What is the “MSR?”
Yes, that is a question I get occasionally, usually from new parishioners who are looking for the announced Community Sunday donuts and treats. The Monsignor Stricker Room is our multi-purpose meeting room in the undercroft (that is, basement) of the church. It is named for the founding pastor of our parish, Msgr. William F. “Pete” Stricker, whose visage presides over the proceedings in that room, or the mayhem, from a creditable oil portrait on the south wall.
That portrait may be all you know of Monsignor Stricker; he retired after twenty-seven years as pastor almost fifty years ago, in 1975, and died in 1976. You might expect that to be all I know of him, too, since I was in fifth grade in Alabama when he retired. But no, I know rather a lot more. When I first arrived here, the memories of Msgr. Stricker were still vivid and common, and I heard them all.
The generation of parishioners who had benefitted from his shepherd’s care were always ready with an anecdote or observation about him. He wore white socks because of a dye allergy, and didn’t drive, so he would walk up to Woodmoor Center and invariably “find” (mooch?) a ride home. He sang with the choir if he was not celebrating the Mass, and his love of good music laid the foundation for what we enjoy now. Speaking of foundations, he oversaw the construction of the rectory and the church.
Every homily he ever preached is retained in perfect typescript in a heavy steel file cabinet in the rectory basement. Selected homilies were gathered into a little paperback, (Verbum Sapienti, that is “a word to the wise”) where I have delighted to read them. He also published a book, still available in the second-hand market, called Keeping Christmas, An Edwardian-Age Memoir, about his youth in the German section of Baltimore.
Cardinal Baum, for whom I worked for almost five years, remembered that early in his time as Archbishop of Washington, he had to ask Msgr. Stricker for his retirement. Girded as he was for resistance from the famous curmudgeon, he was shocked when Monsignor gently agreed. When Monsignor’s friends turned out for his funeral just a year later, Cardinal Baum inquired from where his nickname “Pete” had come. They explained that in seminary in Rome in the 1920’s, young Stricker had been the captain or head of their camerata, the subgroup in which seminarians pursued all recreational activities. He was our leader, our “Peter,” explained his classmate, who by then was Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago.
His presence was so strong that not only parishioners remember him. Neighbors and shop owners at the corner, kids who were friends of kids in the school, all knew and admired (in a vaguely intimidated way) the indomitable pastor of Saint Bernadette. He was a large man with a powerful voice and a well-tuned intellect; he did not keep people guessing what he thought about things. I have met non-Catholics who lived in the area and moved away fifty years ago who remembered him, and his name.
Why am I sharing this with you now? It is November, and we remember and pray for our beloved dead. This past Sunday, one of our Masses was offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased Pastors of Saint Bernadette; it is the least we can do. For my letter this week, I thought I would share some stories about my venerable predecessors to put some flesh on their dusty old names and pictures. But as you can tell, Monsignor Stricker used all the space I had. Imagine that.
And that is what, and WHO, the Monsignor Stricker Room is.
Monsignor Smith
