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Faith, Hope, Love: Quotes
by and about Mychal Judge
(unless otherwise noted: from Michael Ford’s
Fr. Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero,
by and about Mychal Judge
(unless otherwise noted: from Michael Ford’s
Fr. Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero,
and/or from Michael Daly's The Book of Mychal)
Faith
+ Jesus said, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain to move, and it will move. Nothing shall be impossible for you.” (Matt 17: 20)
Fr. Mychal: "God is not an obligation or a burden. God is the joy of my life!"
Faith
+ Jesus said, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain to move, and it will move. Nothing shall be impossible for you.” (Matt 17: 20)
Fr. Mychal: "God is not an obligation or a burden. God is the joy of my life!"
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While praying, Mychal sometimes "became so lost in God, as if lost in a trance, that he'd be shocked to find several hours had passed" (Daly)
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Fr. Mychal: “When I don’t know what’s next, I get down on my knees and pray, Lord, take me, mold me, fashion me, show me what You want. Then I watch and listen and it will come.”
"We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity". (AA 2nd Step)
"We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity". (AA 2nd Step)
Fr. Anthony McNeill: “Fr. Mike was keenly aware of the presence of God’s love every minute of his life. From this he got his energy, his drive, his motivation.”
Fr. Brian Carroll: “The haunting spirit of God permeated everything he did. He sensed he had a special relationship with God…yet he was one of the most humble men I ever met.”
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Fr. Mychal: "Don't worry, don't worry. God will take care of you...just call on God or His blessed Mother, Mary, and they'll take care of you."
Malachy McCourt: “He didn’t want to be a saint. He never thought of himself as anything but a humble friar. Yet he was the ultimate servant of God and of people.”
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Michael Scully: "People are starving for spiritual authenticity, and Mychal Judge is fully authentic, a true Christ figure in life and in death. Mychal didn't just talk the talk -- like Christ, he walked the walk." [WR Bulletin]
Fr. Mychal: “There’s a tremendous need for us to be people of prayer, to be in constant contact with God, to teach our people more and more the values of personal prayer.”
Fr. Mychal would often pray spontaneously, intimately, and conversationally with Jesus in a litany of praise. “Well, Lord, we just wanta thank and praise You. You’re very good to us. You’ve given us a wonderful day and wonderful people. Thank you for Joe, who lost his wife, and Mary, who’s not very well…”
Devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Francis, and the Blessed Mother Mary, Mychal often said the Rosary while rushing off to fires.
Fr. Mychal: “There’s a tremendous need for us to be people of prayer, to be in constant contact with God, to teach our people more and more the values of personal prayer.”
Fr. Mychal would often pray spontaneously, intimately, and conversationally with Jesus in a litany of praise. “Well, Lord, we just wanta thank and praise You. You’re very good to us. You’ve given us a wonderful day and wonderful people. Thank you for Joe, who lost his wife, and Mary, who’s not very well…”
Devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Francis, and the Blessed Mother Mary, Mychal often said the Rosary while rushing off to fires.
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Fr. Michael Duffy: “Mychal Judge loved to bless people, and I mean physically. Even if they didn’t ask. A little old lady would come up to him and he’d talk to her, you know, as if she were the only person on the face of the earth. Then, he’d say, ‘Let me give you a blessing.’ He’d put his big thick Irish hands and pressed her head till the poor woman would be crushed, and he’d look up to heaven and ask God to bless her, give her health and give her peace…" [Eulogy: 9/15/01]
Fr. Mychal: "The wonderful thing is saying yes and accepting God's grace. We could say no and walk away. But when we say yes and go forward, great and wonderful things will happen. It takes courage in the midst of fear, but you do it with the grace of God.”
Fr. Mychal: "The wonderful thing is saying yes and accepting God's grace. We could say no and walk away. But when we say yes and go forward, great and wonderful things will happen. It takes courage in the midst of fear, but you do it with the grace of God.”
