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One Step Ahead
It was night on the Miles Jesu orange grove in Phoenix. He was in the moonlight, I was shaded under a tree in the orange grove. Paul was only one step away from me... Fr. Vota always seemed one step ahead. On my birthdays I would tell him, “we’re the same age now,” and six weeks later he’d say, “not any more!” Before we met, each of us had done a stint in Berkeley, California, a place at the time (late 60’s, early 70’s) that symbolized the radical severing of roots, rearing and religion. Paul arrived there first and got out of there first. He clipped his waist long locks, stopped his chants to the guru and followed our Lord’s call to Baseline Road in Phoenix. He was well settled there by the time I strolled in still unsheared. He became my guardian angel guiding me into the new world of consecrated life with its rules and regulations—a life so different from what I had been used to! ...This was in March of 1976 when you could get a quart bottle of Bud for $1. It was my fifth evening in Miles Jesu and I had just spent my last buck on a brew when Paul was one step away strolling down the moonlit dirt road behind the house saying his rosary. I needed to talk and probably startled him as I came out from under that tree clutching the bottle behind my back. I knew it was time to resolve certain issues with the help of my guardian angel and sever ties to my immediate past. Paul was always willing to listen. I told him I had to do something first, took the bottle of beer and poured it into the dust. Then we talked things out. He understood “where I was coming from.” Thank God, he did! There weren’t too many of us Berkeleyites at the time who were turning or returning to the Church. It’s not easy to catch the Miles Jesu lay character, but Paul helped me to grasp it. One afternoon, he and I were burning weeds and irrigating the grove. There was a man across the street doing exactly the same thing. Paul asked me if I knew what the difference was between the other man and us. He told me that the man was working for money and we, who were consecrated to God, were meriting graces for ourselves and others (cf. CC 2025). That explanation solidified my vocation in Miles Jesu, and I then realized that we were involved in a serious business. Once again Paul was a step ahead of me, first working at a factory and then going on to Rome . They liked to call him “Pope Paul” at the tool and die factory, on the outskirts of Cincinnati . The workers respected our brothers who worked there, observing that the new men didn’t chew tobacco or cuss. The owners of the factory also had high regard and on one occasion consulted them on a labor-ethic question. A few years later when Paul was sent to study at Christendom College, two positions opened another member and I easily got them on his recommendation (but did not so easily replace him, as neither of us was as skilled with precision machinery and power tools!) A few years later Paul was sent to the seminary in Rome and had been there a step ahead of me for six months when I landed in January of 1982. Paul had the mental power to synthesize his theology classes and boil them down into a palatable puree. He usually finished his homework early so I didn’t feel like I was imposing when i would ask him to help me understand my lessons. He was a good teacher and could explain subtle ideas to me taking examples from baseball, basketball, football, gardening and surfing to mesh Aristotle’s philosophy with my meager mental structures. Paul was always available to help the rest of us, with his own work done ahead of time. The practice of asceticism was in Paul’s daily diet, but his greatest mortification was air travel. In the summer of 1984 that we were headed to Bombay via Karachi on a Pakistan Air flight. Paul noted that every time the pilot referred to our arrival time he would add inshallah, (“if God wills it”). That reminder was true enough, but quite disconcerting for someone who was already jumpy about flying. The fear factor peaked when, somewhere over the great Saudi Desert , the plane felt like it was dropping out of the sky: a fabulous adrenaline rush for me, but a moment of terror for Paul. The free fall experience lasted for the space of the perfect act of contrition that Paul prayed.
One step ahead as usual, Fr. Vota beat me to Puerto Rico in 1995. He had spent about a year there before I arrived; at least I could be with him for the two weeks that our assignments overlapped. He advised me to just love those Puerto Ricans in God's love and they would melt. The night before Fr. Vota left the island , I witnessed the effect of his care of the people. The parishners had organized a farewell party and. hundreds of people came to express their appreciation. People of all ages who had been touched by Fr. Vota stood in a long line to receive his personal blessing and to bid him farewell. It reminded me of the scene in the Acts of the Apostles when the Ephesians with many tears were bidding farewell to St. Paul . Often people would come to Fr. Vota with serious problems. How effective he was in giving them solace and offering practical solutions! He stuck by people as long as their troubles lasted. He was gifted too in pacifying people who were perturbed or perhaps even tormented. He related to me his technique in dealing with such people and I am grateful because what worked for him worked for me on several occasions. There was certainly no magic involved, only being the instrument of the Lord’s healing and peace. Father Vota was a “priest’s priest,” making solid friendships with priests in Nigeria, Chicago, Puerto Rico, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and everywhere in between. He would win them over with his joyful personality and then would challenge them to a tennis match or basketball game and would top it off by making it a spiritual alliance. He was the confessor and director of many priests and priests were always asking for him. After having been in Czech Republic and Slovakia for a couple of years, he was still complaining about how difficult the language was and what a piece of cake learning Spanish and Italian was in comparison. But then I heard a little later that this same complainer was broadcasting on the radio in Slovakia and that apart from a definitively American accent his ideas were clearly expressed and easily understood! (But the rest of us wouldn’t have expected anything less from Fr. Vota!). Fr. Vota was in our Banska Bystrica, Slovakia community at the time his illness was diagnosed, having been active in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic for several years. Like Nigeria, the community in Slovakia which he was forced to leave due to his illness continues to thrive. Although it is painful to lose our brother Paul, we nonetheless admire him for his resignation to God’s will and his grit, going out “fighting the good fight,”faithful to the very end. And so now he is still “one step ahead,” going first to that final goal. Thank you, Lord, for giving us such a brother and for allowing him to share in your sacrifice and help bring down your graces on us, on our families. We lift up our brother to You, Who are the “Step Ahead” into Eternal Life. |
Editor's Note: After struggling with cancer for two and a half years, Fr. Paul Vota, MJ, passed away November 26th, 2009. Fr. Vota helped many people in their journey toward Christ. During his last few weeks before his death, Fr. Vota repeatedly expressed his desire to see God. Among many other accomplishments, Fr. Vota co-authored the Litany for Unity, a communal prayer asking God the Father to grant the whole Church that unity which his Son implored for us at the last supper. Now we entrust Fr. Vota into the hands of our Father and know that he will intercede for all the members of Miles Jesu in a powerful way to help us attain and hold fast to that unity we need in our faith family.
In 1985 Pope John Paul II ordained Fr. Vota to the priesthood, making him the first Miles Jesu member to become a priest (our founder, Father Duran, had been ordained as a Claretian priest, transferring his vows to Miles Jesu in 1982). Soon afterwards he was sent to Nigeria and was amazed at the hundreds of bugs that joined him for his daily bath. It was in Nigeria that he created the “Jesus Encounter,” a mini retreat of two hours a day, for three days, designed for busy Catholics who had no time for bigger retreats. Many people were helped there and it became the solid base upon which Fr. Vota promoted and established Miles Jesu in Nigeria, where Miles Jesu continues to grow and flourish today. Fr. Vota’s priestly zeal was not so much in the sense of “conquering souls,” but genuinely loving people and drawing them to the irresistible love of God.