NEWS FEATURE: The Good Shepherds: For Middle-Aged Priest, 70-Hour Workweek Takes a Toll

c. 2003 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ Father Frank Kosem’s head nods above a bowl of soup Sunday evening. A 70-hour workweek extended through two Masses and baptisms that day. He spent the afternoon at a family birthday party for his 96-year-old mother. In this moment of solitude, the fragrance of the chicken noodle soup […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ Father Frank Kosem’s head nods above a bowl of soup Sunday evening. A 70-hour workweek extended through two Masses and baptisms that day. He spent the afternoon at a family birthday party for his 96-year-old mother.

In this moment of solitude, the fragrance of the chicken noodle soup nourishes both body and soul.


And then the rectory phone rings.

All he can think of is, God, let me finish my meal in peace. But he is on hospital call, and a woman is dying of cancer. When he arrives at the hospital less than an hour later, all eight of her adult children are sitting around the bed.

The priest winds his way through the cramped hospital room, weaving around medical equipment and family to administer the last rites. A pulled curtain dividing the small, darkened room provides the only privacy.

Kosem anoints the woman with sacred oil on her forehead and hands.

The priest, the eight children and the woman, still conscious, pray together.

“It’s OK. You can rest and close your eyes,” Kosem reassures the woman.

Then he goes around to each child, people in their 30s and 40s who would soon have no one standing between them and their own mortality, and touches them in turn. His words will be forgotten. But each embrace provides a sense of peace. He receives a hug so tight from a daughter that it seems to reach out for her mother one last time before giving her to God; a firm handshake from a middle-age man with tears in his eyes giving up the son’s desire to protect his mother from death.

She dies a few hours later.

The hospital call turns into one of the graced moments priests live for, the times that they as a representative of Christ on Earth can bring solace to the suffering in a way no one else can.

But his moment’s peace at the end of a long week is gone. A new workweek starts in a few hours.

Kosem’s job is to proclaim the gospel, celebrate the Eucharist and visit the sick and suffering. But he is also asked to be the chief executive officer of a $1.9 million-a-year institution with 83 employees and a 500-student elementary school.

For the 58-year-old priest, that means caring for a parish of 2,300 families _ more than 6,000 people _ with the help of only one other priest, barely out of seminary.


It is not a role Kosem and his classmates prepared for. The church they entered in 1970 was full of stories passed down of pastors who had so many associates they could spend a month or two in Florida each winter. Their generation would be the last to come forward in the days of full seminaries, golden reputations and realistic workloads.

Now, with few people coming up the clerical pipeline, the median age of diocesan priests is 59.

Kosem and the guys he went to seminary with are the ones the diocese depends on to hold the church together.

Marion Kosem, retired from business at 64, worries about the pace his younger brother must keep up at the parish in Elyria, about 30 minutes west of Cleveland.

“It’s brutal, it really is. It’s brutal and cruel, the demands on them because there are so few of them,” Marion Kosem says. “The schedule these guys have, it’s just inhumane. Can you really go 16, 18 hours a day?”

Kosem’s week begins at 6:30 a.m. Monday in a large blue La-Z-Boy recliner that barely fits into his small bedroom in an upstairs corner of the rectory of St. Jude Catholic Church.


There, inches away from his bed in one of the few private places in his life, he talks to God in preparation for celebrating the 7 a.m. Mass. Each celebration of the Eucharist is special to Kosem, and the 25 regulars who come to early morning Mass will hear a specially prepared homily.

During the exchange of peace, he comes out to the congregation and shakes hands with about half of the worshippers. After Mass, he greets everyone, mostly older and retired individuals. Some merely say good morning, but many line up before him with special requests, to pray for a sick sister or to let him know someone has left the hospital or that one of their former teachers had a stroke.

The final person in line, Ken Wacker, not only tells the priest something needs to be fixed in the chapel, but hands him a broken kneeler. He also tells him that one of the doors to the church sticks.

And so Kosem, dressed in liturgical robes with a piece of broken furniture in his hand, is off and running in the race that is a week in the life of a typical pastor.

On this Monday evening, Kosem goes from dinner back to his office to prepare for his first meeting with a young couple wanting to get married next June. This means giving up the 45 minutes of free time Kosem usually allows himself each day to relax and watch television in the upstairs living room of the rectory.

The woman is a member of the congregation. He is surprised to see her fiance is black.


