A Dear Friend and Classmate is Called Home to the Lord

in the charity of your prayers, please remember the soul of

FATHER ANTHONY DeMARIA DANDRY

a priest of the Diocese of Metuchen, who died Thursday, April 8th, 2010

at the age of 67 and was ordained in 1989

former chaplain to the Blue Army Shrine, Washington, NJ

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis

Father Dandry had two wonderful funeral Masses. Last night, there was an Extraordinary Form TLM and today we had an Ordinary Form Mass of Christian Burial in Saint Catherine Church, North Middletown, NJ. Many priests and hundreds of the faithful attended.

I knew Fr. Tony from seminary days when I attended Holy Apostles for first theology (equivalent to freshman year at divinity school or graduate school) after I finished my first eight years of minor (high school and college) seminary. It was there in Cromwell, CT, that I first heard about Sr. Faustina and Divine Mercy. Fr. Dandry was a strong advocate and became the first priest to officially inaugerate the devotion in his diocese. He was also a HUGE fan of Padre Pio. Back then in 1983, neither Faustina nor Pio were canonized and both were not as popular as today.

Fr. Anthony Dandry was a good man and a good priest. He would be the first to admit he was never a perfect Christian and that is why he would want everyone to pray for his immortal soul now that he has died. But he was a faithful and devoted man of God. He was a REAL priest in the sense that he SUFFERED as well as TAUGHT, just like his master, Our Lord Jesus Christ. I considered it an honor and blessing to be one of his many friends and to be a brother priest. We laughed a lot, cried a little, learned a lot and grew a lot in wisdom and age over these past two decades. In a time when many priests are concerned about being popular among their parishioners OR in getting promoted up the ecclesiastical ladder and foodchain, men like Tony Dandry come along and remind us of WHY we were ordained. To BE and ACT like holy priests. Teaching orthodoxy and celebrating reverent sacraments. Whatever idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, faults and failures, we may have, if the people at least know and see that their priests are TRYING to DO and BE better priests in order to give them the fullness of TRUTH (doctrine) and GRACE (sacraments), then they will be patient, understanding and encouraging. If they, however, suspect we are merely ambitious bureaucrats or middle management of a corporation, then they will have no time for us.

Father Dandry was no bureaucrat or office manager. He was a pastor and a priest. He loved God, the Church, the Blessed Mother and most of all, the Blessed Sacrament. From there came his love for God's people whom Fr. Andry loved as a groom loves his bride. Like some husbands, he could be korny with his romantic overtures to his beloved, but it was always GENUINE and never synthetic or prefabricated. WHAT YOU SAW IS WHAT YOU GOT. He had no guile. He preached difficult sermons on the immorality of abortion, euthanasia, contraception, in vitro fertilization, cloning, co-habitation, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, et al. But he always preached the truth with LOVE and CHARITY.

He will be missed by his classmates and brother priests and by the MANY souls he touched. I am sure the Blessed Mother was waiting for him on the other side as he honored her well in this life. Often calling her "mamma" as any Italian would his maternal parent. He suffered in body and soul. Plagued with bad health in his later years, he also knew persecution for remaining loyal to the Pope and Magisterium. Some contemporaries attacked, slandered, ridiculed and tried to discredit him. He knew he would never be made a bishop or a monsignor, for that matter. All he wanted to be was a GOOD PRIEST. If more of us in holy orders imitated his zeal and perseverence ... as Blessed Theresa of Calcutta often said, "we are not called to be successful; rather we are called to be FAITHFUL." In other words, NEVER GIVE UP.