Father Frederick Power, S.J. passed away peacefully on November 2nd, 2017 in Pickering, Canada; he was 93. Fr. Power had been promoting the devotion to the Sacred Heart through the Apostleship of Prayer (Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network) as his full-time ministry for more than fifty years. He served as the editor of The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, which was a print publication that had a readership of over 30,000, spread through over 700 parishes. In his own words, he saw this ministry as “…expressing the ageless lessons of the love of God in a language that is understood by our generation.”

Fr. Power liked to address the other person by name. He never saw the other person as a mere passerby who was only worthy of a curt greeting. I remembered seeing him in the Jesuit infirmary maybe a year ago, and upon seeing me, he simply said: “Good morning, Edmund.” It was not as if we had had a long correspondence over the years, nor did I visit him regularly. But he remembered and addressed me by my name. It reminded me of our relationship with God, that it is a personal one. Jesus knows us and calls us by name; he looks us in the eye and sees us as persons who are worthy to be loved. Fr. Power seemed to have learned something from our Saviour himself. To that end, Fr. Power lived what he preached.