POPE FRANCIS and Rev. James Wenzel, OSA, talk following a concelebrated Mass at the Casa Santa Martha Chapel in the Vatican last fall, a highlight of the Wakefield native’s career of nearly 65 years with the Order of St. Augustine.
NORTH ANDOVER — A Wakefield native, Rev. James McFadden Andrew Wenzel, OSA, had the thrill of a lifetime last fall when, on a solo visit to Rome and the Vatican, he concelebrated a Mass with Pope Francis and visiting bishops and priests in the chapel within the Casa Santa Martha, where the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere has chosen to live in the Vatican State, very near to St. Peter’s Basilica.
Fr. Wenzel returned to the Merrimack College campus in North Andover in 1999 and has led groups of up to 40 from the college community, faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends for the past 16 March Spring Breaks on the school’s annual Pellegrinaggio in Italia, going to areas from Rome north that are connected to the life of St. Augustine, one of the great scholars or Doctors of the Catholic Church, and his mother, St. Monica. He also taught classes on St. Augustine through 2011 at Merrimack. The Order of St. Augustine, one of the great medieval religious orders, started in Italy in 1244.
Very impressed with Pope Francis, Father Jim thought that he would like very much to concelebrate a Mass at the Vatican with the Pope and others so he wrote a letter to the Vatican’s secretary of state, indicating that he would like to celebrate his 60th anniversary as a solemnly professed Augustinian friar by participating in a concelebrated Mass with Pope Francis. He was given the date of Nov. 17, the week before Thanksgiving.
Father Jim then planned a two week vacation/retreat in Rome, staying with the Augustinian friars at St. Monica’s in Rome, spending time resting and reading in the days leading up to Nov. 17.
When at the Vatican, Pope Francis on ordinary days says Mass at 7 a.m. in the Santa Martha Chapel with invited guests, which may include members of the laity. His sermons on such days are normally in Italian but Father Jim’s last assignment before coming back to Merrimack was a three year stint at an Augustinian monastery in the hill town of San Gimignano in Tuscany, a place always visited, as are Milan and Rome, by those on the Pellegrinaggios, so he understands a great deal of Italian.
Following the Mass, Fr. Wenzel had a private audience with Pope Francis (pictured by a Vatican photographer) and requested some prayers and blessings from the pontiff.
Father Jim has been very interested in what the Argentinian pontiff has had to say on a number of issues, one of which is gossiping, judging others, when “our emphasis should be on forgiveness and understanding, being merciful and kind to others.”
The Casa Santa Martha was constructed during the pontificate of John Paul II for the purpose of housing cardinals during conclaves. Francis has chosen to live there in a simple three room suite which gives him his bedroom, a living room and a small office. By living there the pontiff can be in touch with people every day he is at the Vatican.
There has been interest at Merrimack in following the footsteps of St. Augustine to North Africa where he was Bishop of Hippo Regius, today named Annaba, an Algerian port city just west of the Tunisian border but events in recent years have suggested that it might not be always safe for tourists.
Fr. Jim still serves as chaplain to some varsity sports teams. At various times since 1999 he has been the chaplain for the football, hockey, men’s basketball, baseball, both men’s and women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse teams.
There are two very special places on the Merrimack campus to honor his parents, William Lawrence Wenzel Sr. and Gertrude Frances (McFadden). One is a labyrinth between Cushing Hall, a classroom building, and Austin Hall, the administration building which also houses the School of Education. At the center of the labyrinth is the Augustinian logo and the admonition, “Be of one mind and heart intent upon God.” The other is a section of the McQuade Library which houses the Wenzel-McFadden Augustinian Collection, which includes 521 books in Latin, Italian, French and English that include not only the works of St. Augustine but scholarly commentaries on those works, as well as books by priests and brothers and volumes on the Augustinian Order.
At an earlier stage in his career when he was associate pastor at St. Augustine Parish in Andover he had a monthly Mass for special needs individuals and their caregivers, so when he returned in 1999 from Italy he began laying the groundwork for Best Buddies (for 2013-14 Merrimack was named the best college chapter of Best Buddies because so many of its athletic teams reach out to special needs individuals).
Father Jim tries to say at least two Sunday Masses a month at his home parish of St. Joseph, one at 7:30 a.m. and another at 11 a.m. He graduated from the eighth grade at St. Joseph School in 1944 and entered Merrimack College as a freshman in the college’s second class in September 1948. After two years at Merrimack, he joined the Augustinians in 1950 as a novice and started on the road to the priesthood.
