Angelus News | July 12, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 14

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
A blessed American
Most Catholics know to speak of the Church on
earth as the Church Militant. They know, too, that
the Church in heaven is the Church Triumphant.
But it’s important for us to realize that there are not two
churches. There is only one, and it’s the heavenly, earthly
communion of saints.
Scripture tells us this. In
the Book of Revelation and
the Letter to the Hebrews,
we see the common interaction
between congregations
in this world and the
great cloud of witnesses
in the state we call the
“afterlife.”
There is one Church, and
its members, together, constitute
the family of God.
I was reminded of this
recently when I heard
from a woman I’ve known
for many years. On a holy
impulse, she had commissioned
a sacred image
depicting Blessed Father
Stanley Rother, the Oklahoma
priest who died as
a martyr in 1981 and was
beatified in 2017.
She has a deep devotion
to him. So she commissioned
a renowned
iconographer to produce
the image.
But now she had a problem:
Where should the
image find a home?
It seemed obvious to
me that it should reside in Blessed Stanley’s alma mater,
Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
“The Mount” had accepted him after his previous seminary
counseled him to withdraw for academic reasons.
Through his years of education, the young man had excelled
in his extracurricular assignments. He served eagerly
and skillfully as plumber, groundskeeper, bookbinder, and
Blessed Father Stanley Rother in an undated photo. | OSV NEWS/CNS, ARCHDIOCESE OF
OKLAHOMA CITY ARCHIVES
handyman. He was less handy with his studies; but his bishop
was certain that Stanley had a vocation, and that he had
what it took to be a good and faithful priest.
Ordained in 1963, he served for five years in Oklahoma
parishes before applying to fill an opening in his archdiocese’s
Guatemalan mission.
There he would live
among the very poor — in
a land torn by civil strife.
He promoted the good
of his people in every
way. He learned to speak
Spanish as well as the local
native language. He founded
a hospital. His parish
housed a radio station that
broadcast daily lessons in
math and Spanish.
For this he drew the
attention of those who
were suspicious of efforts
on behalf of the poor.
Suspected of revolutionary
activity, Stanley was
murdered in his rectory on
July 28, 1981. He was 46
years old.
Even though I was not
Catholic at the time of
his martyrdom, he is my
brother. It was good for
me to draw near to him
through a phone call from
a longtime friend. It was
an honor for me to receive
his sacred image and transport
it to Mount St. Mary’s
Seminary, a half-day’s drive
from my home.
The icon bears the inscription: “The Shepherd Cannot
Run at the First Sign of Danger.” It’s from a letter Stanley
wrote home to his family.
Now it will serve as a message to all the men who see it in
that seminary as they are formed into priests. It will serve as
a moment of heavenly, earthly communion.
32 • ANGELUS • July 12, 2024