Fr. Mychal: “God gave me the vocation, considering my person, to be a follower of St. Francis, where I truly believe I fit in perfectly. I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
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NY Archbp. Timothy Dolan (4/15/09):
"The Risen Christ is alive in consecrated religious, women and men, in whom Elizabeth Ann Seton, Frances Xavier Cabrini, and Mychal Judge find most worthy heirs, as you continue to give the Word flesh in your simplicity of life, charity, and obedience."
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Fr. Mychal (in 1992 interview): "I wonder what my last hour will be. Will it be trying to help someone, trying to save a life?" [Victim 0001: CTVC]
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Fr. Mychal: "No matter how big the call, no matter how small, you have no idea of what God is calling you to do, but God needs you. He needs me. He needs all of us". (last homily: Sept. 10, 2001)
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Saint Patrick: “Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ within me.”
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Hope
+ If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8: 31).
Fr. Mychal (a sober alcoholic and AA member for 23 years): “Every morning I get out of bed, kneel down, and ask God to help me get through the day without a drink.” He would end his days with, “Thank you, Lord. Please help me to stay sober, to stay loving You and serving You.”
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“We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him”. (AA 3rd Step)
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"We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings". (AA 7th Step)
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Fr. Mychal: "Thou shall not bullshit."
(on the need to be honest with self and others).
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Rev. Paul Shackerley: “Mychal Judge made serious confrontations with his ‘shadow self.‘ He knew that many strengths were located in his weaknesses. So his gifts were all the more precious to people because of their wounded source.”
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Fr. William McNichols: “When wounds are accepted or even healed, they become sources of healing for others.... a sign of resurrection after crucifixion. Like St. Francis, Mychal moved around with his wounds.”
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Fr. Mychal identified with St. Therese of Lisieux as one who had faced an existential crisis of spiritual darkness, abandonment to God, and the discovery of grace in abundance.
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"Religion is for people who fear hell. Spirituality is for those who've already been there." (Native American saying)
Fr. Mychal: “Jesus opened the gates of Heaven for us….Is any one of us rushing into that kingdom?! We are called to be free, to know that in our worst moments of human failure, we are deeply loved by a forgiving God.”
Fr. Michael Duffy: “Mychal loved to bring Christ to people. He was a bridge between people and God.”
Fr. Michael Duffy: “Mychal loved to bring Christ to people. He was a bridge between people and God.”
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a homeless man: "Mychal Judge didn't hide in the sanctuary; he brought the sanctuary out to us." [St. Anthony’s Messenger]
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Norah: "Fr. Mike loved the young people of St. Joe's parish. His voice was humble, calming, and sincerely caring; he brought peace to the hearts of us who were privileged to know him. It was never "No, don't do that." He would enlighten you to make the right decisions which he would help bring from your heart to the surface. He pulled the best of YOU out for YOU to see." [a post on Facebook]
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Fr. Mychal: "The guilt, the guilt, the guilt!"
(on Irish Catholic guilt, based on perfectionism)
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Fr. Brian Carroll: "Mychal took away the shame. For some people, sexuality is part of their shame, or homelessness, or addiction ... Mychal helped people embrace all the shame parts of themselves and turn them into something good."
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Fr. Mychal anointed a man who was dying of AIDS. When the man asked him, “Do you think God hates me?,” Mychal just picked him up, kissed him, and silently rocked him in his arms. [Saint of 9/11]
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Fr. Mychal: "If you descend into somebody else's private hell and stand there with them, it ceases to be hell."
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Thomas Merton: "God is most glorified by those in whom His mercy has produced the greatest love." (Thoughts in Solitude)
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Fr. Mychal "transformed the city's most foresaken hospital rooms into the most passionate places of worship." (Daly)
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Fr. Mychal (on his ministries): "I wanted to keep it simple, but the Lord had other ideas, and I had nothing to say about it."
Mychal McNichols: “Fr. Mike said there was a new church coming, one that’s open. There was hope. You weren’t going to hell. You were forgiven. God would take those fears and put them away. All you have to do is ask.”
Mychal McNichols: “Fr. Mike said there was a new church coming, one that’s open. There was hope. You weren’t going to hell. You were forgiven. God would take those fears and put them away. All you have to do is ask.”
