The life of a missionary
Father Morel entered the CICM order Sept. 7, 1933, and was ordained Aug. 6, 1939. At that point, the missionaries were very active in China, and Father Morel assumed he'd join his confreres there. But God and the Communists had other plans, and China was closed off to those doing mission work.
Instead, Father Morel spent four years as a parish priest in Brugge, Belgium, before being sent west in 1946 to the United States and St. Ignatius Church in Philadelphia. At that time, race was a big factor in the inner-city church, but Father Morel quickly realized that the only thing different between a black person and a white person truly was color. When receiving Communion, their hands and their tongues were the same as anybody else's, he said.
"For Jesus there is no difference," he said. "When you dealt with a black person, there was no difference. His motivation, his longings, his pains are the same."
Still, he said, speaking on the heels of the re-election of President Barack Obama,
"I never thought that in my lifetime there would be a black president."
After nine years in Philadelphia, Father Morel was sent in 1954 to St. Leo Church in Detroit - another challenging assignment in the time of the civil rights movement and race riots. In downtown Detroit white people moved to the suburbs and African-Americans moved to the city, he said. But no one ever touched church property. And he knew the community members appreciated the presence of the church and the school.
In 1980, Father Morel came to the Arlington Diocese. For several years he lived at Missionhurst, taking care of the order's many aging priests. In 1989, he was appointed pastor of Our Lady of the Blue Ridge, where he stayed until his retirement in 2002.
Madison was a total change from his former urban parishes. When he arrived, the parish was primitive: no sanctuary, Mass in the basement and three liturgies with few congregants. He also was hesitant about being in a part of the country where Catholics were, by far, the minority.
"I'll have to be very careful here and learn and watch my words and watch my doings," he thought. But then, one after the other, the ministers and pastors from surrounding churches called to introduce themselves.
"I was very, very welcomed," he said.
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In his 13 years in Madison he built up the church, literally and figuratively. Among the Blue Ridge Mountains and unable to see any other house from his own, he embraced the outdoors.
"I am a nature man," he said. "I always loved gardens or parks and woods and rivers."
99 years strong
Approaching his 99th birthday this weekend, Father Morel is not quite as mobile as he used to be. When he first moved back to Missionhurst in 2002 he could walk everywhere and would regularly work in the garden. Now he uses a cane or a walker (which he calls his "Cadillac") and tries daily to complete five laps around the property - meditating on one line of the Apostles Creed per lap.
Though Father Morel no longer does any pastoral ministry, he stays as busy as he can and he's grateful to be where he is.
A stack of birthday cards sit on his desk, with messages from former parishioners and his Missionhurst confreres. You never realize what an impact you can have on people, he said, and he is grateful for the acknowledgments.