Half Century as Priest, Helping, Giving, Caring

If you haven’t come to the realization about technology, it’s amazing (when it works), but all that “stuff” is having a profound impact on each of us, removing us little by little from personal contact we so vitally need.
A small announcement meant for the religion page simply mentioned that tomorrow (May 12) at St. Casimir’s Church in Woodbine, a special Mass would celebrate Rev. Robert Yori, retired priest, who is marking 50 years in the sacred priesthood.
“Half a century, that’s an amazing amount of time for anyone to do anything,” I thought, so I decided to dig deeper and learn a little about the man. Elsewhere in today’s edition, those who are so inclined may find the story fascinating for its simple humanity.
Talking to the church’s secretary Maggie Ciabatoni, I learned that “Father Yori,” as everyone in the parish and around Woodbine called the man, who now resides in Pennsylvania, was not technologically connected, but he linked with people almost instantly.
You see, Fr. Yori came from a family of seven. His father passed away when he was young, and his widowed mother instilled love and a caring nature into her six sons and a daughter. Two sons passed early in life, so the man who would be a priest experienced many sorrows, learned the value of hard work, and cared passionately about people.
As I talked with parishioners at St. Casimir, and its mission church St. Elizabeth in Goshen, it seemed as if that life was one not touched by the importance of technological “things,” but hand-to-hand care and love, something technology refuses to acknowledge.
When first the man was assigned to the Woodbine parish, he saw hungry people. Did he whip out a credit card and text message, “There are folks out here who are hungry? Let’s do something when we get the money?” No. He went around to local farmers and asked them for vegetables so he could make soup, big pots of it, to help feed those hungry stomachs, and, at the same time, feed their hungry souls.
Said one parishioner, “If someone knocked on his door and needed help, he didn’t care if they were catholic or Jew, Muslim or anything else. He did not care if they were black or white, Hispanic of Chinese, he would reach into his pocket and give them something to help them out. That’s what kind of priest he is.”
Once those kettles of soup were ready, he would also drive them to an Atlantic City soup kitchen where more hungry could be helped. No technology, just a mission to fill hungry bellies, and maybe amaze some who ate that soup that a humble Catholic priest would do such a thing for absolute strangers.
Talking with the man was an equal inspiration, albeit having been done on a telephone, due to time constraints.
Self-effacing, Fr. Yori was reluctant to say very much about those things he had done in his 14 years in Woodbine. He told me that, on being sent to a Vineland church, whose majority of members spoke only Spanish, he had to learn that language from scratch.
There was no electronic gadget that helped him learn those odd pronunciations, those sounds foreign to this man from Hazleton, Pa., who served in the U.S. Air Force before using the G.I. Bill to go through college. He spoke to his congregation, and listened. He made mistakes, they corrected him, and he learned. To this day, I was told, Fr. Yori speaks fluent Spanish, and thus he can carry the Message he was ordained to carry back half a century in 1961.
Was it prophetic, too, that Fr. Yori would have a love of carpentry, like that of Jesus Christ, whom he elected to represent to the world?
A member who cherishes St. Elizabeth’s told me that the priest-carpenter has an especial affinity for working with oak. As a testament to that love, he crafted that mission’s altar furniture, two lecterns, candleholders and stools. Yes, he did it with the aid of some basic tools, but he had no amazing technological saws or other equipment to make those items. It might be stated they were made with wood and love, for that is, in fact, how they were crafted by the hands of a priest.
The man is 82 years young. His voice is like that of someone at least 20 years younger. Even he cannot believe that five decades have passed since he first became a priest in the Diocese of Camden.
He looked back over those years, and recalled some of the churches where he spent part of that half century. South Jersey, he noted, especially the island communities, were places where churches were built, with the expectation that they would be filled to overflowing in the future.
Now, some are still filled in summer with overflow crowds of beach-bound Mass attendees, but winter is another story as demographics have changed, and the islands are virtually deserted in winter.
Still, in all of life’s ups and downs, Fr. Yori kept his unflinching faith in God Almighty, accessible without benefit of electronic gadgets or crafty items that soon break.
With divine inspiration and guidance that only the Creator could give, Fr. Yori continues to be a servant leader, ready to help with a Mass whenever he can, and is asked. There isn’t much technological about that genuine man, and that is the blessing everyone got whom had their life touched by this humble man of God.