Guest Commentary | David Kilby

It seems that virtuous people die once the task God assigned to them is complete. That’s certainly how it was with Father Charles R. Valentine. When I heard that he died, I sensed the bitter sweetness of an era ending and transitioning into a new one, the significance of a life well-lived and a personal call to strive for holiness as he did.

It’s suitable for this reflection on this beloved priest to come out close to Valentine’s Day, because almost every encounter I had with Father Valentine was as green with irony as was the priest’s Irish heritage and wit. It’s also ironic, and appropriate, for Father Valentine’s life to end less than a month before the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, who is just about the same age Father Valentine was, 85. Both priests represented a resolute generation that understood the role assigned to them and fulfilled it with obedience, humility and prudence.

But perhaps even more appropriately, on this holiday that makes a business out of love, Father Valentine showed us what love is really about and reminded us that it always involved a healthy dose of suffering.

The leader of a mission church in the countryside town I moved to when I was just 11, Father Valentine was there when I knew very little about the faith. I went to the old St. Joseph Church in Perrineville that has since been knocked down, but I won’t forget how Father Valentine helped build an expansion to that church to accommodate the rapid increase of Catholics moving to the Millstone area. And I remember standing outside the church even after that expansion was built because the church was still too packed.

Maybe it was Father Valentine’s simple faith that attracted so many people to that little church and the formerly known Our Lady of Mercy Parish, Englishtown, where he also served as pastor. He served the Catholics that are tucked away in towns that sound just vaguely familiar to most people in the area, but he left them with a legacy and vibrancy they didn’t have before he arrived.

When I was 16, he instructed me in one-on-one Confirmation classes, as he did for several others who conveyed an interest. In his patience he wielded me, the defiant adolescent I was, despite my misdirected curiosity about obscure, irrelevant matters. He tossed pearls of wisdom to me, but I just didn’t get it.

During instruction, he gave me this really old worn out book called “Life in Christ” that smelled like moth balls. I remember when I first received it, I just glanced at the title briefly and thought it read ‘Life of Christ’. That’s a depiction of how superficial my theology was back then. I thought getting my Confirmation required just learning about who Jesus was historically, learning about his life, what he did and that’s it.

But when Father Valentine’s lessons began to sink in, that one subtle preposition, life ‘in’ Christ and not ‘of’ Christ, seemed to resonate with the priest’s simple wisdom.

“Life in Christ,” that’s what being confirmed with the gift of the Holy Spirit is all about. Learning the simple, straight-forward, jam-packed truth in that little book was the beginning of a journey on which I would fall in love with my faith and the Catholic Church. Then, after who knows how many sessions, Father Valentine knew I finally got it when I sat back in my chair across from him at his parish office desk, and said, “It all makes perfect sense. It’s not complicated.”

There I was, a confused teenager, thinking religion was just another silly subject to learn about like history and politics. But after those lessons with Father Valentine, Catholicism – not the obscure subject of religion – became the only subject, in fact the only thing, in my life that made sense.

When he saw that I understood how everything in my life directly related to my faith, he leaned back in his chair, and said “You got it,” and knew I was ready to be confirmed.

Then he introduced me to Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, which I agreed to go to thanks to the conversion he helped lead me to, and those four college years taught me the significance of life, human dignity, community and everything I hold dear.

His worry-free approach to life was contagious and even profound at times. At a time when my father struggled through a life-threatening illness, Father Valentine was there with his light-hearted spirituality, reminding my father of the ironies of life, reassuring him of the serenity of death.

In those hard years, the boldness with which he spoke about death enlightened my whole family. In his humbleness, strength and meekness, Father Valentine was able to look at the face of death and say, “It’s just a beginning. It’s fine.”

He often visited the sick at CentraState Medicenter in Freehold while helping out at St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in his retirement. He visited my dad there a few times, heard his confession and gave him the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

When my father’s father died about 15 years ago, Father Valentine filled in that paternal role – and in passing away just a year before the beloved priest and friend, my father entered the afterlife with the peacefulness Father Valentine taught him – the peacefulness he showed in his crooked little grin and smiling eyes as he visited my dad in the hospital, the peacefulness with which he guaranteed God’s forgiveness during Confession. And I know when God called Father Valentine’s name, that same serenity came over him.

Kilby is a freelance journalist who works with The Monitor.