Walk with my people #2

            Beginning this series of blogs, I spoke of Fr. Enrique Lopez saying, “if you don’t walk with my people, don’t bother learning Spanish.” As I tell the stories of migrants who have touched my life, understand that the stories are told by a man with his own history. I invite you to walk with me for the next two days, and get to know the storyteller.

            I am Fr. Mike McAndrew, a Redemptorist missionary, a priest who has spent much of my life working with people who find themselves outside the ordinary structures of Catholic life in the United States. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1950’s Omaha, it was common to identify where you lived by the Catholic parish where you resided. I’m from Holy Name. Holy Name was more than just a Church and a school. At all of our football and basketball games we roared;

We are Holy Name,

couldn’t be prouder

and if you don’t believe it,

we’ll yell a little louder.

            I am the oldest of seven children. We learned our faith from the lives of witness to the faith in our parents, grandparents, relatives and neighbors. In our parish, staffed by the Redemptorists, many young men entered the Redemptorist high school seminary after grade school. I was open to the possibility of becoming a priest and missionary, but I knew that it would be long journey with a likelihood that I could choose another path in the end. 

            Once in the seminary, companionship with other idealistic young men and the ideal presented to us in the lives of saints and missionaries moved me forward to become a Redemptorist priest.  It was an exciting time to be in a seminary.  It was during the time of the Second Vatican Council and the turbulent times of the 1960’s and ’70’s. 

            I was ordained in 1973 and I was associate pastor in Wichita, Minneapolis and Denver before becoming vocation director for the Redemptorists in 1984. My aspirations of going to foreign missions were never realized as I struggled in learning foreign languages. I struggled with Latin and flunked Spanish. Then, in 1991, after seven years as vocation director, I went to a new Redemptorist initiative ministry in Denver, Casa San Alfonso, to work with inner city youth. The young people attracted to our community were mostly young men who recently arrived from Mexico. For every ten phone calls we received at Casa San Alfonso, nine were in Spanish and the other was a wrong number. I learned Spanish from our youth community.   

            After five years at Casa San Alfonso, I led a bilingual mission team made up of Redemptorists and young lay men and women. We offered parish missions in fifteen states over the next six years. Most of the missions were in rural communities and summer mission projects led me into a special relationship with migrant farm workers.

            After my years at Casa San Alfonso and after offering parish missions in fifteen states, I asked Fr. Enrique Lopez if he was as harsh with others about walking with his people as he was with me. He laughed and said, “No.” I asked why. He said, “I knew you would do it.” Walking with my people took on greater meaning on Dec. 12, 2006.

(Tomorrow’s blog: Walk with my people in crisis)