A priest’s father is his co-pilot when he is called urgently for sacraments

A few years after Father Joe Krupp’s mother died in 2015, the priest had an idea: Why not invite Dad to move in with him?

The Church of the Holy Family’s four-room parsonage in Grand Blanc, Michigan, built in the early 1960s during times of abundant vocations, is too large for the two priests who now use it. A room was available on the ground floor, so Gordon Krupp—a retired pipefitter now 89 years old—would not have to use the stairs.

Gordon, who raised his family in Montrose, about 25 miles northwest of Grand Blanc, left his home for the parsonage.

The same day Gordon moved, around 2019, an urgent call came in in the middle of the night to administer the sacraments. Father Joe got up to attend to her.

“So we had an emergency line,” Father Joe told the National Catholic Register, and of his father he said: “He heard it, and it was early in the morning, about 3 or 4, and he went out.”

“He was outside her door with his Sudoku and his rosary.”

Because?

“It wasn’t really an idea. It just happened, I guess,” Gordon said.

And it has been like that ever since.

Like many priests, Father Joe, 55, often drives to hospitals, nursing homes and homes to administer the last rites of the Church, which may include confession and Communion, but always include the anointing of the sick, formerly called extreme unction.

The sacrament, described in Santiago 5,14-15is “a particular gift of the Holy Spirit” that gives a “grace of comfort, peace and encouragement” to those who are seriously ill or suffer “the fragility of old age,” according to the numeral 1520 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Although it serves as “preparation for the last transit,” it also “wants to lead the sick person to the healing of the soul, but also of the body, if such is the will of God.”

Father Joe is pastor of two parishes —Holy Family and the relatively close St. Mark Evangelist—and also directs Joe In Black Ministrieswhich includes a YouTube channel and a podcastwith a significant number of followers.

Calls for the anointing of the sick at the two parishes average three to five a week, Father Joe told the Register, although they tend to come in spurts. Almost every time he has gone out on a call over the past six years or so, Father Joe said, his father has gone with him.

They go together in one pickup. Sometimes it’s Fr. Joe’s black 2022 Chevy Silverado; Sometimes it’s Gordon’s blue-gray metallic 2012 Chevy Silverado, which the two work on together in their spare time. (They have plans to install a new 5.3-liter V8 engine, with the help of a parishioner.)

On the way, they pray for the person, whose name could be, say, Juan:

“Lord Jesus, send your Holy Spirit before us. Stay with John. Please keep him alive until we arrive and help us to be effective ministers of your love, your peace and your mercy.”

“We always pray that, and then we list all of Dad’s children and pray for them by name,” Father Joe said.

When Father Joe says “all” of his father’s children, he is referring to his parents’ six biological children (he is the youngest), plus six other children whom his mother and father took in permanently.

Even that number doesn’t include the 38 other children the Krupps took in for a time.

One of the many young people who once lived in the Krupp home is Jesse Ortega, 67, a retired engineer who worked for General Motors. He was 19 and a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978 when he met the Krupp family at a Fourth of July barbecue while interning at GM in Flint, Michigan. They insisted that he stay with them, which he did for the following summers while working for the automaker.

The bond is so close that Ortega and Father Joe call each other brothers. Now retired, Ortega spends every Wednesday morning with Gordon, who is interested in alternative energies. The two have installed a small solar panel and a small windmill to charge a 12-volt car battery that provides electricity, among other things, for LED strip lights in some cabinets in a parish garage.

Ortega has been able to see how Father Joe and his father interact in recent years.

“For me, the best thing has been how good this has been for both of them,” Ortega said. “Having Gordie there with him, I’ve seen that he’s really brought Joe to life.”

“The Catholic Church for me is a community Church. We are made to live in communities,” said Ortega. “But sometimes we see our priests, and they are alone. We are not made to be alone. I wish we could find a way for priests to live in community.”

Remedy against loneliness

The two parishes in the Diocese of Lansing that Father Joe leads are in Grand Blanc, which is located about 95 miles northwest of Detroit and about 11 miles southeast of Flint. Father Joe is dean of 11 parishes in his area.

Although he currently has a parochial vicar living in the parsonage, Fr. Joe at times lived alone.

More than 40% of priests ordained since 2000 show signs of loneliness, according to a survey published October 14 by The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America. “Loneliness is like a cancer that is killing the spirit I once had,” one respondent told researchers.

The active relationship that Father Joe now maintains with his father has led him to reflect on the difficulties of celibacy and how they change over time.

“When I was younger, it was like, ‘Jesus, help,’ you know, just to behave. And as you get older, I think I realized it’s the companionship. It’s the consistency. It’s the ‘This person has seen me at my worst and my best, and he still loves me.’ And Dad gives me that gift, you know what I mean?” Father Joe said.

Father Joe sees his father’s presence as companionship in his middle age and also as an opportunity to care for him and do things for him, even if it’s just making him coffee in the morning.

“And it’s funny; he says, you know, ‘Thank you, you don’t have to.’ And I say, ‘Yes, I really do,’” Father Joe said.

Man of numbers, not words

At sacrament calls with his son, Gordon does not go in, but stays in the van. He doesn’t like talking to people he doesn’t know, but he enjoys praying for them, even in the middle of the night. He also doesn’t mind long car trips: some of Father Joe’s emergency calls to administer sacraments take an hour or more.

Gordon prays the Rosary in the truck. After finishing, play sudoku, the number placement puzzle that requires logic and figure handling.

When asked if he is good at Sudoku, he said: “Not much; persistent, that is.”

Meanwhile, his son, sitting next to him during a Google Meet video call, silently contradicted him by nodding his head a resounding “yes” to the question.

“This guy can do crazy math in his head. Wow,” Father Joe said.

As children, Father Joe said, he and his brothers would give their father two-digit multiplication problems and he would answer them correctly right away.

As for accompanying sacramental calls, Father Joe’s father downplays his efforts.

“I don’t know if I really accomplish anything. I just sit there. His hospital calls, when he goes, are relatively short. You know, he’s in and out usually in less than half an hour. So it’s not a big effort or anything,” Gordon said.

Gordon describes the experience in simple terms.

“It’s nice to just go and be there,” he said. “Sometimes Joe is a little upset when he comes back or something. We talk.”

Father Joe considers his father a mental lifeline to himself, even as the priest offers a spiritual lifeline to the dying.

The priest describes himself as “an emotional person.” Some of the so-called sacraments affect him, including occasionally car accidents with traumatic injuries and a lot of blood.

“And, I mean, it’s not that I’m upset, but I feel things deeply,” Father Joe said. “And he’s a real stabilizer. My sister—I love this—said, ‘Dad is our North Star.’ This is the direction.”

“It is a calming presence,” he added. “I don’t feel alone all the time, you know?”

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.