Bishop Ricken visits alma mater

By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

From the same room where a young David Ricken once studied history, the Most Rev. David L. Ricken, bishop of Cheyenne, told fifth graders about the day he learned he was to be named a bishop.

When Bishop Ricken returned to his home diocese Nov. 5 to speak at a Sacred Heart Cathedral School endowment dinner, he took time to visit with students at his alma mater.

“Did you get a calling to be a bishop?” a student from Mrs. Nietling’s fifth grade class asked.

“I received a calling to be a priest,” he explained, “but the pope chooses you to be a bishop.” Bishop Ricken met with two classes prior to addressing the entire student body in the gym.

Bishop Ricken told the class that while serving in Rome, one day he received a call from a cardinal saying that “divine providence has chosen you” and the Holy Father has picked you to become a bishop.

“I nearly fainted,” Bishop Ricken said, laughing. “We were speaking in Italian and I asked, ‘Where?’ The cardinal said, ‘Chee-en.’ I thought he meant China! Holy cow! I have to learn Chinese!”

When the cardinal made clear that it was “Cheyenne” and not China, Bishop Ricken breathed a sigh of relief. On Jan. 6, 2000, the year most students in the class were born, Father David Ricken was elevated to bishop.

“If you had been asked to go to China, would you go and learn Chinese?” a girl quickly asked.

“Yes,” the bishop responded, nodding his head. “We take a vow of obedience.”

“Would you like to be pope?” another student asked.

“I don’t think so,” he responded. “It would be too hard. But you do what God calls you to do.”

As he walked through the school to the gymnasium – some 30 years since his last visit – Bishop Ricken peered around him – the walls, the stairs, even the sidewalk bringing memories of days gone by, days of playing football and of drumming in the school band.

“I’m getting all kinds of flashbacks,” he told the entire student body. “Do you know what a flashback is? It’s memories, wonderful memories of things that happened to me here … .

“How many boys here have ever thought about becoming a priest?” he asked the students, to which several arms shot up.

“When I was in grade school,” he said, smiling, “every arm would have been raised. How many girls have thought about becoming sisters?” to which several arms more arms were raised.

In his old gymnasium, where Bishop Ricken once enjoyed sports activities and one of his favorite lunches of fresh rolls and macaroni in tomato sauce, he told the students that he was in the first grade when he first heard the call to become a priest.

“All the kids knew what they wanted to be when they grew up, but not me,” he said. “Then one day we went to Mass – my mother and father, and my brother and sister. We sat in the front row. Msgr. [Norbert] Temaat was a newly ordained priest, and he came down to give Communion to the people -- I was too young. And it hit me just like that. I thought, David, you’re going to be a priest.

“It has been a wonderful, wonderful life. Think about it. Will you promise me you’ll do that?”

Bishop Ricken then led the students in reciting a decade of the Rosary to conclude his visit.

As he was leaving, Laura Mead, principal, and others thanked Bishop Ricken for taking the time out of his busy schedule to come to Dodge City. “We are all busy,” he stated. “This is just a way of giving a little back (for my education here). This is my stewardship.”