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PAGE 3—THE SOUTHERN CROSS, Thursday, September 7,1972
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Mrs. Theresa McDonald
MR. AND MRS. McDONALD and their twelve children in 1926. The future bishop is seated in his
father’s lap.
The Making of a Bishop
rounding of his priestly character. Father
McDonald was also assigned to Father
Don McCarthy at Port Wentworth as his
assistant. The parishioners there still
remember fondly the image of the young
enthusiastic priest so devotedly and ably
assisting the sickly old priest worn out
with his labors in the vineyard of the
Lord.
If all these priestly comrades and
devoted parishioners helped mature the
priestly character of our future Bishop,
what can we say of the exemplary and
outstanding influence of your former
Bishop, Thomas J. McDonough? It was a
real blessing from Heaven and without
doubt, part of God’s inscrutible plan, that
this outstanding Churchman should
stamp the impress of his own character
upon Msgr. McDonald.
For by this time, his talent had been
recognized by the Holy See and he was
made a Papal Chamberlain in 1956 and
three years later, a Domestic Prelate with
the title of Right Reverend Monsignor.
In addition to these influences in his
life, my dear friends, I am sure your
Pastor would list still another decisive
factor in his maturing and growth
process. It is YOU. For 9 productive and
happy years you have really helped him.
You, his flock, so tenderly cared for, so
diligently looked after, have seasoned him
in his priesthood. Your cooperation, your
loyalty, your friendship have encouraged
him in his work, lightened his burden and
made sweet his yoke.
Dearly beloved, years of service, keen
intellect, and proven virtue were traits of
Andrew McDonald easily recognized by
all who knew him. And so, in reality, it
comes as no great surprise to any of us
that our Holy Father, Pope Paul, has so
recently chosen him as the 5th Bishop of
Little Rock. All the 48 years of his life,
his home training, his seminary career and
the varied and marvelous influences of his
priestly life, all have combined to bring
your beloved Pastor to this new threshold
of his life, to the beginning of this second
important journey Westward.
My dear friends, 15 centuries ago, the
great St. Augustine who was the Bishop
of Hippo in Northern Africa said to his
flock: “What I am for you terrifies me;
what I am with you, consoles me. For
you, I am a Shepherd but with you, I am
a Christian. The former is a duty; the
latter is a grace.”
Msgr. McDonald is to become a Bishop.
It is a duty and it can well terrify a
mortal man. But he is first and foremost a
Christian. This is indeed a grace and a
consolation. His obligations will be grave,
his responsibilities, heavy. But your
prayers will sustain and strengthen him in
the days ahead.
Bishop-Designate McDonald, I am
privileged now to speak not just for
myself but for your devoted family and
friends. May I quote for you the words of
Paul to his flock at Corinth: “Jesus said
to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for
in weakness, power reaches perfection.’
And so I willingly boast of my
weaknesses instead, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me. For when I am
powerless, it is then that I am strong.
Even though I am nothing, I am in no
way inferior to the super Apostles.
Indeed, I have performed among you
with great patience the signs that show
the Apostle, signs and wonders and deeds
of power.”
Indeed, Your Excellency, you have
done just that among us. Upon you will
be conferred the fullness of the
Priesthood; you are about to become a
successor of the Apostles. We have every
confidence that ycu will be worthy of
this great and high office.
You go from among us with our best
wishes and prayers. You take with you a
part of ourselves for each of us gives you
a part of our hearts. We ask in return only
a remembrance in your prayers.
mm
BISHOP MCDONALD AND FATHER JOSEPH WARE received the
Order of subdiaconate together in 1947. On front page, Father Ware is
shown escorting the bishop into the Cathedral for his ordination to the
Episcopacy.
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After successfully defending his thesis,
he was awarded the Doctrate in Canon
Law.
LITTLE DID HIS FAMILY KNOW, when they posed with him for this snapshot after
his First Solemn Mass in May, 1948, that he was a future bishop.
Ordination picture - 1948
WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? There’s a bishop in this photo. Bishop McDonald is
shown at the far right in the back row in this childhood photo taken in 1938.
