When I was little and the older siblings were playing basketball at Knoxville Catholic, the principal was a priest named Fr. Mankel. He would let us go into the office and make copies of our hands.
He was a big man with an enormous presence. When he spoke, rooms went silent. When he sang, walls shook. And when he corrected you, you just wanted to crawl away. But this big man became a mentor, a colleague, and eventually, a good friend. He was the first priest to hire me into ministry, promising that if I ever wanted to leave to “try out” the seminary, he would keep my position vacant in case I wanted to return home.
I heard this weekend that he is in 24-hour hospice care. He is in his eighties now and, though we have stayed in touch, he went downhill faster than anyone thought he would. He always joked that if he fell, the rising tide would sink many boats and, ironically, it was a fall at the barbershop that began his descent.
It was Fr. Mankel – now Msgr. Mankel – who invited my father to take stats at all the high school basketball games. For my father, it was a job he enjoyed from the early 1980s until shortly before he died. For Fr. Mankel, it was a way to separate my dad from Dr. Davidson since the two of them were, shall we say, pretty tough on the officials. That was FXM, always looking to match the right person with the right post.
His homilies were terrible, but his capacity to create a beautiful liturgical experience (homily notwithstanding) was incomparable. I served Mass with him every Triduum up until he transferred from our parish when I was 27. He was a gifted educator, a consummate politician, and a walking encyclopedia when it came to the people of Knoxville. He could look at a picture and tell you about the nurse who delivered the mother or the father of whomever was in the photograph. His mind was a wasteland of facts and figures most of us would never bother to remember, but for him, it was a way of connecting to the larger community and making sure those who heard him tell stories knew that, in the end, we are all connected.
This week, I will pray for my friend and teacher. I will tell my children the story of someone who once drove – or tried to drive – through the blizzard of 1993 just to get some personal items for the young people stuck at the church, snowed in during a retreat. I will tell them about how he once caught me imitating him and how he shook his head in disappointment, not because it was rude, but because my impression was so bad.
When you think about the teacher or mentor or friend that contributed to who you are today, whom do you think about? Got it? Can you see him or her? Good. Now tell that story to someone.
Be a witness to the lives of others and the gift they gave so freely.