FR. DICK MCGARRITY,SJ PRESIDENT THE JESUIT PARNERSHIP

We often talk about mission here at the Jesuit Partnership. The Partnership’s mission and the mission of the Jesuits are part of our daily dialog and discussions.

Simply stated, our Partnership mission is to assist the Society of Jesus. We do this by securing friends and charitable contributions. Together we work to support the recruitment, training and education of Jesuits; to care for our elder, infirm Jesuits; to advance international missionary activities; and to promote ministries of faith and justice. More simply stated, we support the Jesuit mission.

Like Jesuits worldwide, we in the Wisconsin Province are devoted to accompanying others to Christ while cultivating and living a faith in which the promotion of justice is essential. The service of faith and the promotion of justice drive our purpose, our actions, and our individual lives and unify all our ministries. But words and mission statements are meaningless without people to carry them out.

Over the years I’ve been privileged to know many Jesuits from around the world, good men devoted to the mission that ultimately ties us all together – living out our Catholic faith.

Like all Christians, Jesuits are called in Baptism to use the gifts God gives us to bring about His reign, to heal, to spread the Good News, to make comfortable the afflicted, and to remind the comfortable that all is gift and that our gifts must be shared, not just by what we give, but by how we give of ourselves.

All this brings me to Fr. Bob Frommelt, SJ, a man who always gave of himself in a most inspiring way and whose obituary appears on page 20 of this publication. By custom all the obituaries in this magazine are relatively uniform. But I could not let Bob’s passing go so quietly. He was not, in the usual sense, a truly prominent or renowned Jesuit. But he was about as fine a Jesuit and a Christian as a person can be because of how he shared the gifts God bestowed on him, because of how he gave of himself, and because of what a devoted friend he was to the Partnership and all those whose lives he touched.

Bob was the oldest living Wisconsin Province Jesuit when he died in late September. Babe Ruth was still an active baseball player when Bob was a regent at Campion High School in the early 1930s. Bob later taught at Creighton Prep and Marquette High, among other Jesuit high schools. He was an associate pastor at Gesu Parish in Milwaukee, a minister at the Marquette University Jesuit Community; in short, he did a lot of things before “retiring“ in 1977.

Bob, like many elder Jesuits, never really retired. He continued in pastoral ministry, helped direct the Jesuit Mission Service, and worked at the Jesuit Partnership Office in varying capacities almost until the day he died. He did so many things.

But the thing about Bob isn’t so much what he did. The thing that makes Bob a hero in my mind, a man of mission, is how he conducted himself regardless of where he was or what he was doing. There was a gentle ease about him in the way he encountered and reached out to the people. He was more than approachable, accessible, and warm; he was engaging, inviting, and a good listener.

As Jesuits, we are called to be Christ for others. Bob, like our Savior, just loved being among the people and the people loved being with him. Especially children – they just gravitated to Bob, just as children flocked to Jesus.

By the essence of his actions, by the power of his love for others, by the joy in his laugh, and the joy he gave others, Bob lived his life in loving tribute to our Lord. And he did so in ways gentle and subtle, and as pleasing to God as the people who knew Bob were pleased to be in his company.

Even as we are comforted to know Bob is with God in the joy of eternal life, we continue to love him and wish he were with us still.