Servant of God Father Bill Atkinson is pictured at St. Thomas of Villanova Church, where his remains are interred. The Augustinian priest was remembered Sept. 15 on the 20th anniversary of his death. (Photo by Jay Sorgi)
Augustinian Father Robert Hagan admitted it. He and a packed St. Thomas of Villanova Church on the university’s campus were making another “fuss” about his late brother in the order, Father Bill Atkinson, the kind he would make a joke about.
“We all can hear him say, ‘You’re still making this big of a fuss over me?’” Father Hagan said Sept. 15 during the 20th anniversary memorial Mass to Servant of God Father Atkinson, the longtime theology teacher, mentor and friend to students at Msgr. Bonner High School in Drexel Hill.
He is on the path toward being named a saint of the Catholic Church with an active movement to promote his cause for sainthood.
“We are,” Father Hagan assured the congregation. “We are.”
Father Atkinson, who died on Sept. 15, 2006, lived a life that his friends, colleagues and many faithful Catholics believe is worth the fuss of declaring holiness, so much so that people all over the world pray for his intercession.
He was the first quadriplegic man to be ordained a priest, following a tobogganing accident during his time studying for the priesthood that rendered him unable to use his arms and legs.
But he relied on his faith, mind, heart and a love of God and the person in front of him to offer his priestly ministry. His body rests inside St. Thomas of Villanova Church.
Photos by Jay Sorgi
“Father Bill was a man of few words, but he spent his whole life showing us how to live, how to find peace in the storm, how to discover God’s power of love, and how love transformed him and transforms us,” Father Hagan said.
“He chose to live. He chose to love. The accident took his legs, but not his spirit. And in the process, he brought hope to countless others.”
That hope includes a gift Christine Wilmerding believes God gave her through Father Atkinson, even though they never met personally.
“I became aware of Father Bill through a friend who is a professor at Villanova. I was dealing with a health situation. She told me about Father Bill and said to pray for his intercession,” said Wilmerding. “I filled out a (prayer) intention form, and then slowly my health improved to the point where doctors deemed that they couldn’t find any sign of disease.”
Wilmerding now serves as director of the Father Bill Atkinson Guild, a part of the Augustinian province of St. Thomas of Villanova that is promoting his cause for sainthood, what she believes is a worthy title for a man who drew so many people toward God.
Father Hagan and the assembled overflow congregation couldn’t help but fill the church with stories about how Father Atkinson would bring friendship and warmth to the caregivers who gave so much to empower his ministry, how he would find his favorite spot on the Jersey Shore to play jigsaw puzzles and cards, how he would turn time with Bonner students in school detention into true interpersonal counseling sessions where young people struggling with life could open up to him and find God’s healing.
“You just think about Bill as an example of somebody that could experience so much pain and suffering, yet still be so happy, so close to God, and so happy being able to continue to live his life as a priest and have that effect on so many people,” Wilmerding said.
Father Hagan spoke deeply about how we can actively decide to turn our challenges into stepping stones as Father Atkinson did, to connect with the “strength of others” that the late Augustinian spoke about, and to persevere and find opportunities to touch and love others, rooted in Christ.
“We don’t avoid our crosses. We face them,” Father Hagan shared about his brother Augustinian’s life lessons during his homily.
“We can choose bitterness and resentment toward God and others, which ultimately steals our joy, or we can dig under the sorrow, and see what else is there, a light in the darkness, a loving God who is standing with us.”
The concluding minutes of the Mass included an a capella choral setting of the words of Father Atkinson’s poem, “Faith,” which he included in his book “Green Bananas.”
It spoke of the cycle of hope and struggle that he lived in the constant presence of God, the journey from which sainthood may someday come.
Sky turns gray, dawn, a new day.
Daylight overcomes the darkness.
In the day, my unrest at bay, I became aware of his closeness.
To live in the present, to reveal in his presence.
Day offers me hope and relief.
Shade of the trees, whisper of a breeze, I feel he almost surrounds me.
Hear him in the din and the quiet within.
I find myself no longer lonely.
But the shadows will grow long.
The day is now gone.
Help me in my unbelief.
Father Atkinson remains a source of helping Philadelphia-area Catholics believe in the loving God that he lived to emulate, evangelize and foster in humble but genuine ways, the kind of love that his physical immobility could not contain.
That love, and the possible sainthood it’s fostering, continues to inspire the countless lives he touched and still touches in prayers for miracles and spiritual seeds that he planted at Bonner and beyond.
“So grateful you’re still helping us become what God calls us to be. Hope you’re playing cards out there with your family and friends,” Father Hagan said.
“And with God’s grace, hope we can play our hand as well as you played yours.”
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