By A.M. Kelley
Superior Catholic Herald
McLain, Anderson are ready 'to get to work'
SUPERIOR -- Shakespeare would say, "they are in readiness," but Deacon Mike McLain puts in another way. He says that he and Ed Anderson, both transitional deacons for one year, are "ready to rock 'n roll."
McLain isn't a priest yet but when parishioners call him "Father," he says, "that's OK, my kids call me 'father.' I'm used to it."
When you meet McLain or talk to him on the phone, he has an unusual greeting this year. It goes like this: "105 days to go," or "87 days to go," or "70 days to go."
He calls these "magic numbers," part of his countdown to June 29, the day Bishop Peter Christensen will ordain him (and Anderson) priests of the Superior Diocese.
McLain, 57, is nothing if not eager. "I keep telling the bishop: 'I'm not 26 years old. I've got some real life experiences. Let's go.'"
He means he's ready to take on pastoral duties since graduating from Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wis., in December. He has since been assigned to help out at five parishes supervised by Frs. Tom Thompson and Jim Brinkman in the Somerset area.
He's learning the local customs and traditions at various parishes, baptizing (he has witnessed no marriages, yet) and doing many homilies.
He's received a lot of positive feedback along with one bit of advice to tone it down after a sermon was characterized as "too hell, fiery and brimstone."
The criticism didn't scare him off.
"Good," he thought. "Somebody got the message."
Parishioners encourage him and say they "relate" to his sermons.
"I've been married, have kids," McLain said. "They see the human side of me and to the congregations I'm a new and different voice."
When McLain speaks of his experiences, these include his marriage of 29 years to Chris McDermott, who died in 2001 of kidney cancer. The couple raised two children: Michael, 31, who now lives in the Milwaukee area, and Tina, 29, in Lawrence, Kan.
His parents, Charlotte Durley and Robert McLain, have been deceased since 1999 and 2003, respectively. He has two older brothers, Jim (and his wife, Linda) of Arizona, and Tim (and his wife, Ledelia) of Illinois, and a twin sister, Mary McLain Martin who lives in Georgia with her husband, Armond.
McLain's sister is not surprised that her twin is becoming a priest.
"It's wonderful that he wants to serve the Lord for the rest of his life," she said. "The (church) desperately needs priests. He's a people person and is going to be great (as) a priest."
It's an idea she remembers him having more than 40 years ago while they lived on Chicago's South Side.
"In high school, his first year, he felt a calling," she said. "He didn't pursue it at the time."
But he didn't languish, unfulfilled, all of these years either.
"He had a great marriage and has two great kids," she said. "I knew, I was pretty sure, when Chris went to heaven that there wouldn't be another woman."
McLain keeps the memory of his wife close. He would like to have his and Chris' wedding bands fashioned into a cross for his chalice. He expects that his marriage will enhance his new ministry and said he will counsel couples this way: "You'll have a wonderful marriage if you give 100 percent of yourself in open, honest communication."
On his way to the priesthood, he's learned that this same commitment is "true in your relationship with God."
McLain now wears what he refers to as "my clerics," a white collar and black suit. As he gets comfortable with that garb, he gets comfortable in his work, in on-the-job training in parishes and in religion classes at St. Anne School in Somerset. In April he served as the deacon of liturgy in Hudson at a youth rally.
"All of my bosses were there É the bishop, Fr. (Andrew) Ricci, Fr. Thompson. There was no pressure at all," he joked.
He admits to being "a little bit nervous," but overall he feels prepared and ready to serve the diocese.
And his sister says, "He's the right man for the job."
Anderson graduated from SHST on May 2 and then set off for a five-day retreat at a Jesuit facility in Sedalia, Colo.
In the time before June 29, he attended the ordinations of fellow SHST classmates in their home dioceses of Mississippi and Kentucky. Then he went on to Redfield, S.D., to bide awhile with his family in the farm country south of Aberdeen where he was raised.
He arrived just in time for spring barn cleaning.
His parents, Patty (Dvorak) and Carl Anderson, are retired but some of his brothers and sisters still farm.
His father is 90 and his mother is 76. His father has had a "rough year" and probably won't travel to Superior for the ordination so Anderson plans to celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving in July in Redfield.
He was the eldest of seven children. He has three sisters and three brothers. One brother has been a priest in the Sioux Falls Diocese since 1984 and one sister belongs to the Sisters of Charities of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Connecticut.
Anderson's relations don't stop there. The 55-year-old former teacher and industrial program manager is a father to six daughters. He has three sons-in-law and seven grandchildren. (He was married twice; both marriages were annulled.)
He had a career, first as a teacher and then as a computer program manager but his call to the priesthood dates back to his studies of Latin in high school.
"I thought I was going to become a priest," he said. "I just didn't know the time frame."
He credits Cursillo, a lay Christian renewal movement, study in the diocese's permanent diaconate program, and the encouragement of his daughters as factors which finally led him to the seminary.
While at SHST he had a preaching practicum at several Milwaukee parishes with predominately Hmong, African and Native American and Asian congregations.
"All my life I've been interested in other cultures," he said. "From the Sioux in South Dakota to the Native Americans here--the Ojibwe tribes."
This interest led him to study American Indian spirituality in his final year at SHST and make this the topic of his master's degree thesis. Finding sources wasn't easy.
"There are no Native American Catholic theologians," he said.
So he read authors who studied Native spirituality before him such as Anne Waters' "American Indian Thought," and "The Pipe and Christ" by William Stolzman, who concluded from lessons from medicine men of the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Anderson's home state of South Dakota that "the Lakota and Christian religions are both parallel and different."
Anderson said from Native Americans and the Second Vatican Council came the "same thought with different words É to appreciate human beings."
"So many times people dwell on the negative and then there's a mistrust between people," he said. "But people want to get together in community."
As he learns to be "sensitive to all cultures in our diocese," Anderson said he's enjoyed the seminary studies but is looking forward to his first assignment as a parish priest.
"I'm anxious to get to work," he said.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2008