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Fr. Mychal: "Don't let the church get in the way of your relationship with God." (speaking of the institutional church).
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Fr. Mychal wrote in his journal about accepting himself as gay: "I feel no guilt, none whatsoever today -- I feel on the train Home. I am at peace finally. This is what You want me to do, Lord... You, You alone, brought me here. I have nothing to fear. Thank You, thank You, Lord !"
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Fr. Mychal: "It's wonderful. Look at who we are as gay people as this moment in history, as being a gift for the church, to be agents of change both in church and society."
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Pope Francis: "If someone is gay and he searches for God and has good will, who am I to judge them? ... They shouldn’t be marginalized. The (gay) tendency is not the problem … they’re our brothers.”
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Pope Francis: "If someone is gay and he searches for God and has good will, who am I to judge them? ... They shouldn’t be marginalized. The (gay) tendency is not the problem … they’re our brothers.”
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Fr. Mychal (in Ireland: 2000): “With all our prayers, and with a loving, kind God who wants us to be at peace with each other, there has to be a solution coming. There will always be people who want to destroy what God builds up through good people, but God will overcome. I don't know how He's going to do it, but someday God will make the headlines instead of the devil. So don't give up. We pray together, we hold hands together, we believe together, we love together, we're saved together, and God reigns."
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Fr. Mychal: "When we lose someone we love and we don't know what to do, we should just pray and worship. Thank you Lord for their lives...for everything they brought into our lives" [Ford]...."Open your heart and let their spirit and life keep you going" [LIFE book].
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Vina Drennan: "His prayers were like a hotline to God. When he prayed in the midst of despair, fear, sorrow and great grief, you felt like he was a presence that would get you through things." [NPR interview]
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Fr. Mychal: “No matter what mess you’re in, you’re always held and loved by God.”
Love
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+ “Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God…for God is love.” (1 John 4).
Fr. Mychal turned down an invitation to spend Christmas Day with a friend’s family. Some weeks later when the friend asked how he spent Christmas, Mychal replied, “I visited folks in seven different hospitals.”
Fr.Mychal: “You know what I want for Christmas? Absolutely nothing! I have everything in the world!”
Fr. Mychal would walk into the rooms of AIDS patients, and despite the state of their ravaged bodies -- nurses wouldn't even touch them -- Mychal would pull back the blankets and message their feet.
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+ “Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God…for God is love.” (1 John 4).
Fr. Mychal turned down an invitation to spend Christmas Day with a friend’s family. Some weeks later when the friend asked how he spent Christmas, Mychal replied, “I visited folks in seven different hospitals.”
Fr.Mychal: “You know what I want for Christmas? Absolutely nothing! I have everything in the world!”
Fr. Mychal would walk into the rooms of AIDS patients, and despite the state of their ravaged bodies -- nurses wouldn't even touch them -- Mychal would pull back the blankets and message their feet.
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Fr. Mychal anointed a man who was dying of AIDS. When the man asked him, “Do you think God hates me?,” Mychal just picked him up, kissed him, and rocked him in his arms. [Saint of 9/11]
Fr. Bernard Lynch: “Mychal believed very much in the Sacramental Real Presence, but he himself had that as well. He saw himself as the Body of Christ and he saw others as that.”
Fr. Robert Post (on Mychal’s relationship with Firefighters): “They’re all into this macho thing. They’re tough guys on the outside. But when their inside opened to his inside, it was the same beautiful heart. Franciscans preach a message of love, not fear, of God. That was the message of his whole life.”
Fr. Bernard Lynch: “Mychal believed very much in the Sacramental Real Presence, but he himself had that as well. He saw himself as the Body of Christ and he saw others as that.”
Fr. Robert Post (on Mychal’s relationship with Firefighters): “They’re all into this macho thing. They’re tough guys on the outside. But when their inside opened to his inside, it was the same beautiful heart. Franciscans preach a message of love, not fear, of God. That was the message of his whole life.”
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Fr. Mychal to firefighters: "This firehouse is a holy place. It will always be holy ground for you." [Michael Daly: NYDN, 8/21/07]
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Fr. Mychal: “The firefighters ask me to bless them. But the truth is I feel blessed by them.”
