He Just Might Be a Priest for Our Times

 

Next Sunday, Oct. 2 

A deacon who recently

died and who had learned

to love and "leave his 

comfort zone". 

♪ Bless the Lord my soul

who leads us into life ♪

(Fr. Paul in his altar song)

he sings at morning mass while walking to the alter, the heels on his boot-like shoes clicking the floor...he flings his arms or points a finger at us to make a point during his homily... He is Fr. Paul Barwikoski, a 34-year-old priest from Poland,,, and he takes his vows quite seriously...

After being ordained in at the Mundelein seminary in Illinois and then serving more than six years in three Chicago-land parishes, Fr. Paul moved into the St. James Catholic Church rectory in Arlington Heights, Illinois on July 1, 2022. Meeting his new pastor Fr. Ed Pelrine was the climax to a decade of preparation troubled with doubts now and then about becoming a priest. But the doubts were resolved during a leave of absence from his seminary studies when he went to Rome and consulted with a Vatican confessor.

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  “As a young man, I have these doubts about helping people more mature, and older than me”, he told  his confessor. “What do I know about life?” he asked him. “I know almost nothing.” The confessor told Fr. Paul that he would learn everything he had to learn as a priest through offering the church’s sacraments, especially penance and confession. “Once you have heard confessions from wives, husbands, and others—this will teach you everything you have to know”, the confessor told Fr. Paul.

“This all turned out to be true,” Fr. Paul said during our recent interview. I read this quote of his in a bulletin of a church he served in Chicago: Today, it is with a full heart that I express my gratitude….for letting me be a member of your parish community. I believe this experience will help me to become a better version of myself.

Fr. Paul was easy to interview; he is transparent, never shies away from a topic and stays focused on it, and enjoys being interviewed. He has way of weaving Holy Scripture into questions that seemingly have nothing to do with the question. For example, after telling me that when he first came to St. James and people commented on the sandals he wore, he related this to Jesus wanting His disciples to wear sandals to distinguish them from slaves who went barefooted in those days. Raised in Poland with seven siblings and inculcated with Polish mannerisms and Christian principles, he also resonates common human integrity . When I first heard him speak, I thought his background was Germanic because his accent sounded German. Not so, he said, “usually people think I’m from Spain or Ecuador or Italy.” He said he hated learning English in Poland ( his Latin teacher opined that English was a “pagan language” ) Consequently, Fr. Paul could speak no English when he came to America 12 years ago.

What originally motivated Fr. Paul to the priesthood was the death of his older brother. One

 day  when  eight-year-old Paul was praying the Rosary with his parents, a policeman knocked on their door in Pisz, Poland. He told the family that their 20-year-old son had died. “My father returned to our Rosary prayer saying to me, ‘let’s pray that you can see your brother again [in heaven].’ To this very day, I am reflecting on that event. It was the most beautiful witness given to me of losing something but at the same time of entrusting myself entirely to God.”

What makes Fr. Paul sad? “ Divisions”, he said quickly. “The kind we see in church,” he added. “Before we go out and preach the Word, we first have to make sure that we love each other.”

And happy? “Being on time makes me happy... with my duties and responsibilities.” We laughed. He   had been 90 minutes late for our interview.

I asked about current challenges in his life. “Living by myself. I come from a big family and always enjoy people being around me. But there is a time when I have to be by myself with Jesus.” He then recalled that a major disappointment in his life after being ordained was discovering the lack of brotherhood among priests. He had anticipated “comfort and joy” but he found it wasn’t so among priests. “I don’t want to blame anyone, for I could have been more outgoing myself.”

Today, however, Fr. Paul says he has some good friends in America, including a few St. James members with whom he often has dinner. ( He doesn’t care much for Polish food ! ) He has a good friend, Fr. Christopher, now serving in Uganda. For fun and recreation, Fr Paul rides his bicycle through a forest preserve two miles or so away from St. James; he plays soccer and tennis (he’s taking tennis lessons ), and he sings when he feels like it. He also enjoys what he considers a talent of being in the middle of a crowd and making sure everyone is having a good time.

                                                        With a priest friend in Uganda

Near the end of our interview, I told Fr. Paul that I thought our readers would appreciate hearing what he had to say about all the bad, serious and sinful stuff going on today in the world and, of course, in America. But he was late for a meeting, and so we tabled that topic for perhaps another time. We appeared, however, to have agreed about one thing regarding sinful behavior: the difference between those sinful, popup thoughts and emotions that all humans experience throughout their lives—and the actual sin of acting them out.

I did put this last question to him: “What do you want people to say about you after you are called home by the Lord?

Fr. Paul gave a priestly pause before replying quite seriously: “I’d like to say that I TRIED. I REALLY TRIED.” He paused again and said: “I hope they will say that I was always honest with them.”

The End

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© 2022 Robert R. Schwarz