L’Osservatore Chicago: The power of "showing up"

(POSTED: 9/6/09) Much has been made -- with good reason -- of Ted Kennedy's effectiveness in the Senate. President Barack Obama said of him that he "became the greatest legislator of our time."
But what spoke to me as a mother was another aspect of the senator: his faithfulness in "showing up" where he was most needed. Obama alluded to this quality in his eulogy for Kennedy: "It is his giving heart that we will miss. It was the friend and colleague who was always the first to pick up the phone and say, 'I'm sorry for your loss,' or 'I hope you feel better' or 'What can I do to help?'"
Nieces and nephews in the large family where Senator Kennedy figured as the patriarch talked in the days after his death of how he could be depended upon to show up at every major event in their lives, whether a baptism, a graduation or a wedding.
This "showing up" is surely the grace of presence. His presence at any event put the seal of his love on whatever milestone was being celebrated.
There is a local example of presence that I have cherished since Monsignor John Egan told me of it 20 years ago. It is part of the heart-breaking Our Lady of the Angels School fire story.
It was 1958, and then-Archbishop Albert Meyer walked among the desperate parents, the weeping battalion chiefs, the priests blessing small canvas-covered forms that so recently were laughing children. The archbishop was a lonely, sorrowing figure. It was only two weeks since his installation.
Later, he was to celebrate a pontifical mass for 27 of the victims. As he vested for the funeral, he looked up to see Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York coming up to him, holding out his hands. The archbishop looked with gratitude at the fellow religious who had come to his side at his time of greatest need.
The two most powerful prelates in the American Church embraced.
By Margery Frisbie
Margery Frisbie, a graduate of Mundelein College, has raised lots of kids and written lots of columns. She is the author of several local histories, two graphic histories published in Europe, and An Alley in Chicago, the Life and Legacy of Monsignor John Egan.
Contacts: margeryfrisbie@sbcglobal.net or info@chicagocatholicnews.com
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