Meeting People Where They Lived by Fr . Joe Nassal , c . pp . s ., Provincial Director Fr . Ben Diekhoff , c . pp . s . March 11 , 1921 – January 7 , 2017
On the Friday before Fr . Ben Diekhoff died on January 7 , 2017 , I was in St . Joseph , Missouri , to visit our three missionaries ministering at St . Francis Xavier parish . This was the last parish Father Ben served before moving to St . Charles Center in 2002 . When he moved there as senior priest in 1990 , he noticed the other three priests on staff — Frs . Jim , Lac , and Joe — each had three letters in his name . So even though many of us had grown up in the community calling him Bernie — and most of his family knew him as “ Fr . Bernard ”— he let it be known that for the sake of consistency , he would now be known as “ Ben ” rather than Bernie or Bernard .
During the twelve years he served at St . Francis , Fr . Ben visited more than 1200 family homes in the parish . This was his mission : to get to know people where they lived . Fr . Bill Walter told me that many families still recalled Fr . Ben ’ s home visits and spoke of his compassionate presence , even though he left the parish fifteen years ago .
He did this throughout his almost sixty years of active ministry as a priest . From the time he was an assistant in Hamilton , Ohio , through the years he was pastor in Syracuse , Kansas ; Linton , North Dakota ; and Nebraska City , Nebraska ; to his days as senior priest in Park Falls , Wisconsin and St . Joseph , Missouri , Fr . Ben did not wait for people to come to meet him at the rectory , he went to their homes . He sat in their living room . He extended the table of Eucharist to the kitchen table in the domestic church of the family ’ s home where faith is first taught , learned , and practice . Whether they knew him as Fr . Bernie , or Fr . Ben , or Fr . Bernard , his kindness and gentleness left a deep and lasting impression .
It was not a surprise , then , that Fr . Ben wanted this passage from John ’ s gospel proclaimed at his funeral : “ In my Father ’ s house there are many dwelling places . If there were not , would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you ? And if I go and prepare a place for you , I will come back again and take you to myself , so that where I am you also may be .” Fr . Ben may have wondered why Jesus waited so long to fulfill that promise to him and take him home to his Father ’ s house where he has prepared a room for him . And yet as his health declined dramatically
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these last few years , he was ever so patient , a patience born of prayer .
For 95 years , Fr . Ben practiced the quality of patience and perseverance that can only come from the knowledge that St . Paul conveyed in the second reading he chose for his funeral . He knew that “ nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord .” As a Missionary of the Precious Blood , Fr . Ben preached the practiced the truth that Paul proclaims : “ If God is for us , who can be against us ?”
A Passion for People and Life
Though Ben was well known in the community for his passion for golf , he was more of a bowler when he was ordained on Ascension Thursday in 1947 . Those years at the two-lane bowling alley in the basement of St . Charles Seminary in Carthagena honed his skills , so when he arrived in his first assignment at St . Joseph ’ s Parish in Hamilton , Ohio , Ben joined the parish bowling team . “ When I came home at night ,” he told me in 2007 , “ the pastor could tell immediately whether I had a good or bad series by the way I crept up the stairs or leaped up the stairs two by two .”
It was Fr . Walter Junk , c . pp . s . who introduced Ben to golf during his five and a half years in Hamilton . Fr . Junk was pastor at a nearby parish and one day