Father Donald Staib drove a golf cart. He wasn’t a golfer, but he was an avid fan of the Monarchs, the student-athletes of St. Mary Magdalene, where he was pastor for 23 years. He used the transportation around campus to make the most of his time, serving both the parish and the school.
Claire Curliss was one of those students. She’s the kind of person who makes the most of her time, too. A track and field athlete, she attended St. Mary Magdalene for elementary and middle school. Now a senior at Cardinal Gibbons High School, she’s also a Girl Scout, volunteer usher at St. Mary Magdalene and school leader in groups such as the French Club, Economics Club and Admissions Ambassadors.
Claire, 17, is also a writer. But maybe editor would be the better word. For more than two years she worked on a book that focused on Father Staib, who was named a monsignor in 2020 and was her pastor for 13 years.
It was all done to honor the priest she remembered from the golf cart, athletic fields, classrooms and church ambo, where he shared homilies during Mass. But his words didn’t stay inside the sanctuary. They went with her and her family into their car, where they’d often talk about what Father Staib had to say.
“That stuck with me,” Claire said. “He would always relate the sermons to us, or he would talk about his experiences, which was neat to hear about. [As a young student] I remember sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor as he was walking by and talking.”
The book project, which features 70 homilies, was the result of a few things coming together. One was the pandemic, which was when Father Staib retired from active priestly ministry. He founded the church and school to which she belonged, and the change had an impact on her. Another piece was her confirmation. A third impetus was the Girl Scout Gold Award, where girls are challenged to do a meaningful project for their community.
“I felt like our community would benefit from his homilies. I started to focus on how I could incorporate his homilies into the faith formation program and provide another structure [to confirmation preparation]. That’s how it all came together,” she said.
Along with her dad, Andy, Claire went to lunch with Monsignor Staib to talk about the award project, which is Girl Scouts’ highest award, and his homilies. He was familiar with the Curliss family as Claire’s mom, Nikki, is a counselor at the school and her dad was once an investigative reporter, whom Monsignor often enjoyed talking with about current events.
Monsignor Staib opened his files, sharing notebooks and papers that held homilies he’d written since 1980.
“That was why it was possible, because he had his copies,” Claire said. “The early ones were handwritten … it wasn’t consistent in his record keeping till the 1980s and ’90s. And then they were typed. And he had notes in the margins and would underline certain words for emphasis.”
Along the way, Claire and Monsignor discussed whether the project should be digital and online or on paper in a book. She went to him for clarifications. Claire read his shorthand and had to make some wording decisions to make the text flow in complete sentences.
Nikki remembered one summer when Claire did the bulk of homily reading in her effort to pare down the 1,200 homilies available to her to about 70 that would go in the book.
“Between vacations and summer camps, I helped her think that through. Like ‘Claire, how many are there? How many weeks can you really do this? How many per day? And she knew she had to break it down to so many a day,” said Nikki.
Claire got it down to about 10 per day. She only selected homilies that he gave while at St. Mary Magdalene. “That helped me a little bit,” she laughed. “That was only 20 years.”
She organized the sermons by the liturgical calendar, and would later deposit them for preservation in the church archive. For the book project that followed, Claire selected homilies that had relevance to the faith formation program, Monsignor’s life and the life of their church. She came across many homilies that focused on his travels.
“When I was reading, I was wondering if this could be another project, compiling the history with him in Vietnam and all the people he has met,” she said. “There’s a lot of other ways that someone could go about having a different focus. It’s a whole lot of choices.”
For her, the most memorable homily was also humorous and as she read the copy he provided her, she remembered him saying it at Mass.
“He was talking about death and what happens after death,” she said. “That is a pretty common thing people want to know … he was talking about his priest friends and how they said when they die, they will try to communicate [or send a sign] and he said, ‘But I haven’t heard from them yet.’”
The homilies compiled were all given during Saturday evening or Sunday Mass. There was one exception in the book, and it’s what was known as the “train homily” among parents and students at the school. It was remarks he gave each year during 8th grade graduation in which he likened life to train rides, where people step on and off.
“There was one sermon that parents asked me to preach every year at graduation. They said, ‘I just want to hear that again.’ But I don’t think the kids cared a whole lot,” laughed Monsignor. “That was a parent favorite.”
It was one sermon he didn’t have a copy of to give to Claire, but they worked it out. And it’s featured in the book’s afterword.
“I asked him ‘Is there a way to get this? This is kind of important.’ And he recounted it as best as he could,” Claire said.
Claire knew the book would have to have a homily about Jonah, whose statue is outside the church building and was given in 2020 in honor of Monsignor Staib by the parish.
“Jonah is very special to him,” she said. “He had several about Jonah that he gave throughout different Sundays … I made sure to include one of those.”
Once the book was ready, she gave it to him before a Mass. “It was really special,” she said. “He was so awed but humble about it. One of his priest friends was there and he said, ‘You have to look at this.’”
That book was published and provided for the faith formation community and was not for sale, which is part of the award project’s specifications, she said. It had a faith formation discussion guide in the back and notes geared toward teenage confirmation candidates.
As she discussed the project people began to ask when they could get a copy. That’s how the second edition was born.
“I realized maybe I should … the second edition doesn’t have the discussion guide, and it has a different publisher. I changed a few things in the introduction. The sermons themselves are the same, but the context around it is different.”
One thing that’s the same, Nikki said, is Monsignor’s style.
“When you read these sermons, you can hear Father Staib talking. The way he wrote is how he speaks … even though it’s been years since he was pastor here at St. Mary Magdalene, if you know Father Staib and you read this, you can hear him. I told him that,” she said.
For his part, Monsignor Staib is still in wonder of the whole project.
“That was a lot of work,” he said. “I mean, she had to retype them. I believe it was pushing on three years she worked on it … oh my gosh. When I realized she was working on a book, that was astounding. I have never written a book in my life. I never thought I had the ability to write a book, and I still don’t. It’s impressive to me that she did this.”
He sent copies to his family and said they were amazed. The whole process and the fact that the book even exists has been entertaining to the priest who said he often got points off his schoolwork in seminary for spelling words incorrectly.
The book, titled Our Faith; A Collection of Sermons by Monsignor Donald F. Staib, was recently made available on Amazon. The week of its debut it was a top new release in the Christian Sermons category, and the response by the parish has made it a top seller in that category since. All proceeds go to the church.
Claire spoke about the project during Mass Oct. 5, 2024.
“I recently completed a Girl Scout project that was focused on preserving the words and wisdom of Monsignor Staib,” she said. “The sermons I chose for this book were with a purpose … My hope with this project has been that current members of our parish – and future members – will see that it is here, in the church, where our faith comes to life.”
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