I don’t know if anyone sent in a Katrina reflection to the Clarion Herald; they didn’t give us a whole lot of notice. But I guess I can offer a bit of my own. As some of you know, I was working at the Vatican when Katrina hit New Orleans. But it turned out that I flew into town on the Saturday before the storm on the last Delta flight before the airport was closed for the hurricane. My Dad was having his last week of radiation treatment for a small cancer in his throat, and I took some vacation time to be with him and my Mom.

It was an eerie feeling walking off of a plane into a closed airport. And my Dad told me that he thought we might have to evacuate. The next morning, since I was jet-lagged, I woke up at 4:00a. One look at the weather radar made me know that we had to evacuate. My parents had already prepared the house, so all we had to do was pack the car and drive to Brewton, Alabama, where my family has some property. Because we had room, we invited my friends, Jude Trahant, and Pat & Susie Veters and their sons, to join us. Little did we know how our lives were about to change. Although we all watched the storm on live TV throughout the day on Monday, we thought we had gotten through everything fairly unscathed. That was until Pat & Susie got a call Monday evening from a friend who was riding out the storm in their Lakeview house. I can still remember Susie’s face as she turned to Pat and said: “The water is over our kitchen counters.” That phone call would be the first news about how our lives were about to be affected.

Within a few days after the storm, I realized one thing: I had to get back to New Orleans. It wasn’t just to check on my parents’ home or to see the destruction; it was to try and serve, as much as possible, as a priest among people who were suffering. I knew there were injured and abandoned, and I knew there were tired rescue workers. And amidst such chaos, I knew that the Church had to be there as a refuge and a strength.

Very early in the morning on the Friday after the storm, I put on my clerics, got in a car with my friend, Gene Simon (who worked for one of the companies trying to close the levee breach on the 17th Street canal), and headed to New Orleans. We drove on I-10 to I-12 to the Causeway and made the trip across Lake Pontchartrain with the assistance of police who were happy to see a priest returning. Many of the officers even asked for my blessing, which I gave freely. As we entered Metairie, we couldn’t believe the devastation. Although we had seen downed trees and billboards, dead cows and destroyed cars, nothing prepared us for coming in on Causeway. The tall buildings on the lake had lost many of their windows. There was hardly an intact window at the Galleria. Street signs and power lines littered the roadways.

Over the next 6 weeks, I made several trips back and forth between Brewton and New Orleans, spending most of my time in New Orleans. I opened up my home parish, St. Francis Xavier, because Msgr. Taormina had evacuated with Father Tom Kinney, who died during the evacuation. I tried my best to help my friends and neighbors, and I tried to make repairs to my parents’ home, which had narrowly missed the flooding. And through it all, I kept asking God a series of questions: “Why did you bring me home for this? What do you want me to do here? How can I help?”

I knew I was there to “honor my father and mother,” and I knew that the daily Masses I had in people’s home were a source of grace, but I kept thinking there was something more.

Seven weeks after Katrina, after most of the flooding had dried and some semblance of order was restored to the less devastated areas, I returned to Rome. Yet, the questions remained. Why had God sent me there, since my service to the Church was in Rome?  Only a few weeks later, I got my answer in prayer. I was still asking the question, and God answered me: “I sent you home for you.” And I knew that was why. The actual “work” that I did was a drop in the bucket of what needed to be done. But if I had been watching in Rome, I would have been devastated. I cried so many tears during Katrina, but at least I was home. Five years later, I still cry tears of sadness when I think of the destruction wrought to our hometown. But at least I share some solidarity with those of you who suffered during that time. We suffered together. And now my tears of sadness are mingled with other tears – tears of joy. Those tears come when I see all the good that’s being done in our city. Those are the tears that remind me to thank God that I’m home!