Hello. I am George Martin, and I again welcome you to the selected sermons among senior Joseph B. McAllister, this being disc number four of 12. While in disc number three, we covered Monsignor's own curriculum vitae of 1978, I turn now to recollections of his niece, Vendi Gettner, who lives in Catonsville, Maryland, which is only a few miles from Monsignor's hometown of Ellicott City, Maryland. Betty has particularly fond memories of her uncle Joe, as she credits him with raising her during her father's absence during World War two and thereafter, even putting her through high school and business college.
Her uncle Joe, with Monsignor's father, were great buddies for many, many years. She had written that he loved music and he loved to sing. You recall his curriculum vitae that he had spent three summers at the monastery of Salems studying Gregorian chant. Betty notes that upon his ordination in 1935, he set his first mass at his home parish of Saint Paul's in Ellicott City and that she would go for vacations to Atlantic City each summer with him and his parents. She said he owned a horse and injured his left arm and eye in a jump with this horse.
After that, he curtailed his riding. She reports that he was a great swimmer and diver, an excellent athlete, and above all, loved sailing. More on the subject of sailing later. She said that he was a poet, which I thought was curious as he had often said that he kept his distance from poets and theologians. As to theologians, I understood this well given his battle with the theologian, father Kern, during the Humanae Vitae Conversions at Catholic University in the sixties.
He loved to comment on their elevated view of themselves by saying, you call me an internationally famous theologian, and I will call you an internationally famous theologian. I do not know to what extent he truly distrusted theologians, but for a person trained in logic, he clearly had a problem with the range of positions flowing from a variety of individuals of that, quote, unquote, community, particularly when many of them like to test the limits of freedom given them within their own church. Returning now to the comments of Betty Gettner and her uncle Joe, she writes, the church and his profession were his life. For many years, he would drive to Baltimore every week to visit. During Lent in the nineteen forties and fifties, he would speak every Wednesday evening at Saint Mark's.
His vestments were always exquisite, made by nuns at a convent where he was a chaplain. His sister Ruth died in 1966. Betty's mother, Grace, and her uncle Joe were very close. He was also close to his parents all their lives, both parents living into their mid eighties. Returning to his love of sailing, Betty and her mother and almost everyone Monsignor knew were frequent, quote, unquote, guests, also known as crew members for his frequent.
Like almost every fair weather day between April and October, outings on the Chesapeake Bay. While every fisherman has a fish story, every crew member of Monsignor's outings has a story. Mine will have to wait for another day. That he was an accomplished sailor supported by the round trip he made to Bermuda. Betty concludes by saying that he was an avid reader, he loved to correspond with many acquaintances and family.
And, again, here I'll make a personal observation. I have numerous short pieces of well penned correspondences from him that today, for most people today, would be a telephone call or an email. Alas, go on to the days of more proper and gracious handwritten communications. He was embarrassingly generous with the notes of appreciation for the smallest of favors. I was particularly struck by the thoroughness with which he prepared his annual seminar each January while on vacation in Cartagena, Colombia for the forthcoming year at our parish.
A fellow parishioner, Jocelyn Johnson, would type his notes, and I would have them bound. By his own words, quote, unquote, these valuable notes, covered seminars beginning in 1978 with the New Testament and ran through 1994 with the imitation of Christ by Thomas Akempas. The intervening years included, among others, early Christian fathers, Apologia Providia Sua, Confessions of Saint Augustine, Praise of Folly and Handbook of the Christian Soldier, Antigone and the Republic, Utopia, selected works of Karl Marx, eight works of C. S. Lewis, writings of Descartes and G.
K. Chesterton, Dostoevsky, Flannery O'Connor, documents from Vatican II, Harden's Catechism, and of course, Aristotle and Aquinas. And now we continue with selected sermons of Monsignor Joseph B. McAllister.