‘God walks with us and loves us’
BELMONT — After 13 years as pastor of Queen of the Apostles Church in Belmont, Father Frank Cancro retired July 20.
Father Cancro, a priest for nearly 40 years, reflected on his time at the parish and put together a list of three things that he wanted to emphasize to parishioners during his last Masses July 19: “The things I believe are the hardest to lay claim to.
Three important things that people of faith should always be reminded of,” he said in his homily. “The first is: Do not be afraid.”
That is the phrase Jesus says most frequently in the New Testament, he explained. Fear is at the heart of a lot of our human activity. Fear can control some of the aspects of our life and living.
“We don’t take steps forward in our call in life because we’re afraid of what it might mean for us and what others might think about it,” he said. “If we trust God enough, we can trust ourselves enough not to be afraid.”
The second important truth to reflect on and remember is that as disciples of Jesus, we are people on the move, he said.
“We are pilgrims on a journey – always about something dynamic and active. We are promised that we are never alone. Our pilgrimage is always companioned by the presence of God. God walks with us.”
The third important element that we need to recall and celebrate is that God loves you, he told parishioners.
“In almost 40 years of priesthood, that has been the hardest lesson to teach people. Because we think somehow that God’s love is qualified in one way or another for us,” he said. “There is nothing that we can ever do that will ever keep God from loving us. Even when we have chosen not to love God, purposefully, God still loves us.”
— Catholic News Herald
‘True leadership comes by being a servant first’
WINSTON-SALEM — “Every day I wake up and thank God for being a priest,” says Father Brian Cook, who is retiring as pastor of St. Leo the Great Church effective Aug. 4. He has served the parish for the past 14 years and marks his 35th anniversary of his priestly ministry this year.
Father Cook grew up outside Washington, D.C., where in his childhood he met a young priest who was to become the third Bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte.
“I was fortunate as I met a young priest at my parish outside Washington, D.C., by the name of Wil-liam Curlin, who gave me my first Communion and preached my first Mass and was an endearing in-fluence in my life, just a dear friend. That was absolutely profound,” Father Cook recalls.
He remembers Dec. 8, 1985, when then Monsignor Curlin preached at Father Cook’s first Mass after ordination. “He looked out at the congregation and said, ‘Father, there is your family. In time, for one reason or another, they will move away and your parish will become your family.’
“He said, ‘Love your people. If you love your people, they will do anything for the Church and they will do anything for you. If you do not love your people, they will not cross the street to say hello.’”
“That has always stuck with me,” Father Cook says. “Certainly in my ministry I have tried to love what-ever congregation I am serving, imperfectly to be sure.”
Father Cook was asked by Bishop Curlin to work with him in the 1980s at Gift of Peace, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity’s home for people dying of AIDS.
“Those were the days when there was no treatment, where people came to our home to die,” Father Cook recalls. “That had a profound influence on me as a young priest. Mother Teresa always encour-aged us to see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the dying and, by His grace, we did.”
He says, “What I have tried to impress on my ministry, with notable mistakes, is a type of servant leadership. Even with all of the grace involved in the laying on of hands by the bishop, true leadership comes by being a servant first. You must be a servant first before you can lead others.”
“You have to have that kind of experience,” he continues, “and you have to be ready to accept your failures and move on. It is the humble and fallible servant that becomes an effective leader in the Church to pastor his flock.”
Father Cook has spent much of his adult life working with the sick, first in health care and later as a priest. In the Washington area he worked as a paramedic, then later in respiratory therapy in a hospi-tal, and for the past three decades he has ministered as a priest to the sick and dying in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice facilities.
Enduring his own physical illness over the past several years has given him a new appreciation for people who serve the sick and dying.
“When the tables are turned and it is you in the hospital bed and you see the smiling face of a priest, a deacon or a Eucharistic minister coming around the corner to bring you the gift of the Eucharist or provide the anointing of the sick, I can’t tell you what power that sacrament has.”
The prayers and encouragement of his parishioners have also had a profound impact on him.
“My advice to the People of God is to pray for your priests. We are not supermen,” he says. “We have been given an extraordinary privilege and grace, but no one in the pews understands the particular joys and challenges of a priest. So pray for your priest. Be supportive. Be encouraging, and do not be afraid to disagree. Do not be afraid to speak to your parish priest.
“We are learning. We are pilgrims on this road together. We can learn from each other.”
To his brother priests, Father Cook says, “Trust your people. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council said that the People of God share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ by virtue of our baptism. So trust that grace. There is a wisdom, experience and transparent faith from which we priests draw tremen-dous strength if we are open to it. Walk humbly with your God; walk humbly with your people.”
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
Pictured: Father Brian Cook, longtime pastor of St. Leo Church in Winston-Salem, will retire effective Aug. 4 after 35 years of priestly ministry. Father Cook learned the joys of servant leadership from the late Charlotte Bishop William G. Curlin, whom he met as a boy. Bishop Curlin enlisted his help in the early years of his priesthood at Gift of Peace, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity’s home for people dying of AIDS. (Photo provided by
St. Leo the Great Church Facebook page)