Bishop Dave, Mystic of the Inner City

Early on Washington’s Birthday morning, I stopped myself as I realized I was grief scrolling. I was looking on my phone, including in my own videos and photos, for something that would remind me of the love Irish-born Bishop Dave O’Connell of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had for Jesus and Mary. I found a photo of him pointing to a statue of the Blessed Mother when we co-led a pilgrimage to Fatima.

That was him. As he said in his last homily at the Los Angeles Cathedral, Jesus wants us to go to His Mother as our Mother. And she wants us to know Jesus better.

I suppose if you did not know Bishop Dave, this might seem pretty typical of what a Catholic bishop should say. But if all Christians communicated the authenticity that he did in his prayer, words, and service, we would be living in a world overwhelmed by the graces of the Beatitudes.

I am fairly certain that Bishop Dave always assumed that the person in front of him was suffering. He was deeply sensitive to the unspoken miseries in people’s lives, often made worse by so much we pretend will make it all better.

Since news of his murder broke late Saturday, I keep thinking: Bishop Dave may be the most Catholic person I have ever met. He was a minister and brother to the gang member, the community organizer, the Opus Dei priest, and the pro-life sidewalk counselor. He embodied the love of Christ without getting consumed by the temptations of ideologies.

And he said his secret was no secret. He prayed. Specifically, he said that if you woke up in the morning and prayed, all the mysteries of the Rosary (Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious, and Luminous) — which walk through the life of Christ — your life would be changed. For Catholics looking for a Lenten challenge that is about more than skipping chocolate or beer, that’s one to consider.

He was convinced — and practiced this in his ministry — that children in pain could be helped so much more by Mary and Jesus than we regularly realize. It’s not just a piety.

From a conversation we had after returning from Fatima and Lourdes in 2017:

I think the Blessed Mother is doing something among us; I think what she’s doing most of all is trying to turn our hearts back to focus on the children and young people and their suffering as the most important work of any civilization, of any church, of any organization. We need to be concerned about the suffering of children. . . . That’s where she’s calling us.

Remember that in Fátima and Lourdes, the Blessed Mother reached out to children in those two places. They were poor children; think of Bernadette, who was so poverty stricken, and had difficulty in school — learning.

These children were on peripheries, not only because of poverty, but also because, at that time, children . . . were not to be seen or heard. They did not have childhoods for the most part. Children like these little ones were already working — shepherds, herding the flock.

Mary didn’t come to the bishops, the monsignors or the priests, the mayors of the cities. She went to children.

And while we usually focus on the message that she gave them, what we need to do is focus on the fact that she made a personal outreach to them, she entered into a very loving relationship with them.

So many children suffer so much. I’ve seen over the years how deeply they suffer as their families are breaking down. They feel abandoned when their dad is gone, or they feel betrayed when their dad has another family. Even the sociologists and the psychotherapists tell us there’s a huge phenomenon of children feeling alone and isolated and that there’s no adult they can talk to.

In the secular world, they’re realizing this. But what we have to realize as Christians is how much more we have to offer the suffering children. As I often tell teachers in Catholic schools, the first step is . . . access to the compassion and love and consolation offered to them by Mary, offered to them by Jesus. We need to help the children be in that relationship with Mary or Jesus — by talking to Jesus, by talking to Mary, by imagining themselves in the arms of Mary, by imagining themselves walking with Jesus in their lives. Then we’re not just teaching the children; we’re helping them to be able to enter into that relationship with the Blessed Mother and with Jesus.

He believed that children need to be taught how to be mystics. He told me:

Children are suffering so much because they can’t develop an ability to calm themselves. There are so many tough situations, including where the moms are so stressed and overburdened with intense hardships. These children still have the Blessed Mother, they still can know her as mother and have a relationship with Jesus. If we introduce children to the Blessed Mother, she can bring them spiritual consolation, which brings emotional consolation, which brings them to a new calm.

What we need to do is teach our people how to be mystics. We have to teach our children how to be mystics. Mystics are ones who are entering into a deep, deep loving relationship with Jesus, and it’s a real relationship. It’s a healing, life-changing relationship. It’s a great gift we can give them.

Only an adult who prays could ever teach such a thing. One who did to the depths was murdered Saturday.

God rest your soul, Bishop Dave. When you are ready, would you keep helping us from Heaven?

More from our interview here.

More from Bishop Dave on our pilgrimage here.

How one Catholic priest responded to the ’92 LA riots.