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Fr. Mychal climbed up on a fire ladder and talked an armed hostage-taker into peacefully surrendering (1974). Mychal later said he had prayed but not been afraid, "You do what you have to do with God's grace."
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Steven McDonald: "Mychal had no use for physical things. Give him a cashmere sweater, and it would end up on the back of a homeless person. But go to him with a troubled soul, and he would listen intently for as long as it took." [NYT: 12/31/01]
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Fr. Mychal (on making time to care for others): “Time is a gift from God. What you receive as a gift, give as a gift.” [NYT: 5/17/08]
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Fr. Mychal once gave the winter coat off his back to a homeless woman in the street. He later said, "She needed it more than me." [Saint of 9/11].
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Jesus: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matt 19)
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Jesus: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matt 19)
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"Those whom the world rejects must move you the most." [St.Louis Marie de Montfort]
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Mike Daly once gave a dollar to a homeless beggar on the sidewalk. Daly told him, "This is from Father Mike." The homeless man responded, "Father Mike was my spiritual advisor;" he then walked down the street and put the dollar into a poor box!
[Victim 0001 film].
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Taking literally Jesus’ command to go and do likewise as the Good Samaritan, Mychal paid the rent for an immigrant who had AIDS and “treated him like the mayor of Dublin”.
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Brendan Fay: "Mychal had a heart as big as New York. He had room for everybody. We pray our church will make room for everybody, that our church would be welcoming, especially to those who are excluded.” [April, 2008 Vigil at Ground Zero, for Pope's visit]
Fr. Mychal (on Rome’s teaching against gays): “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?!”
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Mike Daly (on the church hierarchy's annoyance with Mychal): "Mychal spoke directly with the Almighty -- he prayed directly to Him -- that's where Mychal got his orders." [Victim 0001: CTVC film]
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Steven McDonald: "First and foremost, he was a priest in love with Jesus. He would bring Jesus into every place he was called. Where Father Mike was, Jesus was there. He was a living example of Christ´s love and forgiveness. He had limitless love, unconditional love." [National Catholic Register: 9/19/01]
Sr. Mary David: "Mychal Judge is proof of the existence of God."
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Norah: "Our eyes now see our world very differently as we had the gift of God among us. How blessed we were to experience Fr. Mike." [a post on Facebook]
Fr. Mychal: “If no one told you today that they love you, let me tell you: I love you, and no matter what mess you’re in, you’re always held and loved by God.”
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Fr. Mychal: "I love you, so just love each other the best you can" [in a homily]
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Jesus: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another" [John 13:34]
Holy Spirit
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+ Jesus said, “Whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do even greater works.…” (John 14: 12)
Holy Spirit
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+ Jesus said, “Whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do even greater works.…” (John 14: 12)
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Fr. Mychal: "God is not an obligation or a burden. God is the joy of my life!"
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While praying, Mychal sometimes "became so lost in God, as if lost in a trance, that he'd be shocked to find several hours had passed" (Daly)
Fr. John McNeill (once Mychal's spiritual director): "We knew we were dealing with somebody directly in line with God… God uses wounded healers, and it was precisely because of what Mychal had been through that he achieved that extraordinary degree of union with the Divine. He was a true mystic…which he showed with a total, unlimited and unconditional presence.”
Fr. John McNeill (once Mychal's spiritual director): "We knew we were dealing with somebody directly in line with God… God uses wounded healers, and it was precisely because of what Mychal had been through that he achieved that extraordinary degree of union with the Divine. He was a true mystic…which he showed with a total, unlimited and unconditional presence.”
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Fr. William McNichols: "Father Mychal had the charism, the spiritual gift, of the wounds of St. Francis. As a priest who was gay, he belonged to a group that bears the wounds of the church, and he took the charism of the wounds into the world...."
