As you have heard, our former Pastor Fr. Thomas Shonebarger passed away January 6, 2012. He had experienced quite a number of years of poor health and was on dialysis three days a week. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend his funeral at St. Mary’s in Lancaster since I was away on vacation at the time. We will have a special Memorial Mass for Fr. Tom at St. Timothy Church on Monday, February 6, at 6:30 p.m. It is a tradition to remember our beloved dead the first month after their death in a Mass known as the “Month’s Mind.”
My own first assignment as a priest in the Diocese of Columbus was at St. Mary’s in Lancaster, which was Fr. Tom’s home parish. So I had the opportunity to get to know many of his family members of multiple generations.
Throughout the years of my priesthood, I have followed behind Fr. Tom in three different assignments: both Fr. Tom and I had the role of Diocesan Director of Vocations, and we both served as Pastor at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Newark, and at St. Timothy Church in Columbus. I got to know Fr. Tom both personally and by way of the fruits of his ministry in the various communities I also served.
There is one other detail worth noting: Fr. Tom Shonebarger and I had the same birthday (August 23rd). He had it before I did, of course. When I was Director of Vocations, Fr. Tom was still the Chaplain to the Columbus Serra Club downtown. The Serrans would host a picnic for the priests which took place on or around our common birthday. Fr. Tom would tell them it was my birthday, but he would not let me tell them it was his as well.
The Columbus Serrans will be present at the Memorial Mass. Perhaps some members of the parish would be interested in becoming Serrans in order to honor Fr. Tom and to pray for and to promote Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious life.
Entering into our Golden Jubilee: Getting to know Saint Timothy.
Greet Prisca and Aquila and the family of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained in Corinth, while I left Trophimus sick at Miletus. Try to get here before winter. Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers send greetings. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with all of you. (II Timothy 4:19-22)
As St. Paul ends his Second Letter to St. Timothy, his greetings and directions become very personal. The names of various Christians who worked with them in their mission of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean world are mentioned in a manner that suggests a real depth of communion.
The Erastus mentioned in Corinth was a likely the public official whose inscription can be read amid the ruins of old Corinth to the present day, indicating that Christianity appealed to members of every social class. Paul’s appeal to Timothy to visit him before winter also gives us a sense of his desire to see his younger companion.
The final words of the letter are familiar to all of us through their frequent use in the Liturgy. “The Lord be with you – And with your spirit!” is newly on our lips, pointing back across two thousand years of Christian history. “Grace be with all of you” likewise crosses the ages and invites us to acknowledge the grace of God at work in us forming us as a community of believers united in mind and heart.
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