Father John Vrana Sees God's Grace in All Things Created  
By Father John Vrana
EDITOR'S NOTE: Our series celebrating the different ways in which Oklahoma Catholics heard and answered the call to serve the Church continues as we enter the Centennial year of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

Both of my parents were children of immigrant farmers. They spoke no English until their late teens when they moved from the farm to the big city to seek employment.

From their nuptial union issued four sons, the third of which I never knew since he died an accidental death at the age of five and a half years, two years before my arrival on the scene. However, mom and dad related many hagiographic stories about him, all of which convinced me in my early childhood that he was a saint without         Father John Vrana   
equal. Without my being consciously aware of it my brother, whom I never encountered physically, became my imaginary sibling rival, than whom holier I had to be. Many years after my ordination when I told this facet of my life to a group of

Compassionate Friends (a support group for parents who have lost a child by death), one of them asked, “Is this why you became a priest?” Though I had no answer for his question, what did come to mind, if this were the reason I became a priest, was the oft quoted saying “God writes straight with crooked lines.”

My first two years of high school were spent at Saint Gregory’s in Shawnee. There I became immensely fascinated with Gregorian chant which the monks sung in choir at the Liturgy of the Hours and at Eucharist. I became a seminarian in my junior year of high school and went off to study at Saint Louis Preparatory Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri. After studying philosophy at Mt. Saint Mary’s of the West in Cincinnati, Ohio, I was transferred to the University of Louvain in Belgium to study theology. At that time the faculty at Louvain was very deep into historical criticism. This turned out to be a mind opening experience in that it helped me to develop a deep appreciation for the humanity of Jesus and the human element in our Church. It also placed doctrine within context.

I was ordained a priest in 1956 and after serving three years as an associate at Saint Philip Neri in Midwest City, I was sent to New York City to study psychology. There I frequented a bookstore called Cross Currents. Its owner gave me an advance copy of the English translation of The Phenomenon of Man by Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I am eternally grateful for this gift. Teilhard was a priest, poet, scientist, mystic. His vision of the Divine Milieu, in which Christ ever present in all is drawing all to himself through evolution has remained with me throughout my life and has influenced the way I perceive this world engraced by God.

It was also while I was a student in New York that I became utterly aware of the Church’s rich social teaching. This happened through a fellow diocesan priest, Father Robert McDole, who worked closely with Clara Luper in desegregating eating places in Oklahoma City through sit-ins. One Sunday on the front page of the New York Times there appeared a photo of Father McDole being physically carried by two policemen out of a local cafeteria. On that Sunday I was visiting a family and the comment was made by the father that this picture did more to make known the Church’s stand on social justice than all the words of that year’s statement on racism by the National Conference of

Catholic Bishops. When I returned from my studies to Oklahoma City to join the faculty at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, I was invited to be the chaplain at the Catholic Interracial Council. As we grappled with racial tension both local and national a couple of Quakers, Bill Byerly and Conner McGee, joined us. It was through them that I came to meet Ammon Hennacy and Ammon introduced me to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. Because of these associations I became actively involved in the peace movement of the 60’s. Reflecting back on this period, I am amazed at the way God’s grace is manifested through the people we encounter - that God comes to us through us.

In 1966 as the Seminary was gradually shutting down, I became a pastor-first at Union City for a few months and then at Saint John’s in Edmond for a little under three years. Previous to these two assignments I had taught in the Diocesan Adult Education Program a course entitled Becoming a Person. This course turned out to be more than theory because I began to ask myself a very serious question - who am I really. Ever since I was a kid I had a strong desire to be a priest and as I grew older I projected myself into that role. Becoming a pastor highlighted this and I saw a need to examine how this role related to my life as a person. This examination led to the realization that my role as a priest needed to be integrated with who I am as a human person. Having struggled with this for a couple of years and being unable to resolve my dilemma, I requested a leave of absence from Bishop Reed. The leave of absence lasted sixteen years.

Fourteen of those years were spent as a director or guide in a Montessori school for children ages three to six. Although I was not aware of it at that time but reflecting back on my years in a Montessori classroom the children had a great impact on my life. From them I came to know not abstractly but in a concrete way what it is to love, to be open, to trust, to forgive. For instance, two four-year old boys who had been the best of friends for some time got into a fight - not a minor spat but a knock-down, beat-up, drag-out fight. I intervened immediately to prevent any injuries and thought to myself. “Here’s the end of that friendship.” But within fifteen minutes the two were together again as if nothing happened. Then I thought how often I nursed grudges and gave the silent treatment to people whom I love. Children can teach us much. Could this be what’s behind the words of our Lord, “Unless you become a little child ...?”

My last two years in a Montessori setting took place in Seattle, Washington. At that time Archbishop Hunthausen was the Ordinary in Seattle. Although I never met him personally, I did come to know about him from the priests and lay people of his Archdiocese and from what I read in the local newspapers. From these accounts I got the impression that he was a compassionate, understanding person. Being deeply committed to peacemaking, each year when he paid his income tax, he withheld the portion that would go to building weapons of destruction and donated that money to organizations that cared for the poor and those living on the margin. Archbishop Hunthausen and Saint Patrick Church near downtown Seattle where I attended Sunday Liturgy were big factors in my making a decision about my possibility of returning to the active ministry of being a priest.

While I was in Oklahoma City during the Christmas season of 1983 I scheduled an interview with Archbishop Salatka to talk to him about the possibility of being active again as a priest. Although the weather was extremely cold, the Archbishop was very warm and receptive. He asked me to do three things before becoming active - one was to reside in a parish rectory for about six months to become reacquainted with parish life; the second was to attend the four month long program at the Institute for Clergy Education at Notre Dame to become updated with what was taking place in theology, liturgy, spiritual life, etc; and the third was to make a retreat.

When Father Michael Vaught heard that I was looking for a place to make my retreat, he mentioned to me that Father Jim McGlinchey knew of a place near Sand Springs called Osage Monastery run by the Benedictine Sisters from Clyde, Missouri. On contacting him he agreed to take me there. At that visit I realized instantly that this was the place to make the retreat. It was a thirty-day silent retreat. I was glad that it was silent but more glad that it was 30 days, because things began to perk within me after about two weeks - issues that I had needed to face from my life that had been deeply buried within. Sr. Pascaline, who directed my retreat, did a masterful job in helping me to uncover these matters and come to a healing. I am most grateful to the nuns at Osage not only for their invitation to spend thirty days at the Monastery but also for their introduction to contemplative primer. Contemplation enables one to go beyond thoughts, words, images, emotions to the depths of our being where God dwells loving us into existence. It is as the Psalmist sings, “Deep calls unto deep.”

When I announced to my fellow Montessori guides about my decision to leave the school and to return to the priesthood, one of them made the comment that my experience with children had been church for me. I was taken back by her remark. But after reflection I saw the truth of her statement. For she was talking not about the institutional Church but about the church of creation through which God manifests himself boundlessly - in families, friends, universities, in scientists, poets, mystics, in sunsets and sunrises, in children - the list is inexhaustible.