30 year priesthood anniversary is testimony to love, sacrifice of a mother

18 May 2011

By The Record

By Tina Jack
When St Paul’s Mount Lawley parishioners came to Mass on Sunday morning on Mother’s Day, 8 May, they saw Fr Timothy Deeter wearing the same vestments that he wore on the day of his ordination and using the same chalice and paten his family gave him for use as a priest. Even the altar linens were special: bordered with lace handmade by his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Fr Deeter was celebrating his 30th anniversary of priestly ordination.

Timmy Deeter at age six

From his early life and ordination in Chicago, Fr Deeter’s ministry of preaching has been very popular, with invitations to speak at conferences all over the world. But for the past 14 years, he has been in Australia, not always at Mt Lawley but currently as parish priest of St Paul’s and Chaplain of Edith Cowan University.  
Mother’s Day was a perfect day for this celebration, because Fr Deeter credits his mother as nurturing his vocation, which has since then deeply affected so many people.  
Virginia ‘Jinny’ Deeter first brought little Timmy to Mass when he was four. In those days of the silent Latin Low Mass, parents didn’t dare bring babies to church – one parent went to Mass, perhaps with the older children, while the other stayed home with the little ones. In any case, Jinny said that the very first time her son went to Mass, he was entranced with what was happening at the altar, pointed to the priest and said, “I wanna be one of those guys”.  
When asked about his calling, Fr Deeter replied, “Despite the fact that I had several girlfriends in high school and uni (even whilst I was in seminary), I always wanted to be a priest. It was a call that I felt most intensely on the day of my First Holy Communion, which was the most important day of my life. I remember making my thanksgiving after Communion and thinking: If receiving Holy Communion is so breathtakingly wonderful, how much more wonderful must it be to actually consecrate the bread and wine and bring them to the people as the Body and Blood of Christ.”
Fr Deeter has just passed the 53rd anniversary of his First Holy Communion on 13 April, which is also his mother’s birthday.
She came to his First Holy Communion Mass, which was at 7.30am (because of the long Eucharistic fast in those days), but then hurried home to make final preparations for the brunch to celebrate the event. Timmy had completely forgotten that it was also his Mum’s birthday until his uncle – her brother – gave his Mum a hug and kiss, presented her with a gift and said, “Happy birthday, Sis.” Timothy started crying (he was only seven).
Jinny said, “Timmy, what’s wrong?” He replied, “I forgot it was your birthday, Mummy. I forgot to get you a present.” His mother knelt down on the floor in front of him, hugged him and said, “It’s all right. No mother could receive a more beautiful birthday gift than to see her child receive his First Holy Communion.”
Coming home from primary school each day, Fr Tim would find his mother in the kitchen, cooking, ironing, washing dishes – and singing hymns to Our Lady, with a Madonna planter filled with African violets placed prominently on the window ledge above the sink.  Returning from Sunday Mass with a couple of younger brothers in tow, he would knock on his parents’ bedroom door and find his mother in a rocking chair, with a baby in one arm and her Rosary or Sunday missal in the other hand.
On relating these stories, Fr Deeter added, “That’s the kind of mother I had. That’s the kind of mother who produced a priest: a woman of rock solid faith, a woman of compassion, a woman who taught me the meaning of self-sacrifice because she lived completely for her family.”
Fr Deeter holds a DMin in liturgical spirituality, MA degrees in theology and Church music, and a teaching diploma. He has taught in schools in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas in the US. In addition, he has been Director of Music and Liturgy at St Mary’s Cathedral in Perth, and Director of the Liturgy Office of the Archdiocese of Sydney, where he also was a member of the World Youth Day 2008 preparation committee. Fr Deeter has served as WA chairman of the Royal School of Church Music, WA chaplain for the National Civic Council, and has been the national chaplain for the Society of Catholic Teachers Australia Inc since 2005. From 2008 to 2009, Fr Deeter worked in Rome, translating Italian documents pertaining to the canonisation causes of two young candidates for sainthood: Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati and Bl Nunzio Sulprizio. Fr Deeter has also been a popular speaker, retreat master and Catholic newspaper columnist in both Perth and Sydney.
Above all, Fr Deeter spends much of his time promoting devotion to Our Lady and adoration of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. As a result, he sees his priesthood as ‘dying to self as a priest – and living for the people’. Since his arrival at Mt Lawley, we have seen a renewal in Sunday Mass attendance and parents have commented that their children have a new sense of reverence during Mass and an awareness of what is happening. Attendance at the 5.45pm weekday Mass is very good. Many people call in after finishing work to attend a Mass which is quick, yet reverent and inspiring.
Parishioners showed their appreciation of Fr Deeter with a dinner in the new St Paul’s Primary School multi-purpose hall. They were astonished to find that one of the guests, Fr Michael Rowe, was once a pupil at St Paul’s School. Fr Rowe is chaplain of Perth’s Latin Mass community, and a good friend of Fr Deeter’s.  
The photo of Fr Tim at the age of six shows him in Mass vestments made for him by his mother.
When he was in Year 1, the nun who taught his class chose Timmy Deeter out of 64 other students to act out the role of the priest as the children studied the Mass.
Little did that Sister know that the boy she chose would one day truly offer the Holy Sacrifice.
But Jinny Deeter had an inkling in her heart that this would one day happen.
It was a day she never saw in this life, for she died of cancer at the age of 53 on 8 May 1977. Visiting his mother one day in hospital, the seminarian Tim Deeter expressed his exasperation with God for subjecting his mum to so many sacrifices throughout her life, which was now ending so young and so painfully. Jinny said to her son:  “Yes, I’ve made a lot of sacrifices in life. But if you’re going to be a priest, you will have to do the same. The priest who offers the Sacrifice must also be a sacrifice.”
It was coincidence – or Providence – that the day chosen by the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago for Fr Tim’s ordination was the fourth anniversary of his mother’s death. Thus, the birthday and day of death of his mother became the anniversaries of the two most important dates of which her son was aware in his own spiritual journey: his First Holy Communion and his ordination to the priesthood. It is the love and sacrifice of a mother that contributes so much to the love and sacrifice of a priest. I think Jesus, the eternal High Priest, would agree.