{"id":3270,"date":"2008-01-30T11:18:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/my-confessor-my-friend.html"},"modified":"2008-01-30T11:18:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T11:18:00","slug":"my-confessor-my-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/my-confessor-my-friend.html","title":{"rendered":"“My confessor, my friend”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader in South Carolina sent this column <\/a> along with a note: “This guy sounds like a great priest.” <\/p>\n

He sure does: <\/p>\n

There are people who stand by you. People who inspire you. People you imagine will always be there \u2014 because how could you live without their presence?<\/p>\n

My priest, Tim Lijewski, was one of those.<\/p>\n

I say was because the unthinkable has happened: Tim has been transferred to a parish in North Augusta after more than a decade with us at the USC chapel.<\/p>\n

It seemed that the announcement was made and he vanished. Poof!<\/p>\n

Our loss, their gain. There\u2019s much truth in that cliche.<\/p>\n

I first met Father Tim years ago, while I covered USC and the state\u2019s other universities. He was in shorts and a very sweaty T-shirt, schlepping kids\u2019 footlockers and other necessities into Preston dorm.<\/p>\n

I had a notepad. Looking at him made me feel quite lucky that\u2019s all I had to carry that steamy day.<\/p>\n

I must say he was impressive for the amount of sweat that bathed him and for the redness of his face under exertion \u2014 it was almost as red as his carrot-colored hair.<\/p>\n

Here was a priest who didn\u2019t content himself with sermonizing. He put his back into helping the students he would serve. And many who weren\u2019t Catholic, too: I\u2019m sure he didn\u2019t determine denomination before he lugged his burdens up the stairs. He probably didn\u2019t even identify himself as a priest.<\/p>\n

I began attending Thomas More parish at the U a year or so after that first meeting, in the final days of my first marriage.<\/p>\n

I had been through a couple of counseling sessions with my own parish priest. When I visited him the second time about my difficulties, he said something along the lines of, \u201cHaven\u2019t you fixed this yet?\u201d and I fled. I had heard Father Tim was a helpful confessor, and I needed that.<\/p>\n

He was. I would visit with him after weekday Masses, which I ducked out of work at lunchtime to attend.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we scheduled our confessor-penitent talks. Sometimes we just chatted informally on something that particularly plagued me, or on which I needed advice.<\/p>\n

I know Tim\u2019s wise counsel helped me through my divorce and the subsequent years of injury and illness. He never cut me a break, though \u2014 he toed the official line on what is considered right and wrong \u2014 but he didn\u2019t judge me. He pushed me to do more but to always be true to myself while improving my relationship with God.<\/p>\n

During one time I was feeling particularly down, there came a Sunday that involved sprinkling of Mass attendants with holy water. As a few drops splashed against my face, I heard his voice in my ear saying, \u201cSee? It didn\u2019t even sizzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was so Tim. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a>. For anyone who has ever grieved over a priest being reassigned — or wondered where all the good priests have gone — this will resonate. <\/p>\n

A cheerful h\/t to Palmetto State Thoughts<\/a> for sending it along. Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader in South Carolina sent this column along with a note: “This guy sounds like a great priest.” He sure does: There are people who stand by you. People who inspire you. People you imagine will always be there \u2014 because how could you live without their presence? My priest, Tim Lijewski, was one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n"My confessor, my friend" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/my-confessor-my-friend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""My confessor, my friend" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader in South Carolina sent this column along with a note: “This guy sounds like a great priest.” He sure does: There are people who stand by you. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}