Fr. Tony Lalli, s.x.

33 Years a Priest: "They Call me Father"

Fr. Tony Lalli - from the Xaverian Mission Newsletter

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Photo from our history book: ordination of 1966, with Frs. Ivan, Gratian, Dominic and Tony, in Milwaukee

Over 33 years ago, four of us, Dominic, Ivan, Gratian, and myself, were young men full of dreams. We wanted to save the world, and were ready to go to any corner of the earth. 

One stormy January 22nd, Archbishop Cousins of Milwaukee, WI, laid his hands over our heads and gave us an order. He said, “Preach the Word of God, announce salvation in Jesus.” He also said, “Receive sinners and those who have no hope.” And still more he said, “Baptize, celebrate the Bread of God, join the faithful in marriage, bury the dead. Celebrate with the people all that is important for the people.”

Soon after the ceremony was over I heard someone call me Father. I was still on cloud nine to realize its full impact there and then. On that day, I became father to 70 and 90 year old folks, to young couples, to the children of these couples, father to all who today still call me Father. And Father is what I am. I cherish being called by that name. That’s what the Church made the four of us on that day, and makes all who one day embraced this daring idea to be spiritual fathers to a people not their own.

The Church ordains us to announce that there is God, that this God is a Father, that God has an only beloved Son, that because of this Son we’re all God’s sons and daughters, that this Son was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth, had a mother who was very special, said beautiful and profound things about how to live as one and about how and why to die; taught a new way to be persons and people, took on our pain, died, conquered death, rose again and is now alive, living and acting in those who make their own His dreams and His designs for humankind. If we do this well and with tenderness, people will call us Father. In some way we pass on to them the divine life they live by. We are not better than these folks who ask for us and need us to be the good and genuine people they’re called to be. And even those who are better educated and know more than we know accept our word because they believe that we have something that they have not received, a demanding gift to point to Jesus Christ and to his pardon and love.

In a world full of orphans-of-the-infinite we can re-father them by showing them a Father, a Son, and a Spirit who make them one and give them serenity. It is in the name of these Three that we are prophets of a love that is born in the family and is mirrored through the whole world.

Fr. Tony together with some friends in Brazil

I wanted to be celebrant of the Sacred Mysteries and preacher of the Word. And the bishop told me “Go.” As a Xaverian missionary, I took that to mean “Go where Christ is needed the most, where he is known the least. Teach the people to love well. And try to love them as a father, without fear or discouragement. Without love, you will never be a father in truth. You will not have a family because the people will be your family.” I have also slowly discovered that a priest is a father to the extent that he does not lose touch with the people who keep us in touch with God. The more a priest does and goes on his own the less father he becomes, and the less he loves God. I have also come to realize that the people of God want a confessor and a counselor, exacting perhaps but gentle and patient, want men who speak simple words, which all can understand; want tellers of stories that make sense; and finally want a father who spiritually takes the people by the hand and leads them to Someone very important and says, “Speak with God. It’s God I have been pointing to all this time.”

I was 26 years old when a bishop sent me in the name of Jesus to love with the heart of a father, a people I did not know, and to walk with them to walk of life. And on that journey I have heard people ask of God, and of us, answers to questions they have, questions about life and God, about death and its thereafter, questions about goodness, faith, love, justice; about Jesus and salvation; about a new order for a society more just, a Church more relevant; politics more human, authority and leaders more authentic, always aware that I am a man of the Church and of God, and not a man of a party or faction… Many questions, often difficult answers. And the answers, though personal in tone, have to be drawn from the answers the Church has been giving. Because as prophets, we Fathers only pass on what we receive from the Church. Our word alone is too fragile and at times, not unreliable. Did I succeed in all this? Does it matter? The Lord only asks that we bear fruit. And by God’s grace I shall continue to seek that, wary of being removed too long from pastoral duty. Because we have to see faith working in the lives of common folk, the poor, the ignorant, the dispossessed. There we know the dignity of need and the gratitude of a shared suffering. There doubts are overcome and fears too.

God know I’ve often recoiled and also failed, before the challenge, but Father is what I am, father to the people of God. The Lord grant that I, and my confreres Fr.s Dominic, Ivan and Gratian, be found faithful all our life’s remaining days. And the bishop said, “Go, my son, in peace and in the name of God!”

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