“HE REALLY WAS QUITE the ascetic, wasn’t he?”
Helen and I are standing in Father Tim’s room, looking around under the watchful eye of Father Wayne.
“Just because priests do not make vows of poverty doesn’t mean they have a lot of things. I’m probably the exception. Most priests probably live not that much different from Father Tim.”
“That is correct, Father,” Father Wayne interjects. “I have very little in the way of personal possessions. I only need the Lord,” he pauses for a moment, then says more quietly, “and my Purple Heart.”
Of all the stories I’ve heard him tell about his time as a Marine Corps chaplain in Iraq during the early 2000s, I don’t recall him ever mentioning being wounded. I’m about to ask him about that when Helen asks, “Did you remove anything from this room after h