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"In the army of love, only the wounded may serve." (Thornton Wilder)
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Fr. John McNeill: "Mychal never knew he was a saint. God never let Mychal Judge think he was so special. God left him with all his struggles, his problems, his depressions, and his doubts and fears. So Mychal never knew he was a saint; he thought he was one of the worst sinners." [Saint of 9/11]
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Fr. Mychal identified with St. Therese of Lisieux as one who had faced an existential crisis of spiritual darkness, abandonment to God, and the discovery of grace in abundance.
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"We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God ... praying only to know His will for us and for the power to carry it out". (AA 11th Step)
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Fr. Mychal when asked what he wanted for Christmas: “I don’t need a thing in the world. I'm the happiest man on the face of the earth!" And then he would go on for ten minutes, telling me all the ways he felt so blessed… He would always conclude by looking up to heaven and saying, "Why am I so blessed? I don’t deserve it. Why am I so blessed?" [from Fr. Michael Duffy’s eulogy, “The Happiest man on earth”].
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Vina Drennan: “There was always the presence of God in him, a peacefulness in the midst of fear, pain and suffering. He had the gift of presence.”
Mychal McNichols: “He really was Christ’s representative on earth. There was something different about him…”
Mychal McNichols: “He really was Christ’s representative on earth. There was something different about him…”
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Fr. Charlie Flaherty: “Mychal Judge was an imitator of Christ, not just an admirer. Jesus wants imitators, not fans.” [homily: St. John’s parish]
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Fr. Mychal went on three peace pilgrimages to Ireland (1998-2000). He arrived in Omagh just after the 1998 bombing which killed 29 and injured 200.
As he walked among the survivors, many reached out to touch his robe. [Steven McDonald: May, 2008]
Fr. Patrick Fitzgerald: “God’s love did not pass through Mychal in a passive way like water through a straw. But God’s love took on the character of Mychal Judge -- not a perfect personality, but a perfect instrument for God.”
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Mike Daly: "Mychal spoke directly with the Almighty -- he prayed directly to Him -- that's where Mychal got his orders." [Victim 0001: CTVC film]
God granted at least three miraculous healings through Mychal’s intercession (all documented). In 1995, doctors told a firefighter’s wife that her unborn baby had hydrocephaly -- water on the brain, often associated with mental retardation. Mychal prayed intensively for weeks with both parents, laying his hands on mom’s belly. She later gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. [Ford]. The other two healings were granted after 9/11 when parents prayed to Mychal for their critically ill children. One may be the first case ever of remission from autism (Click here ).
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God granted at least three miraculous healings through Mychal’s intercession (all documented). In 1995, doctors told a firefighter’s wife that her unborn baby had hydrocephaly -- water on the brain, often associated with mental retardation. Mychal prayed intensively for weeks with both parents, laying his hands on mom’s belly. She later gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl. [Ford]. The other two healings were granted after 9/11 when parents prayed to Mychal for their critically ill children. One may be the first case ever of remission from autism (Click here ).
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Fr. Mychal: “I, Mychal Judge, am not capable of doing these things on my own...I walk in, hold a hand, wipe a tear, say a prayer. But that’s not me, that’s the grace of God. I don’t worry about the details…it’s a mystery, it’s God.”
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Fr. Mychal (on his ministries): "I wanted to keep it simple, but the Lord had other ideas, and I had nothing to say about it."
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Sr. Mary David: "Mychal Judge is proof of the existence of God."
Michael Ford: “For Mychal, the Cross represented the place of God’s most intimate engagement with the world. The parallels drawn between Mychal Judge and the figure of Christ are not just romantic metaphors. He was indeed the victim who saved.”
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Fr. Stephen Weaver: "There was something Christlike about the way in which his death transcended the disaster ... Heroic virtue was demonstrated by Mychal on 9/11 in a way that redeems the evil of the event itself."
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St. Augustine: "You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the Incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken; you are to be blessed, broken, and distributed; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the Eternal Love."
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Fr. Mychal: "I love you, so just love each other the best you can.".On September 11, 2001, as Fr. Mychal rushed into the burning tower, Mayor Rudy Giuliani called out, “Father Mike, pray for us!” Mychal called back, “I always do! I always pray for you!”
+ Father Mychal Judge, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
+ Father Mychal Judge, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
+ Glory be to the Father, and
to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
