A Jesuit's Journey:
Fr. Richard McCaslin, SJ
Fr. Richard McCaslin, SJ
Born: July 16, 1934
Entrance: August 8, 1952 | Ordination: June 9, 1965 | Final Vows: August 15, 1973
Fr. McCaslin was called to eternal life on May 13, 2014. (Read obituary here)
October 18, 2012—Growing up in north Omaha as one of 13 children – six of whom entered religious lives – Fr. McCaslin “always wanted to be a priest.” He also wanted the kind of education for which Jesuits are known, and to go to the missions. “Entering the Jesuits answered everything I knew I wanted in my life,” he says. “As a student at Creighton Prep, I became impressed with the men I knew and the diversity of the Society’s ministries.”
Fr. McCaslin did indeed “go to the missions,” spending nearly 20 years teaching and serving in other roles at Sogang University and Daegun Seminary in Korea. When he returned to the United States, the ministries in which he worked included Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Creighton Prep; Sioux Spiritual Center in Howes, South Dakota; and Holy Rosary Jesuit Community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “I am grateful to have fond memories of all my experiences,” he says.
Today Fr. McCaslin is part of the preeminently praying community at St. Camillus, and the education he was looking for when he joined the Jesuits continues. “Our main work here is to pray for the Church, the Society, its ministries, and its partners,” he explains. “Even though prayer is vital to a Jesuit when he is leading an active life, now that I’m unable to engage in ministries outside the community, prayer is taking on an even more important role. So I’ve been reflecting on just what this ministry means. For example, do I go to the chapel for a period of time every day, or do I pray all day long, regardless of where I am or what I’m doing? After all these years, I’m discovering how to pray in new ways.”
S P I R I T U A L I T Y
“There aren’t many who can say it better than St. Paul,” says Fr. McCaslin about the following passage, which he enjoyed using as a “sending prayer” when he was a retreat director at Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21 (New International Version)