But he greets the couple with a warm smile, assuring them of his support. “We’re not trying to make life difficult for people. All we’re trying to do is ask the right questions, and be of some help.”

The young man, wearing a blue shirt and tie, hesitantly tells Kosem his background is Baptist. Kosem focuses on the young man’s pride in going back to school in his 20s to get a degree and become a teacher. He relaxes and smiles as Kosem keeps repeating the church is there to help them: “It’s your wedding.”

By the end of the meeting, the three are chatting like friends.

Kosem, who at St. Jude welcomed altar girls before an official pronouncement approved the practice, has always had an affirming pastoral style.

“I don’t want the collar to be intimidating. I just feel I want to relate to people,” he says. “You take people where they are. You listen, and you’re compassionate.”

On Friday morning at the Elyria hospital, Kosem walks right up to the side of the bed, and leans down within 18 inches of Eileen Cebula’s face to ask her how she is doing.

Some priests are already cutting back on pastoral visits, giving laypeople the sole responsibility for visiting the sick and distributing communion to the homebound. But the one-on-one contact with those in need is one of the last things Kosem wants to give up.


(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

After hospital visits, he goes to the neighboring city of Lorain to visit Sam, not his real name, a heroin addict who has family in the parish. He called Kosem four weeks ago when he was still on smack. He subsequently checked himself into a recovery program.

Compass House is choked with smoke. Alcohol and drugs are not allowed, so cigarettes are the addiction of choice. The two men sit across from each other in plastic chairs in a nearly empty room. The gray walls are broken up by an old-fashioned wall heater and two large posters listing the 12 steps to recovery.

“I thought I hit bottom, and then I tried heroin _ and it was like falling through a trapdoor,” says Sam, his hands constantly moving in an effort to keep up with his thoughts. He talks of needing heroin so bad he was unable to breathe without it.

Why did he check into a recovery house, Kosem asks. His eyes focus on Sam, but his posture is relaxed with hands clasped on top of one leg crossed over the other.

“God kind of hit me over the head with a hammer and let a glimmer of light through,” says Sam, his words spilling out with the eloquence of the confessional of a man who has nothing more to lose.

The young man seeks reassurance and hope that he can put his life together. Kosem alternately praises him for his courage and reminds him of the hard work of recovery ahead. Before he leaves, the young man asks Kosem if he can take the fifth of the 12 steps _ a full confession of his addiction _ with the priest.


As the conversation ends, Sam hugs the priest. On the way out, he introduces Kosem to each of his counselors. He wants everyone to know his priest took the time to visit him.

Sam follows Kosem almost halfway out the front door before letting go of his hand.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

On Sunday morning, Kosem gets up at 6:30 to pray his office, prayers for the entire church that each priest promises at ordination to say every day.

Once he leaves the rectory, Kosem is everywhere, greeting parishioners, back in the sacristy giving last-minute instruction to the altar servers and organist, and finally huddled in prayer with lay ministers outside the sanctuary just before Mass.

Fourteen people, mostly women including three female altar servers, participate in the opening procession. In the exchange of peace, Kosem comes down from the altar to embrace the congregation.

After Mass, he stands outside until the last person is gone. Several hug him, and get a big hug back.


Now comes one of the hardest parts of his week. Each celebration of Mass takes something out of a priest, Kosem says, and he never wants the Sunday Mass to seem like a routine.

Before the noon Mass, he takes off his liturgical robes and leaves the church building. Back in the rectory, he puts on a fresh shirt and splashes water on his face.

The noon Mass is a little less crowded. The sermon is the same, but it seems the delivery is a little quicker. Few people will see him up close, but those who do notice the priest’s shoulders are more relaxed; a tired look crosses his face in those moments when he is sitting down.

But his day is not over. There are still three baptisms to perform, each one a major event in the lives of extended families who come forward to watch babies dressed in white linen be received into the Catholic community.

Inside the church, Kosem, dressed in a white robe and stole, invites everyone around the baptistery. As water falls into the baptismal pool, Kosem greets the families in a soothing, pastoral voice, explaining the ceremony.

One more time, he rallies to make an ancient ceremony special.

“Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them. It is to just such as these that the kingdom of God belongs,” Kosem reads from the Gospel of Mark.


With the generations gathered before him, the priest gives the infants’ families this solemn vow: “I as your pastor promise to do all I can to help you bring them up as good Christians.”

For one of the few times this week, he is at peace.

DEA END BRIGGS

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