Father Maes (not) to retire after 38 years of service

Father Maes, a priest of the diocese for 38 years, will officially retire July 6, leaving his pastorate at St. Joseph, Ellinwood, and Immaculate Conception, Claflin, to take up residence in Spearville.

"I’ve grappled with the word, ‘retirement,’" he said. "I don’t believe you can retire from priesthood. You don’t cease being a priest. I see it as a change from total active ministry to priestly ministry in a different age of life."

The decision didn’t come lightly. For more than a year, Father Maes and Bishop Ronald Gilmore discerned the issue; but what it finally came down to is a crippling case of osteoarthritis.

Despite his physical difficulties, Father Maes, like other retiring priests and Religious, might downshift, but he has no intention of pulling to a stop.

"I think if I could have a focus in this age of my life, it would be to help the diocese in any way possible to call forth priestly vocations," he said. "It’s a critical issue.

"The priesthood in southwest Kansas has been very nourishing to me. God is calling men to priestly ministry to serve the people of southwest Kansas as much as when I was called. The need is to be open to hear and to know that it’s a wonderful life.

"If you feel the call, respond. And parents need to be supportive of their sons."

Father Maes first heard his call "probably in the third grade. That doesn’t mean I didn’t give God a run for his money."

Born in Great Bend and reared in Claflin, Father Maes grew up in that last pre-TV generation, when few homes had telephones, and when families "never failed to sit down to the dinner table."

"Families need to recapture family life," he said. "You come to the table of the Lord on Sunday, and follow through at your table throughout the week. I don’t remember a night when my folks didn’t kneel down to pray with us at our beds. They instilled values that are the hub of society."

Father Maes’s only sibling, a sister, Janice, died 13 years ago of Leukemia, despite Father Maes donating his bone marrow to try to save her life. Her husband, Truman Brown, lives in Colorado Springs, also home to two nieces. Father Maes’s nephew lives in Las Cruces, NM.

"Our family was poor, but I never knew it," Father Maes said. "My parents valued education because Dad only had a fourth grade education, and Mom an eighth grade education. Both were one of 11 children. They would do anything to help us scrape through and have an education."

When he became a freshman in high school, Father Maes attended Maur Hill High School, a Catholic boarding school in Atchison. After his freshman year, he returned home to finish out his high school education in Claflin.

A month before packing up and hitting the road for St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, he decided to attend Ft. Hays instead, where for two years he studied business administration and discerned his vocation.

"At Ft. Hays, I knew God had me in a corner, and it was time to respond," he said. Father Maes was ordained May 24, 1967, having studied at Conception Seminary from 1960-67, during the heighth of the Second Vatican Council.

"As the documents were promulgated, we discussed them," he said. "It was an interesting age to be in seminary."

His was among the last classes of seminarians to celebrate the Eucharist with the Latin Eucharistic prayer. On the first Sunday of Advent, 1967, when the Eucharistic prayer was first prayed in English, he held the Host and said, "This is my Body" in English -- a profound moment for the young priest.

"To hear it in our own language really blew me away," he said. "It became clear to me how Jesus feeds us with his own body and blood. The life of my ministry became clearly focused that day; I was called to feed others as Christ has fed us."

The life of his ministry has stretched far and wide across the diocese in the last four decades. When asked for a highlight or two, he responded, "All of my 38 years of ministry have been a highlight."

He spoke of all the friends he had made – far too many to name; of being the altar server at a neighbor’s wedding, and later serving as pastor at the same neighbor’s golden anniversary. He spoke of friends from different times and different places, and of his love for children and the "peanut gallery" that always greets him at the rear of the church as Mass ends each Sunday.

"I love preaching," he said, adding with a smile that he will always look forward to when he can concelebrate Mass, even after his so-called retirement. "It’s been a joy for me."