Behold the wood of the cross
The crucifix in Bishop-elect Ralph B. O’Donnell’s office is saturated with memory and meaning.
The image of Christ was carved in Oberammergau, Germany.
The bishop-elect’s uncle, the late Monsignor Edward O’Donnell, brought it home with him after serving as a U.S. Army chaplain in World War II.
The war was nowhere near won when the Omaha archdiocese’s future vicar general enrolled in chaplain school at Harvard University in 1943 and then shipped out to minister in the heart of the European hostilities.
He was in Belgium in 1944, the night before the pivotal Battle of the Bulge began.
“The head officer came and called all the officers together at about 9:30 and said they’d be moving out in the morning,” Bishop-elect O’Donnell recounted. “He said the casualties are expected to be high. Over 60 percent.”
Msgr. O’Donnell, who had been promoted to the rank of captain, didn’t want to scare the men but did want to give them a chance to go to Confession and present to him any letters they wanted to have mailed home.
“So, my uncle lined the men up and sat by his jeep and heard Confessions and blessed non-Catholic guys and received letters all night until they started to get ready at about 3:30 in the morning,” said Bishop-elect O’Donnell.
The battle began on Msgr. O’Donnell’s 30th birthday — Dec. 16, 1944 — when the Germans launched a surprise attack with thousands of troops and tanks, according to a 2011 article by Lisa Maxson of the Catholic Voice, news outlet of the Omaha archdiocese.
Msgr. O’Donnell served with an anti-aircraft battalion and was constantly on the move during the battle.
The bishop-elect has a photo of Msgr. O’Donnell praying at the burial place in Normandy, France, of his sister-in-law’s brother, Joseph Daugherty.
Joseph’s father, Patrick, was also serving in the war and got injured in battle.
Msgr. O’Donnell came to visit him in a field hospital after flying to Rome for an audience with Venerable Pope Pius XII and to attend Mass in the choir of Padre Pio.
The priest told Patrick, “The Alps are glorious!”
“They’re not when you’re crawling over ’em, Ed,” the soldier deadpanned.
Back in Omaha, Msgr. O’Donnell was occasionally reunited with people who had served in his unit during the War.
One of them, who had been an altar server for Msgr. O’Donnell in Belgium, helped sponsor Bishop-elect O’Donnell’s seminary studies.
The chaplain purchased the image of Christ and the carved banner proclaiming “INRI” in Germany from the same family that would create nearly 80 years later the crucifix and statues for the renovated Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City.
The priest carefully packed the carved image into a duffle bag and brought it safely back to the United States.
He said to his brother, a woodworker, “Johnny, I’d like you to put this on cross beams for me.”
“He was thinking something like maybe, some nice African walnut or mahogany,” Bishop-elect O’Donnell surmised.
Instead, the brother made a cross of old rugged oak.
“I was thinking of a little bit more grand of a piece of wood,” the older priest confided. “But Johnny was so happy, I didn’t have the heart to switch it.”
Msgr. O’Donnell displayed that crucifix prominently in his home and his office throughout his entire active ministry.
“When he retired, he gave it to me, another priest, for my office,” Bishop-elect O’Donnell recalled.
The bishop-elect has proudly displayed his uncle’s crucifix, the stain on the wood now having faded from decades of sunlight, in every office he’s occupied and will hang it in his new office in the Alphonse J. Schwartze Memorial Catholic Center in Jefferson City.
When Msgr. O’Donnell died in 2015, “Uncle Johnny’s” grandson, Father Patrick Sullivan, placed the crucifix atop the monsignor’s casket for the Funeral Mass.
“Now, how’s that for good Irish lore?” Bishop-elect O’Donnell asked. “How beautiful! See how God loves us?”
