As he goes blind, Father Martin listens for God and embraces Lent

Father Bill Martin is fondly remembered for his service as a parish priest and his love of music. He enjoyed a long tenure at Guardian Angels in Oakdale, followed by the Church of St. Richard in Richfield. Now 72, the retired priest lives at the Little Sisters of the Poor Holy Family Residence in St. Paul. For the past two years, he has been going blind.

The loss of his vision has brought with it the loss of his twin passions: celebrating Mass and playing organ, an intricate instrument that requires reading music.

Q) What makes the organ a difficult instrument?

A) There’s a lot of it, for one thing. It’s complex. But anything you want to do musically, if you want to do it well, it’s going to be complex. We got the instrument I really liked at Guardian Angels when I was pastor there: It’s an electronic organ modeled after a pipe organ with three manuals, three keyboards, pedals and 100 steps, so there’s lots to choose from.

Q) How long did it take you to master?

A) I did Bach before I did Handel. But I did play Handel. They’re a part of me now. I have a problem now of not being able to read music. It’s not easy, but you do what you can do.

Q) Looking back, it must be hard to imagine your priesthood without music.

A) I wouldn’t have been able to do it. Music is supposed to be central to what you do as a ritual for Mass. For instance, when I presided at my first Mass, I sang the whole thing from beginning to end, and I wrote the music. It was a different world!

I think of Mass as a place where I go to be in communion with Christ. Time is meaningless. It’s an eternal experience.

Q) At your first assignment — St. Mary’s in Waverly — a parishioner told you that each priest they’d had served a different purpose, and yours was to teach them to pray.

A) I like that. That’s a pretty wonderful job description.

Q) How did you do that?

A) Be a good example. The first thing for me was that I had to make sure that I pray when I celebrate Mass, not be doing something else or thinking about something else.

Q) And now it’s been about a year and a half since you celebrated Mass because of your vision loss.

A) I keep going to church. You have to work against being critical, figuring out what’s wrong with the priest that’s the presider. It’s not helpful. What is helpful to me is just to do a little reflection on Scripture for that day.

Q) Amid all the loss, have there been new graces?

A) All kinds of them. Finding out that I can’t do things the way I used to makes me find new ways of doing things that I didn’t do before. I can hear better. Preaching is another example. I was asked to do a sermon for my friend’s funeral. I didn’t write it; I dictated it.

Q) Do you feel closer to God?

A) In a different way. My contact with God has been primarily in what I can hear. I’m doing some things better now than I could before and listening to music. Here’s a story for you: Beethoven did the direction of the Ninth Symphony, which he wrote, by which time he was profoundly deaf. He directed the whole symphony, and when he got to the end of it — he finished a little after the orchestra did, actually — he couldn’t hear the applause, so the concert master took him by the arm and turned him around so he could see the standing ovation. Some of those kind of things are possible.

Q) I’ve heard former parishioners praise you for being a good listener.

A) I think you always need to hear what people’s issues are. Just shut up and listen.

Q) You’re also admired for being humble. Is there a link between being a good listener and being humble?

A) I think they’re related. Being a good listener helps you figure out what it is you have to be humble for. Humility is something to be sought after and worked for. It’s listening to other people that will give you a sense of, first, what they need — and secondly, what they have that you need.

Q) How can Lent remake us?

A) I never think of Lent as depriving me of anything. It gives me some changes for other experiences of meeting God. It seems to me that entering into Christianity, at least Catholic Christianity, is learning how to give thanks — and how to give thanks for everything, no matter what situation. So, there are some things that I have to figure out the reason I’m giving thanks for, and there are other things that I already know.

Q) What do you see as the state of the Catholic Church?

A) I don’t know. We’ll see what God is going to do with us. One of the places I think we need to develop our ability to listen well and be humble is by listening to the pope, who every once in a while says something that seems off the wall — and it’s not.

He says, for instance, that society ought to change the situation for gay people so they are taken better care of. People immediately go off the wall. “What’s he talking about?” It occurs to me that we’re not proposing a ritual in the Church for celebrating marriage for gay people. That’s not what marriage means for us. But we ought to be able to treat them more civilly and take care of their needs and make them feel welcome to the table.

In going through the Scripture, you find out that God is the ultimate judge, and I am not. My real task in the world is to figure out where it is I can bring good news.