On a hot summer day, Fr. Alan Benander, O.Praem, is tucked into the cool confines of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado Canyon for noon prayers.
Before he joined his fellow Norbertines for the daily benedictions in Latin, Fr. Alan removed a black baseball cap – a symbol of the sport he grew up playing and loving, and one that has remained a passion since he was ordained in 2013.
Another passion, of course, is God – as well as fighting for the lives of the unborn.
“Baseball is a game of failure, and we as humans sin every day,” said Fr. Alan, who built a batting cage with his father in the backyard of his childhood home in a suburb of Cleveland.
What players and the prayerful need to do, he says, is get back up and dust themselves off after striking out or sinning.
“Baseball taught me the value of perseverance, which is something every Christian needs,” Fr. Alan said.
As a priest, Fr. Alan has met, worked with, and formed friendships with other big-league ballplayers, including Grant Desme, a former second-round draft pick of the Oakland As who left the game at age 23 to join St. Michael’s Abbey (Desme now is a layperson who continues to help there), and former Angels pitcher Justin Speier, who occasionally visits the abbey.
Although priests must elevate their minds to Heaven and have a certain detachment from worldly things, sports and exercise still can play an important role in their lives, according to Fr. Alan, who at 46 still cuts an athletic figure.
For several years, Fr. Alan coached baseball, basketball and cross-country, and was athletic director at St. Michael’s Preparatory School, which closed in 2020 when the abbey relocated to Silverado Canyon from Trabuco Canyon.
Fr. Alan’s decision to join the priesthood came when he was 26, after his best friend, Eric, took him to visit the abbey when the two took a trip to California to attend some MLB games.
“It was a short visit,” he recalled, “but by the time I left the abbey I was pretty sure I was going to enter the priesthood.”
About a year later, he did.
One of eight children, Fr. Alan always planned to get married and have several children.
But while working in Cleveland as a computer programmer for Progressive Insurance after graduating from John Carroll University, a private Jesuit college, with degrees in math and computer science, things changed.
“After much prayer and study about the priesthood,” Fr. Alan said, “as well as a number of conversations with priests, I came to love the idea of becoming a priest.”
Fighting for the unborn – a lifelong passion instilled in him primarily by his mother, Nancy, and father, Vince, a high school teacher and baseball coach who formed a prolife group at the school where he taught – has become one of the works of mercy that Fr. Alan has done when he has the free time to do so.
“I remember being enamored of my little sister when still was in the womb,” Fr. Alan recalled. “I thought, ‘What, you can kill Megan? That’s ridiculous.’”
When his other duties allow, Fr. Alan counsels and prays with women outside abortion clinics and works with ones who have gone through with abortions as well as those who decided to have their babies.
From OC Catholic
God bless you Father Alan.
Envy of another’s spiritual goods is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
So I won’t.
He is very blessed.
That seems like spiritual virtue signaling to me. “Oh, look how humble I am. I’m not envying another’s spiritual goods.”
“That seems like spiritual virtue signaling to me.” Why oh why this sniping? We have a man giving up a baseball career to follow a deep calling, which should be a cause of rejoicing for us all. How can anyone cast negativity around in the context of such joyful news???? how humble, rejoice!!!
No the point was it is a life that could be envied if it was not sinful.
Sinful to envy, that is.
Are you the guy who walks into a flower shop filled with beauty and farts just so you’ll have something to complain about?
“Very blessed”, envy of another’s spiritual goods is not a sin unless you accuse the person of bad motives. I do not think you did that. You seem to admire Fr. Benander for his virtues, which come from the Holy Spirit with his cooperation. You can correct me if I am wrong.
Therefore, I do not see any “virtue signaling’ in your post.
Envy of another’s spiritual good is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
Here is an article about it:
https://media.ascensionpress.com/2017/12/06/spiritual-envy-the-worst-kind/#:~:text=Spiritual%20envy%20tends%20to%20be,Bible%20study%20leader%2C%20or%20evangelist.
There are 6 sins against the Holy Spirit: despair, presumption, impenitence, obstinacy in sin, impugning the known truth, envy of another’s spiritual good
See also here:
https://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu42.htm#:~:text=(Clarification%3A%20To%20%22impugn%22,to%20challenge%20it%20as%20false.)
You misinterpreted my post. My post is in agreement with the links you posted.
Hoping to obtain the same virtues someone else has through the grace of God IS NOT a sin, but wishing the other person does not have those virtues or being sad because they have them IS a sin.
Sorry you felt misunderstood.
Perhaps I should have said admiration for another’s virtues is not a sin, but envy of another’s virtues can be a sin. To me it depends on how one uses the word “envy”. Some use the word “envy” without bad motives. I have often said such things as “I envy his patience, ” meaning I wish that I was more patient not that I wished he did not have that virtue.
It seems there are people answering their own posts on here using a different name each time. If I am right, it is hard to know who is saying what.
Correction to fourth line:” meaning I wish I WERE more patient,” not WAS.
I stand corrected, or in need of correction: Alan Benander did not play professional ball, but he follows a calling which requires a great deal of renunciation of this world and devotion to God. This is praiseworthy in and of itself.
Seems he hit a home run after all.