Fifty-one years ago, September 1964, 25-year-old Preston Moss travelled to New York City with his 72-year-old beloved grandmother Hannah Wilkinson, "Mama", his rock and guide after the relatively early deaths respectively in 1952 and 1954 of Veronica Moss nee Wilkinson and Preston Samuel Moss, his mother and father.

A decade after his father's passing and months earlier in May 1964, before the New York sojourn, Mama attended at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral the ordination of her grandson as a deacon of the Roman Catholic Church.

Four months later Mama and Junior, as she affectionately called him, flew to New York City to visit her daughter and son and other relatives.

Junior soon flew on to Collegeville, Minnesota, where he was attending St. John's Seminary. Upon arrival on September 11, 1964, he was greeted with the heartbreaking news that Mama died the very morning he was making his way back to university. He flew back home to Nassau for her funeral at St. Agnes Church in Grants Town, the church he attended as a boy until he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1956 at age 16.

Before leaving Mama in New York, she conferred a pre-priesthood ordination blessing and admonition: "Junior, when you put your hand to the plow ask the Lord to leave it there even when it bleeds."  It was a reference to Luke 9:62, about the cost of discipleship.

Luke 9:59: "And He said to another, 'Follow Me' But he said, 'Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.' But He said to him, 'Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.'

"Another also said, 'I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.' But Jesus said to him, 'No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'"

Grooved
Fifty-one years hence, exactly 50 years later today, June 4, 2015, after his ordination as a priest for the Archdiocese of Nassau, Preston Alexander Moss' hands are grooved into the handle of the plow like the muscular and powerful roots of a majestic silk cotton tree are fastened to the earth, the roots and the earth in communion, near indistinguishable.

For Monsignor Moss, the plow, like the cross, is more than a blessed sacrifice or burden. It is a vocation of love and mercy. As a 25-year-old beginning his priesthood he perhaps could not truly grasp his grandmother's admonition to keep his hand to the plow. She was speaking less to his sacrifices as a priest and more to the needs of the people whom he has now faithfully served for half a century.

He has helped to plow the field that is the development of the modern Roman Catholic Church in The Bahamas. In never letting go of the plow he helped to enrich the native soil into which seeds of hope in the form of local vocations to the priesthood were nourished, blooming into a second spring.

For the local church he is in significant ways Peter, the rock and foundation upon which the modern Bahamian Catholic Church stands. Most of his priesthood has been lived in the context of Vatican II, the church council that dramatically transformed the modern church. When he entered seminary Pius XII was pope. He has lived through the pontificates of Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now Francis. It is telling that he has now been a priest longer than the serving pontiff.

Moss also kept his hands to the plow in the field that is the development of the modern Bahamas post majority rule and independence. His contributions to national development over the past 50 years are extensive. More than serving in various civic capacities, he instilled in generations a sense of national and racial pride, without ever succumbing to narrow nationalism or prejudice in any form. He sought to enhance the role of women and the laity in the local church and has now served for 38 years as vicar general of the archdiocese.

Preston Moss is a servant of and beloved not just by the Roman Catholic faithful. He is equally beloved by the Bahamian people. The respect for him is ecumenical. Nearing his 76th birthday in October, Moss, preternaturally youthful throughout most of his priesthood, now has a somewhat wizened countenance. His youthful hands, blessed at his ordination 50 years ago, have aged much like a mahogany or lignum vitae chalice given to a priest as an ordination gift and used on a daily basis on the altar for Holy Communion.

The hands that never let go of the plow have baptized generations; anointed the sick; comforted the dying, the grieving and the heartbroken; buried the dead; crafted thousands of homilies; pastored parishes across New Providence; offered the sacrament of reconciliation; offered communion and healing to thousands; and encouraged three bishops, Paul Leonard Hagarty, OSB, Lawrence Burke, SJ, and Patrick Pinder.

Greeting
Moss' signature greeting throughout his priesthood is that of, "Peace", reminiscent of the Prayer of Peace that captures the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan religious order.

Like St. Francis, Moss has lived a life of simplicity and humility. He shares with Pope Francis, born just three years before him, a ministry of love that has issued forth in an unwavering commitment to social justice, at the heart of which is the Incarnation and the conviction of the radical dignity of the human person made in the image and likeness of one's creator.

The contemporaries, one a Jesuit, the other a diocesan priest, share the grace of this prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus:

"Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will.
All that I am and all that I possess You have given me.
I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more."

Like Francis, at the heart of Moss' life and ministry has been a profound sense of the gift and the transforming power of mercy, which our local son and brother has described as, "A love shown another for their own sake without judgment." Both men are apostles of mercy. His ministry of mercy, reconciliation and healing allows for no boundaries or divisions based on the circumstances of another's birth or the circumstances of one's life. He has helped to heal others of addiction, of broken spirits, of shattered lives, of despair, of hopelessness.

Heartrending
On a heartrending day in 1979, Moss, then rector of St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, stood below the main cross at the altar of the old church at 4:45 a.m. He was seeking the grace of the sacrament, of the body and blood of Christ, and the example of Jesus, as he prepared to walk the last few earthly yards with a death row inmate to be hanged later that morning, whom he had accompanied for some time as the man sought forgiveness and mercy and eternal life.

In his ministry of mercy and healing Moss has embraced both arms of the cross, burying the victims of murder and providing comfort to the families of murder victims as well as ministering to men condemned to die and witnessing the executions of five men, while comforting their families. He exemplifies the divine mercy, the love of God and the Christ who shed his blood for and offers mercy to all bar none. He has encouraged others in the moral life while refusing to act as the ultimate judge as has Francis.

Like Pope Francis he continues to insist that we hear and heed the cries of the poor, the immigrant, the marginalized, the outcast. He has remarked that the highlight of priesthood has been the encouragement of family life and pastoring. Having lost his parents and grandparents early in life he has evinced a particular compassion for those who have lost loved ones, especially young people who have lost a parent.

When Moss laughs his entire body is engulfed, overflowing with the kind of joy that he has shared with others for over 50 years, the kind of joy that emanates from his soul and spirit when he plays the organ or the piano.

Amidst the sacrifices and human suffering he shares with us all, there is in him an irrepressible joy, a response to God's grace and a response to the love of the Bahamian people for this prince of the Church and prince of the nation.

Beginning on December 8 of this year, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, to the Feast of Christ the King next year, the Roman Catholic Church will celebrate the Year of Divine Mercy, an opportunity to experience and impart forgiveness, another name for unconditional love.

For over 50 years Preston Moss has demonstrated such mercy and love within his religious communion and toward the people of his native land. How blessed are we to have such a noble soul and native son, whom we celebrate this day with overwhelming joy, pride and thanksgiving.

o frontporchguardian@ gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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