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I’m in El Paso today on a work project. Nice place. I’ve only ever driven through on I-10 before so staying downtown last night and walking around San Jacinto Plaza was a treat for me.
This morning I was blessed to attend Mass at the FSSP parish, Immaculate Conception, which is also downtown. It’s easy to forget that one is only mere blocks from Mexico in this place (at least at an early hour when few are out).
The priest was a young man. Let me retract that. He was a boy of five who clearly woke up today and decided to play man, combing his hair neatly, roughing up his face so he could look like he shaved, and stretching his vocal chords attempting to drop into a high baritone. I tease because of his youthful vigor and appearance but boy was he inspiring in his deep reverence. Seriously, pray for him and for more like him.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church (FSSP), El Paso, TX
Speaking of new levels, these folks need to up their acronym game…
I graduated college in 1999 with my BA. Regular readers will note that I was at that time in the college seminary in Newark, yes, McCarrick’s Newark. When I entered at the age of 18 I was fairly naive about how seminaries operated. In Teddy’s joint, aside from the obvious rampant faggotry, it worked like this. Seminarians were instructed to take out federal student loans. Upon ordination, the archdiocese would pay off these loans and the new priest would then be indebted to the archbishop for life or thirty years, whichever came first.
I didn’t question this system. I just wanted to be a priest. And so I matriculated in to the much pricier major seminary and came within six credits of earning an MA before being given the boot, ostensibly for being Catholic. Six months later some broad named Sallie Mae started hitting on me. In other words, I got the bill. And boy, was it astronomical.
That’s around the time I started waking up and realized that the whole system was a sham – both the education-government complex and the archdiocese. I knew justice was not being met here. They got rid of me for not going along with their filth (which I had never bargained for) and then I got stuck with the tab. One might ask, “But didn’t you get an education out of it?” Sure. I even went back on my own to get that MA because I had started teaching and it would help boost my salary. But the two degrees coupled with a dollar will just about get you a cup of coffee at Tops Diner, as they say.
I started paying them back. I consolidated. I paid more back. Did I mention this was a lot of money?
And then as part of a work requirement I had to take out even more for another Masters Degree! Oh I had woken up but not fully yet. Ever wonder why I loathe the education system? As a student I had to teach myself and as a teacher I was barred from teaching the Truth.
Flash forward to 2018. I learned of a program the feds were running that would forgive the student loans of anyone who had made ten years of payments while also working for non-profits. Sounds like me, except, I had consolidated and put the loans in deferment for that second Masters. So I was just shy of the decade mark. I gave up.
And then the world ground to a halt in 2020. Absolutely no one had to pay anything to anyone for three years. That’s when I discovered there was a waiver allowing me to count the whole time as having been paid even though it clearly wasn’t because hey, lies or something.
I applied.
I contacted all of my previous employers. Again, I don’t agree with the system as a whole but if these loopholes are there, I’m taking them. After a year I found out that one of my past employers had left the phone number off of the form and it had been tossed.
Two months ago I set out on a final mission to get that one form corrected.
All the while, I was ramping up my petitions to my dear patron. “St. Rita, I pray for the total eradication of this debt.”
She was listening.
One month ago I learned that the form had been accepted and I now had well over ten years worth of payments under my belt in total. But there was one catch. The final caveat in the paperwork stated that I had to be currently employed by a non-profit to qualify. “Rats,” I thought. “What can we do about this now?”
I made one final push to St. Rita. “Please, dear friend, guide these documents into the hands of someone who is either stupid or who doesn’t care.”
This past weekend I received three roses as a gift from a friend. They were for my wife and me. Very pretty. I knew something was up as I had just really started storming heaven with this prayer.
This afternoon I opened my email.
“Congratulations and thank you for your service. At this time no further payments are required on this account.”
Glory be to God and thanks be to St. Rita because this was about as impossible as it gets! I’m having a Mass said in thanksgiving for her patronage.
My point in this long tale is to hopefully inspire you not to give up. “For nothing shall be impossible with God…”
Keep praying and know that my prayers for all of you remain in effect.
And now I can go to bed tonight knowing that the last vestige of anything still tying me to McCarrick’s seminary are finally burned.
St. Rita, patron of impossible causes, pray for us!
And look! Mother Cabrini (feast day today) lurks in the background. 😂
PS: those other two roses I got? I’m convinced they’re for the other two big intentions I’ve had going for a while. Have courage and have faith.
Many years ago through an unusual set of circumstances and a mutual friend I was introduced to a woman who, at the time, was an editor at Human Life International’s Celebrate Life Magazine. She spoke with me by phone and made what I thought was an odd request.
“I want you to write a 3,000 word essay on the topic [we had just been discussing].”
Never having written anything professionally, I hesitated. And yet, this woman was determined to get an article out of me.
A month later, with almost no revisions from her, the article ran as the cover story that month. It may not have been the biggest of deals nor was it in the largest circulation, but it was my work with my name and I was humbled and proud at the same time.
And I was thankful to this woman for seeing something in me and pressing me to write.
Flash forward a few years. I had begun writing my blog. I ran into my friend at a college alumni event. Over a few cigarettes and glasses of wine we discussed all manner of things literary.
“You haven’t written in a while,” she said to me.
I told her I didn’t know if anyone was reading my work and asked her what the point was.
“Keep writing,” she said to me. “Even if only one person reads it, you have a gift and God expects you to use it.”
Last night I was saddened to learn of the passing of my friend, Anita Crane.
In your charity, please offer many prayers and sacrifices for the repose of her soul. If any priests read this and would like to offer a requiem for her soul, please email me and I will get a stipend to you.
And if even only one person reads this, I will consider my job done.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with love for sinful man, have mercy on us!
13th Station, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Tyler, TX
“Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, shall find watching. Amen I say to you, he will set him over all his goods.”
All of us must be watchful.
And Bishop Strickland, I hope you remember that Corporation Sole means just you, Your Excellency.
Update:
I drove to Tyler this morning after Mass. I was already headed that way to bring my son to visit a friend who had moved out here. After dropping him off, I headed over to the Cathedral of the Diocese. I knelt before the Tabernacle which also put me pretty squarely in front of the bishop’s cathedra. I prayed there for Bishop Strickland that God would give him the courage to fight this evil.
BISHOP STRICKLAND’S cathedra, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Tyler, TX
Other than a photographer wrapping up from a quincianera, the place was dead. I thought to myself, “How odd that this is the center of the Catholic news cycle on this dreary November day…”
Crowning with Thorns, stained glass, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Tyler, TX. The fruit of this mystery of the rosary is FORTITUDE.
Folks, I got off all that social media nonsense a while ago. Sorry but I'm not on Twitbook, Facepalm, YouHu, WingWang or any of the others. Maybe an event will happen to make me change my mind like Peter and Paul coming down with flaming swords and commanding it be so. Until then, read the blog and if you feel a comment is in order or you feel like sharing a tip or suggestion for a topic, email me at harvey@harveymillican.com.
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 