Rev. Jim Ryan, Ph.D.
The ambitions of my Father were directed toward his children. In some circles, spiritually generated ambition is either nonexistent or unknown – or both. Rather than ambition that covets position, money, and power, my father took another path. Dad’s ambitions consisted of a belief in the servant life that draws on the depths of faith. His ambitions were of the sort that St. Paul could boast about when he wrote to the Galatians,
“May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to
me and I to the world.” (6:14)
This sheds light on why, in answer to the question, “What do you want from me?” from one of his children, Dad immediately and unflinchingly responded, “I want you to save your soul.”
His children owe their life to parents whose love affair lasted for more than 65 years. Dad’s love for Mom began with the feeling that he was the luckiest guy in the world to marry Rose Margaret “Peggy” Doyle. Grandpa Doyle, not long before walking his daughter down the aisle, said to the love-struck Harry, “You got the pick of the litter.” referring to Mom who was one of 4 daughters (Grandpa Doyle was a man of few, sometimes inartful, words!) A sign of Dad’s self-deprecating humor surfaced when he wrote in a letter to Jean and me one week following Mom’s death (1/15/07), “between Mother and myself, I’d always say our married life was a matter of probation…” And in a letter dated 5 months after Mom died, he wrote that among her last words to him was the question, “Are you coming with me?” He didn’t say what his response was – but surely words are not necessary when a bond such as theirs exists.
Ambition, as I said, was saved for his progeny. His kind of ambition took shape in fertile spiritual ground on Cleveland’s East Side in the Parishes of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas. There he grew certain in the truths he believed as a member of the church militant; an apt description, I think, for someone whose birth, early life, and young adulthood occurred in the early to mid-20th century – a time marked by two world wars. Back then militancy, as a mark of the earthly church, stewed in the blood of Catholics who acted with vigor, stamina, and single-minded devotion – especially when it came to showing no daylight existed between being both a Catholic and an American.
Here are three examples when I experienced Dad’s ambitions. I’d guess that my siblings each have their own examples to recount; examples of Dad’s spiritually motivated focus on his children’s growth and development.
The first ambition is protection. This experience may sound incredible to some, but hear me out. For the sake of background, a little history. After completing high school at Cathedral Latin, Dad became a member of the Redemptorist Religious Community (1932-1938). In his final three years, as a professed member, he completed his studies in Philosophy. So, he was well-schooled in the ways of religious life, particularly in those years of strict adherence to the Community Rule of life.
After I graduated from St. Ignatius high school in 1965, I joined the Passionist Religious Community. In Detroit my class began its Novitiate year – the time of introduction to the Rule and to community life. I prevailed upon Fr. Michael Joseph, the Master of Novices, that Cleveland was less than 100 miles from Detroit, even though to drive it you must go around Lake Erie, making the trip actually over the 100 mile limit. The limit was if a novice’s family lived within the 100 mile radius around Detroit, then they could come to the monsastery for monthly visits. So, when the crow flies directly between Detroit and Cleveland the distance is 84 miles. That allowed my parents to visit monthly.
When they visited, both upon arrival and departure, I would kiss my Dad. I guess that was family custom. It’s hard to say, since there were so few times that separation from my father called for this particular sign of affection. After their visit on the 3rd or 4th month, Dad told me that I shouldn’t kiss him anymore. What was that about?
After the month or two following that visit I got used to dropping such shows of affection, then I didn’t think about it for probably 40 years. It was just Dad being Dad, perhaps, with his “Be a man!” statements he often made to his sons. Maybe, but in my later years when this experience revisited me, I have come to see this as an example of him protecting me.
Who, you may ask, did he think he was protecting me from? Well, I believe his ambition was to protect me from the very community in which I had planned to profess vows at the end of that Novitiate year. He knew well the inner workings of the male religious community at the time. There were eyes everywhere ready to report to Fr. Master the faults and infractions of the novices. During Dad’s time when public puritanical ways repressed one’s sexuality and orientation – men kissing men was an indicator that such a person does not belong. I could be wrong, but I believe that Dad’s direction came from his desire to protect me. Thankfully, in a later unrepressed and more enlightened time we returned to this public expression of love between father and son.
The second ambition of my father was to acknowledge his children. To know my Dad was to see a man whose life revolved around his family. This was difficult to do in the 1940s and 1950s on a railroader’s schedule. Back then, when he returned home after a 15 hr shift and the Yardmaster called to come back in – he went. Before phones could be unplugged from the wall, sometimes Mom would wrap the phone in thick towels and hide it in a drawer, hoping Dad would not hear the ring and thus get the sleep he needed.
His ambition of acknowledgement showed itself to me at the time of my Ordination and First Mass. The weekend following ordination we celebrated my First Mass at our home parish of St. Ignatius of Antioch. It was a time like few others in my life – all made possible by Mom and Dad (and all who helped them pull it off). After the celebrations, the picnics, the meals, the gatherings of so many from far and near, when Monday came, for Dad, it was back to work. When I woke up that morning Mom told me that he was just leaving and I could probably catch him at the garage. As he started to lift the door to get to the car, I went to him to thank him again for the weekend.
Before I could say more, he dropped to his knees and asked for a blessing. There we were – he in his railroader’s work clothes and me in my pajamas. I remember looking around to see if any prying neighbors’ eyes were taking this in – out of shock more than embarrassment, really. That blessing, more than all those First Mass weekend blessings, remains with me to this day. I see it now as his acknowledgement of who and what I was at that time, his ambition being more than satisfied in my becoming a priest. Through my discomfort of father kneeling to son at the garage door, I could not have loved him more.
The third ambition of my Father was to celebrate his children. To celebrate with them was a double reward for this ambition. In 1977 Dad bankrolled a trip to Rome for both of us. All I had to do was get the Provincial’s permission. He had to come up with the funds. The trip was to attend the canonization of the Redemptorist, John Nepomucene Neumann, bishop of Philadelphia. The date of the ceremony was June 19, which just so happened to be Father’s Day that year. We stayed at the headquarters of the Passionist Community in Rome. Fr. Rene Champagne, on the staff of the Father General, would meet with us each evening to plan the following day’s agenda, what to see – museums in the morning and churches in the afternoon – which buses to take, and how to select the best gelato. He provided the Italian phrase that became Dad’s favorite when defining the trip. It was, “Papa, pagi” in essence a command, as in, “Daddy, pay.”
That came in handy until I suggested that the next Sunday, June 26, while we were in Florence, could be Father’s Day for us. So, on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Duomo, Giotto’s Bell Tower, and the Palazzo Vecchio, we raised wine glasses at sunset, he and I, to celebrate Father’s Day. And I paid.
My father’s ambitions – protection, acknowledgement, and celebration of his children – came to fruition as spiritual realities so full of love. For him, it is certain, that was all that mattered.
And finally there’s this. If you were a grandchild of Harry “Home Run” Ryan, you received the hundredfold of his ambitions for you as well.
