The following story first appeared in the Summer 2006 Glenmary Challenge.
For a free copy of the next issue

Musing Over the Message of Creation
Father Jack McNearney upacked the mystery of salvation for the average and the philosophical.
By Father John S. Rausch

GOD LOVES US: Father Jack teaching in Franklin, N.C., where he was assistant pastor from 1963-65.

Like an urban monk in his modest Kingsport, Tenn., apartment, Father Jack McNearney’s daily schedule in his senior years seldom varied: He read, reflected and wrote. An early riser, he prayed the breviary then celebrated Mass. After his daily chores, he settled in his Laz-Z-Boy and opened some heavy tome to contemplate—sometimes, cosmology!

His reading was encyclopedic, from science to Scripture. He often mentioned to friends that systematic theology could really come alive with a grasp of quantum mechanics. At his death, March 27, his clothing fit in one small suitcase. His books needed a U-Haul!

Father Jack, a veteran of World War II, came to Glenmary in 1954 after having worked in business. In discerning his religious vocation, he discovered that “Glenmary worked in small towns and the parishes were small,” and this satisfied his desire to remain close to the people.

For a half century, Father Jack kept a journal recording the easily forgettable details of early mission life. As a seminarian in 1956, for example, he recorded that he helped with tent preaching in Hayesville, N.C., that lasted from June 15-20, noting the average attendance each night to be 35 people.

His writing captured what fascinated him and initially attracted him to Glenmary—the faith stories of ordinary people. In 1962 he recalled visiting a family near Idabel, Okla. The husband confided in Father Jack that some evenings after work he would drive into the mountains and contemplate God for 30 minutes till a great peace descended on him. Father Jack wrote, “I assured him he was probably enjoying the prayer of quiet, and that he should continue his visits to the mountains whenever possible.”

Father Jack wrote that the extremely hot and humid weather in Oklahoma altered his ministry. “Our rectory was not air conditioned, but the hospital was; so I spent many hours visiting the sick that summer.” He found one man in a coma, unable to speak for over a month. He asked the man to squeeze his hand, if he could hear him. “He squeezed my hand very hard. I then asked him if he was sorry for his sins. Again he squeezed my hand. I gave him absolution and Extreme Unction. He died that night.”

Over the years, Father Jack ministered in a variety of ways from pastoring mission parishes to Glenmary administration. He served a term as first vice-president, codirected the Glenmary personnel office and taught Special Year (Glenmary’s former novitiate program). He helped found Group 7, a society of lay persons and families who worked in Glenmary mission areas. He was the last Glenmary pastor in Sylva, N.C., and oversaw its successful transition to diocesan care.

Always wondering, Father Jack once took a sabbatical to study astronomy: “The real plus of this course was that it gave me a feeling that we live in a galactic-centered universe,” he wrote.

His mind wrapped around questions. He read voraciously because he believed: “It is not enough to repeat the tradition. It must be interpreted to meet contemporary experience.”

As a Glenmary missioner, Father Jack endeavored to unpack the mystery of salvation to the ordinary person or the quizzical philosopher. He felt at home with both—in between his own meditations on the grandeur of God and creation.