents of the Second Vatican Council and touched by the pastoral life experience of Latin American Bishop Helder Camara. We had hoped to be assigned in a poor area, he in Brooklyn Diocese, me in the Archdiocese of Jaro, Iloilo.

He got what he hoped for. Just a month before I returned back to Jaro, he was assigned to a Black parish in one of the poor areas in Brooklyn Diocese.

He wrote me one day this touching story.

He was one afternoon strolling in the busy streets of Williamsburgh, a highly depressed area, when a colored woman approached him with a beaming smile. “Hi Father! Can I tell you something? Now we know you love us.”

“My dear friend, thanks, but how do you know I love you?”

“Ferd, this is just wonderful! She said, “we know because we can feel the vibration!” How do you explain that?

I don’t remember now how I explained. Maybe now in this time of synodality thrust there is no need to explain.

All I can say perhaps is, true love vibrates!