Fr. Joseph Nassal’s 1995 “Faithwalkers” book awakens Lenten memories of a simpler time

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Precious Blood Father Joseph Nassal was out on the links with fellow priests of the Jefferson City diocese.

It was Clergy Golf Day, June 8, 1987.

Father John Groner came up to him at the 10th hole and said Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe needed to talk to him.

“So I went to the bishop’s house,” the priest recalled. “I’ll never forget the compassion and care Bishop McAuliffe shared as he told me I needed to call my mom and dad.”

Fr. Nassal’s brother had died by suicide.

Years later, the priest wrote about the “the conspiracy of compassion” he experienced at that time among his family, fellow members of the Missionary Society of the Most Precious Blood, and the people of this diocese.

“I remember the spirit, the compassion that people shared with me at that time,” he said. “It created quite a bond, I think, that exists to this day.”

He also tied it into the Fifth Station of the Cross — “Simon Helps Jesus Carry His Cross” — in Faithwalkers: Passages of Suffering and Hope, his 1995 collection of meditations on the Stations of the Cross.

“I remember at my brother’s funeral, an old classmate of mine used a prayer that gave me the courage to name my brother’s pain of mental illness,” said Fr. Nassal. “He gave me what I needed to carry that cross.”

Now about to complete his second term as provincial of the Precious Blood Fathers’ Kansas City Province, Fr. Nassal thinks back to the two years he spent as associate pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Sedalia.

“Those were two of the best years of my Priesthood,” he said in a recent telephone interview.

Having only been ordained a few years, he learned and experienced a lot while ministering alongside Precious Blood Father Bill Walter and the late Brother Robert Herman.

“I taught at the high school, and I still hear from students I taught,” he said. “The people were fantastic. It was a great faith community.”

He added that “Bishop McAuliffe and the priests of the diocese were very welcoming and hospitable.”

During his time in Sedalia, Fr. Nassal preached the homily at the Funeral Mass of Precious Blood Father Anthony G. Kraff, who died in 1986 while serving as pastor of St. Patrick parish in Sedalia.

Sedalia’s Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree assembly now bears Fr. Kraff’s name.

An ardent St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, Fr. Nassal enjoyed ribbing the Kansas City Royals fans who constituted the majority of his congregants at Mass in Sedalia and Bahner.

They got the last laugh on him when the Royals beat the Cardinals in the 1985 World Series.

“I’m still hearing about it!” he said. “But we had a lot of fun with that. I think it helped us forge a bond.”

It would be Fr. Nassal’s last parish assignment for many years. He pursued retreat and parish renewal work after completing his assignment in Sedalia in 1987.

Over time, people shared stories with him while he was giving retreats and visiting parishes to lead missions. With their permission, he incorporated some of those stories into future retreats.

A Lenten retreat he gave in the early 1990s became the basis for Faithwalkers, which was his first book.

The title comes from 2 Corinthians 5:7 — “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

“It’s written in kind of a poetic style,” he said. “Each Station has its own story or a personal reflection of someone I knew or a general observation about where we were at that time.

“Of course, things have changed a lot since then,” he noted.

Faithwalkers is out of print now, but people still find copies to use for their Lenten reflections. Several parishes have asked for permission to adapt portions of it for Lenten liturgies.

Precious Blood Father Keith Branson, who served pastor of St. Ann parish in Warsaw and the Mission of Ss. Peter and Paul in Cole Camp from 2006 to 2012, set portions of Faithwalkers to music. Students at Avila University in Kansas City performed it on a Friday in Lent in 2015.

“Basically, (Fr. Branson has) done that with a lot of my writing,” said Fr. Nassal. “Like different poems I’ve written, he’s put to music. Mainly songs of spirituality for our Precious Blood community.”

Preaching hope and restoration through Christ’s sacrifice is one of the main gifts the Holy Spirit bestows on the Church and the world through the Missionary Society of the Precious Blood.

“Our whole charism is one of reconciliation, of drawing all people near through the Blood of the cross,” said Fr. Nassal.

That phrase, from Ephesians 2:13, became the episcopal motto of Bishop Joseph M. Marling, a Precious Blood Father who was founding bishop of the Jefferson City diocese.

Fr. Nassal noted that the Missionary Society of the Precious Blood was founded in 1815 to bring renewal to the parts of modern-day Italy that had fallen into spiritual disarray after Napoleon’s occupation.

“Our founder, St. Gaspar, was a priest in Rome,” he said. “He went into exile when Napoleon was in charge. The Holy Father then asked him to preach renewal to the people who had sold out to Napoleon.”

Members of the society have been serving in what is now the Jefferson City diocese for over 130 years. That enduring connection will cease when Precious Blood Father Mark Miller, pastor of the Sedalia parishes and the Bahner mission, retires this summer.

Fr. Nassal said he hopes to return to giving retreats and missions after his term as provincial expires, and to revise and update books such as Faithwalkers for a new audience.

Meanwhile, “I will always have fond memories of my days at Sacred Heart and St. John the Evangelist,” he said.

http://preciousbloodkc.org/fr-joe-nassal

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