Everyone has a person, a place or an event that has inspired them. In my youth, two men, in particular, inspired me. Both of them were priests; Father Ted Rog and Father Rupert Langenstein.
Father Rupert was my uncle. He was a missionary, an author and a physics teacher at a pre-seminary in my hometown of Dunkirk New York. I first heard the word vocation from him when I was seven years old. I idolized him. He tragically died at the early age of 60 while on assignment in Boston. I was only ten at the time. He told me "always to be true to yourself.” At the time, I didn’t quite know what this meant.
Father Ted was my high school guidance counsellor. He was instrumental in my decision to become an engineer. My second choice of psychology was reasonable, but Father Ted knew that electrical engineering in the 1980s would provide a fantastic career. That prediction came true. Father Ted also reminded me always to serve. He convinced me to run for Lieutenant Governor of New York State for Kiwanis’ high school branch called Key Club. I did, and I won, and it taught me that volunteerism would fulfill your vocation when your chosen career doesn’t.
The word Inspiration comes from the Latin word “spiro”, meaning to breathe in or to be animated. Fr. Rupert and Fr. Ted filled me with direction.
Recently, two people from Gloucester Massachusetts, one contemporary, one historical connected me to my future.
In 2015, my good friend Henry Allen, Executive Director of Gloucester’s Folklore Theatre Company, inspired me to join him to remount a play written by Judith Sargent Murray called “The Medium, or Virtue Triumphant”, last performed in 1795! It was the first play by an American playwright performed in the United States in Boston. What an opportunity! I took it and embraced it, and I loved it. It brought together my good friend Jack Rotondi and his son Isaiah (seen with me in the photo above) to act with me; father and son playing father and son. I played the part of Colonel Mellfont. I love to recite a line of Colonel Mellfot's from this play that reminds me of what my vocation truly is.
“Written in the irreversible decrees of fate, the son of sorrow. I would extract a balm for my lacerated bosom on every fair occasion that might mitigate the ills that seem allotted for a fellow creature. Indeed, the power to soothe the woe fraught mind bears essentially the nature of divinity.”
This passage reminds me that service is our highest form of existence. I hope you’ll share my motto: Serve Wide, Serve Deep, Serve Often.
Father Rupert
http://www.cpprovince.org/archives/bios/3/3-12b.php
Father Rog
https://www.wnycatholic.org/news/article/current/2015/10/07/101088/father-theodore-c.-rog-1938-2015
The Folklore Theatre Company
https://www.folkloretheatre.company/art-soul-our-story
Judith Sargent Murray
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/judith-sargent-murray
