from the "Crusader 1996", Annual Book of MHCHS

A number of priests have strayed but may have persevered in their calling. They continue to struggle for holiness. One such priests is Fr. John Donald Healy, SVD, one of the pioneers and pillars of the Mary Help of Christians High School (Minor) Seminary.
 

1996 marks the 50th year of unselfish service of REV. FR. JOHN DONALD HEALY, SVD to the Mary Help of Christians High School Seminary. fifty years of service and most likely a lifetime service is not ordinary. Fr. John Healy, whose goal in his priestly vocation is to being more Filipinos to the priesthood, is indeed a gift of God.

Born in Detroit, Michigan on 5 May 1916, he is one among a brood of four boys and two girls. It was a home where his priestly inclination had its roots with the witness of faith and loving service he saw from his parents, William Joseph, a salesman of Borough's Adding Machine, and Mabel Florence Healy, a housewife. This was intensified by the nuns who were his teachers in the Catholic schools his parents had provided him and the parish priests in their community when he was in the 8th grade.

He grew up in California and started his early schooling at St. Joseph School in Alameda. He moved to St. Frederick's in Pontiac, Michigan because of the demands of his father's job. In 1930, he underwent hi minor seminary formation at St. Mary's Mission Seminary SVD in Techny, Illinois. He had his first tow years of philosophical studies at the Sacred Heart Seminary in East Troy, Wisconsin after which he resumed the remaining two years of his philosophical studies at St. Mary's Mission Seminary SVD in 1938.

Two of his closest friends in his philosophical studies, Fr. John Vogelgesang and Fr. Raymund Kramer, came to the Philippines for their theological studies in 1939 and were the ones who influenced him to come for his theology at the Christ the King Seminary in Manila in 1940. He was supposed to complete his studies in 1944 but the outbreak of World War II had him ordained on June 24, 1943.

Although he had survived the horrors of the war especially his sufferings at the Laguna concentration camp, he went back to the United States for recuperation after the war ended.

It was 1946 when he returned to the Philippines. He was assigned at the Mary Help of Christians Minor Seminary on June 12, 1946. There were six of them in the administration and faculty at that time, and there were no lay teachers then. He taught English, Latin and Speech and 1948 was appointed Spiritual Director.

He went back to the States for his Masteral Studies in 1954 in a Catholic University in WAshington but homesickness bothered him during that period. He transferred to De Paul  UNiversity in Chicago where he could be close to his sister who lived in Techny, Illinois. It was in De Paul University where he completed his Masteral Studies. He majored in Guidance and Counseling which had helped him in his work as Spiritual Director of the Seminary.

Q. Why did you follow the priestly calling?
A. I wanted to save souls. It was my desire to go foreign missions.

Q. What are your most fulfilling times?
A. During ordinations. Especially when the ordained priest underwent his minor formation at the Mary Help of Christian Minor Seminary. Ordinations make me feel I have achieved my goal as a missionary priest, that of bringing more Filipinos to the priesthood.

Q. When do you feel closest to God?
A. During the celebration of the Eucharist, when Jesus comes down in the form of bread and broken in my hands and shared.

Q. The fathers spend some time with their families especially during holidays but you remain in the seminary. How do you cope with loneliness?
A. With God one never feels lonely. I never experience loneliness because I keep yo with my prayer life and my time is well spent. I do a lot of correspondence, contact my family every three months and go home every three to five years. An only living brother, Bernard, lives in California.

Q. Who is your favorite saint?
A. St. Therese of Lisieux, the patroness of missions. I often went to her altar when I was still a seminarian and prior to my missionary appointments.

Q. A number of priests have not remained faithful to their calling. What helped you persevere?
A. My sense of commitment and dedication . My life of prayer and the sacraments.

Q. What advice could you offer the graduates of Batch '96 who will enter the major seminary in Bonuan?
A. Give primary importance to their spiritual life.

Q. How about the members of Batch '96 who will pursue other studies?
A. Continue the things they have done in the seminary that have enriched their spiritual life. Live the values what have been instilled in them.

Q. And the undergraduates?
A. Cooperate with their formators in every aspect of seminary life.

Q. somebody who witnessed the celebration of your Golden Jubilee as a priest in the MHCHSS Chapel remarked you seemed like you are just a step away from God.
A. That is when a person sees the image of Christ in the priest --- when he is seen as an "Alter Christus" saying mass.

Rev. Fr. John Donald Healy, SVD died last 31 August 2000.
He is not anymore "a step away from God".
He has gone back to God ---
he is now with God!