We often hear of the days of the giants, but in their prime they represented the absolute best the Diocese of Columbus has ever scene. It was Andy Nugent’s good fortune to serve the Church of Columbus with Frs. Bob Schmidt, Gus Winkler, Tom Duffy among others who have passed on to the Lord. Msgr. Larry Corcoran of that vintage remains. They all knew and loved the Church both before and after the Council, as representing first and foremost the people of God. The bishops they survived included Hartley, Ready, Issenman, Carberry, Elwell and Herrmann. They had their war stories but they mostly enjoyed the post mortems after one would leave and another would come.
All of them were tried in the furnace like “the souls of the just” in the Wisdom reading. Andy just stayed in the furnace a little longer than most. One of the things all these priests represented to their contemporaries was a love of life. They also always embraced the future of the Church with confidence because they rightly understood the Church as the Body of Christ. They made real Christ’s intense love for the sinner and helped us all to enjoy life itself as a gift from our loving God.
Although we hear Paul’s words to the Corinthians on love more often at weddings, it is appropriate for us to listen to Paul’s words even in the context of death. It is appropriate if for no other reason than that we note that love does not exist in a vacuum. Love must take root in people, so that it is not love which is patient or kind, or refuses to put on airs or to brood over injuries. It is loving people who do all these things and more.
For us who knew Fr. Andy these virtues were to be tested, especially as he aged and as his health declined. But even when he was testing our patience, he’d always find a way to make us laugh. He read voraciously and then would seek to share that new found knowledge (or impose it) on others. He once came to visit when I was in the Navy where everything was a big deal. He had just read a book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, whose author argued everything was small. Gads, I was ready to scream when he trotted out that simplistic approach to life after I came home from a difficult day at the base!
The years since he has been ordained have marked some of the milestones in Biblical studies in the Church, not that the dates mattered to Andy, but they did to me! In Sept, 1943 Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical letter Divino Afflante Spiritu which began the modern Church’s immersion in critical biblical scholarship. In 1965 Vatican II issued the dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum. Finally in 1964 the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1964 issued its instruction on the historical truth of the Gospels in Sancta Mater Ecclesia and in 1993, the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued its Document on the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.”
All of this was part of the dynamic work of the Church that Fr. Andy loved and served for all these years. Fr. Andy’s reaction to their mention here would have drawn a yawn and a demand that I get on with it. Patience was not his middle name.
Fr. Jim Nugent, Andy’s brother was the youngest and now the last of the large Nugent family and because of the formation of the Steubenville diocese after Andy was ordained, Fr. Jim was ordained for Steubenville.
As the sole survivor of your family, which has had such an impact on all of us we offer you a special word of thanks and consolation. I am fairly certain that it had to be difficult at times to follow in Fr. Andy’s footsteps.
To the loving care-givers at Mohun Hall we offer a word of thanks for all you do, not only for Fr. Andy but for all the aged saints in your care. Finally, we thank Clare and her family and ask God’s special blessing be upon you for all that you did for Fr. Andy for many years.
It was Clare who put together the video that some of you may have seen. Fr, Andy in fact asked her to do it. But he then reviewed it and revised it to his liking so that he could have the last word on his life. Thus what originally ended with the words “…mighty Casey had struck out” became the words scrolling on the screen “I am the resurrection and the life.”
In the end, as we all know it is the Lord who speaks first, last and always; at the beginning and at the end. It is the Lord who sets the course of our years and determines our ports of call along the way. It is also the Lord who promises us resurrection and eternal life. So we commend our brother to the Lord.
At most family gatherings Fr. Andy would always trot out this little toast he found somewhere and on this note it seems appropriate to close. “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino. Let us bless the Lord. Adios, Fr. Andy!
Being open to those prophetic moments of hospitality
By Mary van Balen-Holt
Saturday July 11, was the feast of St. Benedict, born in Nursia around 480.
He is best known for his rule that has been adopted by many monastic communities.
Written for lay people, it stresses community, journeying together toward God and is highlighted by its call for hospitality. I lived in the embrace of Benedictine prayer and hospitality this past year.
Benedictine hospitality welcomes all and is open to the Presence of God in each one. Sometimes the result is less than comfortable when a guest’s stay uncovers biases and shortcomings, or requires the welcoming soul to expand her understanding of God and the call to confront need and injustice in the world. This is what Benedictine scholar Laura Swan, OSB, calls the prophetic moment of hospitality in her book, Engaging Benedict.
Perhaps I had too freshly come from the Benedictine womb of the Collegeville Institute and St. John’s Abbey, but I became uncomfortable as I watched a production of Ronan Noone’s play, "The Blowin’ of Baile Gall," preformed in downtown Columbus a few weeks ago.
"Blowin’" is derogatory Irish slang that refers to a stranger or outsider. Set in a small town, the action centers on five characters as they refurbish a rundown house, once home to Eamon Collins Jr., for a construction boss who had been a schoolmate of Eamon’s before going off to the United States and returning to his boyhood home to spread wealth around the depressed town.
Bigotry and anger flare throughout the play fueled by bitterness over wrongs done generations before and deep-seated racism. The fire is fed when the boss hires an illegal black immigrant from Nigeria who wants to earn money to bring his mother to Ireland.
Molly, the sole female, extends hospitality to the newcomer. That Laurence is friendly and a hard worker irritates Eamon, whose suspicion of anyone who is "other" poisons the atmosphere and the hearts of co-workers.
As the play entered its third hour, Eamon’s barrage of hate and the effect it was having assaulted my spirit. While ignorance, fear and swaggering bravado made Eamon unbearable, the play would have been less excruciating if it did not mirror similar realities in the world off stage.
Intolerance paints difference as threat, as something to be eradicated. It brooks no Benedictine expectation of meeting the Divine in the stranger, no openness to prophetic moments that ch