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Father Tim Mulroy
serves as weekend Assistant Pastor for St. Ailbe Church.
In this letter he shares with us a little of
his past history including some of his life revelations
and experiences.
This summer I turn forty; the gate, they say into
mid-life and the inevitable mid-life crisis! I’ll be
facing the challenge of this stage of life here in
Chicago!. I guess that was God thought was best for me,
when he brought me here two years ago. At that time the
mission organization to which I belong- The Society of
St. Columban – requested me to live and work with
students preparing for missionary priesthood. So here I
am since then, sharing my daily life in Hyde park with
eleven other people from six different countries. The
experience helps me realize that the ups and downs of
daily living are the same for all of us regardless of
background, culture or age and the fact that everyone is
a seminarian or priest doesn’t make community living
and easier.
While living in the
same house with so people from so many different
countries is still new for me, the experience of meeting
and working with people from other culture is not. Prior
to ministering in Chicago I ministered in Japan for
several years. While the number of the Japanese
Christians are few( less than 1% of the population which
exceeds 120 million people) and many of the Christians
communities there are small and scattered, in many
churches the number of Christians from other countries
outnumbers Japanese’s Christians. It was for that while I
lived in Japan, as well as having daily contact with
Japanese, I had frequent interaction with Filipinos,
Koreans, Vietnamese, African and Latin Americans,
Through parish and outreach ministry, as well as
involvement in wider programs for promoting lay
leadership within the Church I was privileged,
therefore, to walk part of the road of life with people
of different cultures and different faiths. Among the
experiences I will always treasure, however are those of
walking alongside people as they made their journey from
unbelief into faith in the God of Jesus Christ.
The reason that people’s journey into
faith fascinated me and made those accounts of the action of the
Holy Spirit that are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles so
much more credible, was the fact that I grew up in rural Ireland
where faith, prayer and church-going were so much part and
parcel of the life of everyone whom I knew. Since my parents,
grandparents, teachers and neighbors were devout Catholics, as a
child I couldn’t imagine a world without God at the center.
Faith was something that I took for granted then and it was only
when I went to Japan that I realized that faith is gift: a gift
that, when embraced, can make an amazing difference to
people’s lives. Looking back, then, I realize that the roots of my
vocation to missionary priesthood are to be found in the everyday life
of my childhood during which I was gifted in a way that I did not
realize at that time.
Also, among the people whose influence I was
unaware of in those days were relatives and neighbors who were emigrants
and missionaries in Australia and Africa. Pakistan and the Philippines,
but who returned home on vacation every few years, For a small,
insulated farming community in the west of Ireland where daily life
consisted of manual labor in the sowing and harvesting of crops, as well
as the tending of cattle and sheep, fantastic real life stories and
encounters with people who had traveled from the far side of the world
nourished the seeds of wonder in a child’s soul.
At that time, since most families had a large
number of children and limited economic means, the provisions of other
kinds of maturing and nourishment was the responsibility of every family
member. There were eleven in my family and each of us from a young age
had tasks and duties both in the home and on the farm. It’s no
surprise then that I’m a ‘country boy’ at heart and have a deep
appreciation for the world of nature. So it is, that up until this day,
when I grow weary with struggles and strains of the “big world’. I
return to the family farm, where my mother and brother still alive to
refresh my soul. No surprises then as to where I’ll be pondering
life’s journey thus far and preparing for the
yet unknown mid-life
stage, as I celebrate
my fortieth birthday this summer.
We are Blessed because Father Tim Mulroy is such a wonderful
person to know and have in our presence. |
