Mark Gehret, OFM

​Mark Gehret, OFMI remember the images of the lunar landing on TV and the sense of pride. But what I remember most is our Fort Loramie High School band being invited to march in the parade in Wapakoneta, Ohio, for Neil Armstrong’s welcome back home and the opening of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. I was heading into my freshman year and so I got to march in that parade. We all got to see Neil Armstrong in person. That was a great reward for having to march in the hot summer in our dress uniforms.

Dominic Lococo, OFM

​Dominic Lococo, OFMI was living at the Motherhouse when the moon landing took place.  The TV room was located where the business office is now.  Two friars who were watching the landing with me were Fathers Roger Huser and Dominic Calme.  I recall we were very excited and couldn’t take our eyes off the screen, knowing it was such an historic event.  Hard to believe it was 50 years ago.

Gene Mayer, OFM

​Gene Mayer, OFMWe, the novitiate class of 1968-‘69, were just four days short of a month before making our first profession in Oldenburg.  Novice Master Edwin Deane gave permission for us to turn on the TV and watch the moon landing—and yes, that was extraordinary for novitiate, let alone for Edwin.

Frank Jasper, OFM

​Frank Jasper, OFMI was at Bishop Luers High School [in Fort Wayne, Ind.] when the moon landing occurred.  It was an exciting time.  As I recall, the astronauts were supposed to take a rest before the famous moon walk, but they were so excited they were unable to rest.  Many of the friars were at summer school, but all of us who were there crammed into this little television room.  Even Flavian Schneider, who never varied his rigid schedule, stayed up to watch this historic event.

It was really thrilling for me and it emphasized how we are really one tiny planet spinning around in this gigantic universe.  The pictures of the earth from the moon convinced many people that we are all in this world together.  And so, we need to learn to live in peace with each other and with Mother Earth.

Loren Connell, OFM

​Loren Connell, OFMI was studying at Notre Dame University that summer.  As I recall, several of us grad students were sitting around a television set in a common area in one of the dorms.

I think it was late at night when Neil Armstrong actually stepped on the moon.  I found his “one small step for man, one giant step for mankind” puzzling then, and I find it still puzzling today.

Mark Ligett, OFM

​Mark Ligett, OFMFifty years ago I was preparing to enter the novitiate, living in the postulancy program at St. Joseph’s Brothers School, which was at that time located at Mt. Airy.  We had super strict rules about watching television and we were not given the newspaper to read!

I have a vague memory of Fr. Francis Hoffer, our formation director, announcing to us during our weekly “Incidentals and Decorum Class” that Americans had landed on the moon.  I think Francis wedged that announcement in between the really important stuff we were learning in the I & D class, things like how to make hospital corners on our beds when we changed the sheets as well as the exact location where our Franciscan laundry number should be sewn into our underwear!  By the way, I was formerly number B-53!

I really have no clear memory of the Armstrong event other then what I learned in the months and years following.

Joseph Nelson, OFM

​Joe Nelson, OFMI remember it well. I was at my parents’ home, sitting with them in the front room watching it on a small TV. What amazed me most was how they could broadcast to earth all the way from the moon.

Bill Farris, OFM

I was 18 years old, traveling with family on the final stretch of a long road trip. Traffic on the expressway had been stopped that day for several hours. We finally made it home to South Bend much later than expected, but just in time ​Bill Farris, OFMto turn on the TV and watch the landing. Even though we were all tired from the prolonged car trip, we were all excited to have arrived on time for the event.

Tom Gerchak, OFM

​Tom Gerchak, OFMI remember waking up very early, about 4 a.m., to hear with my family about the lunar module landing on the moon. I am not sure what time it was when we later saw Neil Armstrong make his first step. The TV picture and sound had a lot of static in it, but we were still fascinated.

Robert Seay, OFM

​Robert Seay, OFMI remember vividly when all the friars at Bishop Luers High School gathered  in the TV room to witness the landing on the moon. I can’t remember all who were present, but Conan Taylor was the most demonstrative, shouting and dancing around the room.  All of us were awestruck, but Forrest McAllister and I were the proudest. As Neil Armstrong’s home was less than 15 miles from our own Lima, he was considered a “homeboy”.