In Catonsville, at St. Charles College,
the Sulpician Fathers, whose lives are
totally dedicated to the training and
formation of priests, saw too in their
young student the basic virtues of
charity, humility and faith. The example
of their priestly lives and their competent
teaching ability quickly brought to their
peak the outstanding qualities of intellect
and will which have been so characteristic
of Bishop McDonald.
After graduating with honors from St.
Charles, he pursued his course of studies
at St. Mary’s Seminary in the Philosophy
department at Paca Street and two years
later at the Theology House at Roland
Park. The Seminary discipline, the
constant example of his priestly mentors,
and daily contact with Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament steadily and surely
brought to full bloom the qualities so
necessary in an aspirant to the
Priesthood.
Those of you who knew him as a boy
were privileged to see with each passing
summer vacation his constant growth in
prayer and virtue.
And finally that great and glorious day
dawned, so long and so ardently desired,
the day of priestly ordination, May 8,
1948. No words of mine can ever
adequately describe the exaltation the
seraphic joy that fills the soul of a newly
ordained priest.
ON THE DAY OF HIS ORDINATION to the priesthood, May 8, 1948, four of his
sisters who had preceded him into a life of dedicated service to Christ were on hand to
witness the ordination and join him in this photo.
To be another Christ, to walk among
men as a dispenser of the mysteries of
God, to relieve men of the burden of
their sins, to make Christ present again in
the saving mystery of the Eucharistic,
such is the duty and privilege of the
Priest.
The newly ordained Father McDonald,
however, was to exercise his ministry at
the Cathedral only three months before
being assigned to further studies in Canon
Law at the Catholic University in
Washington, and then from 1949 to 1951
at the Appolinarus in Rome.
BISHOP McDONALD HAS ALWAYS BEEN CLOSE to the Sisters and the children of
St. Mary’s Home for dependent children in Savannah. He is shown with the youngsters
and Archbishop Thomas J. McDonough, then bishop of Savannah, in a 1960
photograph.
Such knowledge and intellectual
prowess were not to be wasted. Upon his
return from Rome in the Fall of 1951,
Father McDonald was assigned to the
Chancery and to the marriage Tribunal
where he gathered invaluable
experience which will soon stand him in
good stead. Under the aegis of the
renowned and venerable Msgr. T. James
McNamara, Father McDonald learned the
worth of human friendship and he
developed a real feel for the history of
the Diocese from Msgr. Moylan, of happy
memory.
Such men as Bishop Hyland and Msgr.
Brennan also contributed to the full
(Partial text of a talk delivered August
27th at a parish reception held at Blessed
Sacrament parish hall for Bishop Andrew
J. McDonald. The talk was given by
Monsignor John U. Lyness, pastor of St.
Patrick’s parish, Cumberland, Md. and a
very close friend of bishop McDonald for
many years.)
To tread all the labyrinthian ways
which have shaped and moulded the mind
and spirit of Bishop McDonald would be
beyond the scope and the ability of this
poor preacher. But as his devoted friend
and loyal admirer for so many years, let
me try to outline briefly some of the
outstanding influences that have brought
him to this happy day.
James and Theresa McDonald were the
parents of twelve children. They were a
hard-working, devoted couple whose first
and most important task in life was the
training of their children in the
fundamental truths of their Catholic
Faith. To this end they labored
constantly, often at the cost of great
personal sacrifice. But labor they did and
the success of their labors can be seen in
the truly Catholic lives of their off-spring.
Andrew Joseph was the eleventh of
their twelve children and from his
infancy, he was surrounded by the care
and concern of his devoted parents and
brothers and sisters whose very lives
reflected the true meaning of love and
sacrifice. Hence, the living of basic
Christian virtues was as natural and
commonplace as the air they breathed
and the food they ate. Is it any wonder
then that the McDonald family gave 5 of
its twelve to the service of the Lord in His
Holy Temple? Do not the life and
example of those heroic parents speak to
us today of the necessity of a strong,
deep and vivid faith lived day by day in
the midst of a shallow and profane
world?