Miles Pfalzer, OFM

​Miles Pfalzer, OFMThe people I spoke with thought that the moon landing was not real, just something put out by the movie industry. [Miles was a pastor in Buras, La., in July 1969.]

Henry Beck, OFM

​Henry Beck, OFMI have a vivid memory of watching the moon landing on our black and white TV with all of my family members gathered around in our family room.  I can still see the images of the landing craft and first Armstrong and then Buzz Aldrin stepping down on the moon’s surface.

I remember Armstrong’s words as he stepped on the moon “one small step ... one giant leap.”   I also remember smiling as they “bounced across the surface,” and Buzz Aldrin swung his golf club on the moon’s surface.

I marveled at all that was happening, and I remember feeling very proud that President Kennedy’s goal of our “getting to the moon” by the end of the decade had come true. I also remember feeling very close to my family in these moments as we watched these historic images together.

Norbert Bertram, OFM

​Norbert Bertram, OFMJohn Friebel and Bart Wolf and I were on our way to St. Michaels Mission to start the brothers work crew. We were in simple vows and lived at Mt. Airy.  We stopped at a shopping center somewhere along the way, and right inside the Mall was a furniture store where a TV was showing the moon landing. (I called John and he agreed that this was right.)

Greg Friedman, OFM

​Greg Friedman, OFMThis year’s golden jubilarians were novices, and all the rules about watching TV were suspended. We were able to follow everything, into the evening, with Walter Cronkite delighting in each accomplishment. The next morning we had special prayers of the faithful, written for the occasion. I still have my copy!

 

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On July 20, 1969, I was 10 years old and about to turn 11 in a few hours.  I remember going to bed, only to be awoken by my good parents, encouraging their pajamaed and bleary eyed children to watch history in the making.  I was impressed by Neil Armstrong’s, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” if only for the play on words.  I began to realize, even at 10 (I may have been 11 by that time of night), that our way of seeing ourselves was changing.

My vision of humanity was changed by the repeating picture of the earth from space.  I could see the beauty of this little blue marble of a planet, slowly turning in an immense sea of darkness.  I began to understand the swirl of stars above me on a warm and dark summer night, to be composed of thousands of suns, many with planetary accompaniments.  And that this Milky Way was just one of many universes in an expanding reality.

And yet, how precious is the one step that each of us will take today?  Any small act of kindness produces ripples in the unseen amniotic Being in which we all swim and participate without general awareness.  Our efforts at being centered in that Being, of claiming our dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God, who is Love itself, send out radiating rings of love.  Clearly our actions of caring for the Beloved Community of God, who is every living being, have effects.

What one small step am I being encouraged to take today?  It may set in motion a giant leap beyond humankind, contributing to God’s Kingdom.

We had quite a time that night as we gathered around the dinner table, some of our roses from the front rose bush on the table, sharing a delicious pasta meal and salad created by John, and catching up.  We began with significant spontaneous prayer before the meal.  We told our stories that were full of heartache and laughter.  Lots of laughter.  We noticed the movement of God’s Spirit in each of our lives.  We had ice cream and berries.

I had a similar experience at our Jubilee celebration on Memorial Day.  Here the focus is on the stories and pictures from the lives of the brothers that have lived our Franciscan way for 25, 50 – we even had a brother with 80 years, Miles Pfalzer!  We celebrated Eucharist together at St. Monica-St. George with the good preaching of Greg Friedman.  Afterwards, we seemed to inhale the hors d’eouvres and caught up with brothers we hadn’t been with for a while.  We were invited to dinner tables set up with festive flowers.  We publicly gave tokens of esteem and thanks for those brothers celebrating this significant year.

Most of our lives are not lived at this level of intensity.  We have our daily prayer together, we work, we return to our friary dinner tables and we give God thanks for this daily bread and another undeserved day.  But underneath is the reality of the Kingdom that we get a glimpse of during these festive moments.

 

— Fr. Mark Soehner, OFM

 

Send comments or questions to: sjbfco@franciscan.org