Denny Carleton's Christian Music

During this time, I went back to attending the Catholic Church which I hadn’t attended in four years. It wasn’t until after I was hurt by the Protestant Church that I was able to forgive the Catholic Church for hurting me. That’s how I looked at it then, but now I realize the human element is involved in all churches. No one is perfect and  all have fallen short of the glory of God. Even as I returned to the Catholic Church, Pentecostalism remained a big part in my life.   I wanted to go to a
 

place where I could plug that in. The Lord, in his graciousness, sent me to St. Felicitas where I met Fr. John Kraker. Fr. Kraker’s brother,  Fr.  Joe  Kraker, was known for presiding over the televised Mass for shut-ins. While there, I met Tina Sajn and Karen Martinkowski who became life-long friends.

Fr. told the story of when he first became  a  priest.  He  was  having  a  rough  day and a woman said to him  “You  know  I  came  to  church tonight for  comfort  and  the  last  thing  I  need is a crabby priest.” He said from that day forward he decided his priesthood was going to be  about loving  his  flock.
Fr. Kraker held prayer services, had a sense of humor and liked English literature. He studied literature in England. He  was good at reaching out to people who didn’t fit into the regular Christian or Catholic  ways.   I  participated  in  prayer  and played
 

the guitar at the prayer meetings and healing services for a couple years.
Once, as I was leaving the  meeting, I  mentioned to someone that because of my commitment to the Lord, I had lost some of my friends. Father Kraker, was walking behind me and he said “Dennis I’ll be your friend.” Another time after an eight hour day of teaching guitar, I rushed to get to the prayer meeting on time. When I arrived, one of the members approached me to say that I should shower before coming to the meeting. I was aggravated with that and my attitude and thought was “Maybe you nice suburban people should get someone else to come and play guitar for free, someone who does not have a life.” One of the ladies at the prayer meeting, sensing something was wrong, asked me what it was and so I told her. As I prepared to play, I could see she and Father Kraker talking. Father Kraker did a sermon that night all about Saints like John the Baptist who lived in the desert and didn’t shave and ate locusts, etc. He then went on with a  litany  of other saints who were wild and wooly and didn’t fit in. I could sense the man who said that about me squirming, and I know Father gave that sermon for me and I loved him for it.
My life was balanced in that I was with the Catholic Church, continued to attend prayer meetings and healing services, and played some music. It was common at our healing service in the 1980’s and 1990’s for the priests to pray for healing and those who asked for healing would rest in the Spirit, which means people would fall to the floor after being prayed for.  We had designated catchers.
Father Kraker established a study group on the Chronicles of Narnia. He loved C.S. Lewis,  quoting him  often  in  his  sermons,  and  especially  liked  to
 

quote the stories of Narnia. It would be common in a sermon from Father Kraker to hear quotes from the characters of Narnia: the tale of Reepicheep the mouse, or the wisdom of Aslam. Father taught on Narnia twice a year for about seven weeks per course. He was so immersed into Narnia that he almost seemed to become one with the story. C.S. Lewis mentions in his writings that the world we perceive as real is only a shadow land and the real world is the spiritual, mystical one. I believed Father Kraker lived in the real world. He read the Chronicles of Narnia to the children every year, once a week at his parish, St Felicitas.
Fr. Kraker was very much into being childlike and took it very seriously. He protected his spirit against pretentiousness, tried to keep himself childlike and tried to avoid every meeting he could. He believed that to enter the kingdom of heaven you had to be like a child. He began each sermon with “Let’s pray together. Lord, we just come to you and we  ask you to make sure all my words are the words that the people need to hear; let the words come to us collectively and individually. We ask this through Jesus  Christ.   Amen.”
Father Kraker was quirky. He liked to ride his motorcycle and often got into trouble by bringing his dog to church, which ended up on the Alter a few times. Rather than begging for money,  he  would hold up the collection basket and say with enthusiasm, “Thanks.” He once mentioned, with astonishment, that he had never heard greed mentioned in confession. He talked about hearing confessions at a nursing home and a man saying “What can I do wrong? Look how old I am.” Father explained that sex is not the  only  sin  that needs  to be  confessed.   Father  Kraker  also  raised  goats  in a
 

rural getaway where he would go every week. “I love goats,” he would say, “but unlike sheep, they will eat anything even if it’s not good for them.”

My ex-wife and friend, Theresa, was on  the  phone  with Father Kraker discussing the idea she had to collect and organize prayer requests from the parish.  He told her  the  parish  had  enough  prayer  chains.  She was very upset when she hung up the  phone. Thirty seconds  later,  Father  called  back  and  conveyed that he was  becoming  overwhelmed.  He  told her that the parish could  add  another  prayer chain. I  took  this  gesture  as  him  giving  more  thought to the  request  and  remembering  to  stay kind. He turned the situation inside  out  and  took  what Theresa had seen as a rejection and  made into      a  triumph.
One powerful memory for me of Father Kraker’s sermons was based on Isaiah 58. In this scripture passage, people were fasting from food while, at the same time, oppressing their  laborers  and  hurting other people by gossiping and slandering. Another example he gave which he believed  was  not  a  true  fast   happened   when   he   was   going   to   Borromeo
 

Seminary School. A debate started about how  long prior to Communion one could eat solid foods or liquids; an hour for liquids and three hours for solid food. They actually had a  class  about  where milkshakes would land in  the  food/liquid  debate.  If the straw stood up in  the  milkshake,  it  was  solid.  This is really the wrong idea of fasting.
St. Felicitas held communal penance services. There was a time when all the priests at St. Felicitas were training the seminarians. The rule in the Church is that in certain circumstances when it is impossible to hear individual confessions, the communal option of penance counts as legitimate confession.
The bishops gave approval for communal penance and it became really popular; five hundred  people  every first Wednesday of the month were  receiving  this sacrament communally. Contemporary music would be played with a  presentation  of  photos  and  an  examination  of conscience.
When this practice of communal penance became popular, the Church seemed to not know what to do with it and decided this practice no longer counted. Maybe the bishops thought that the time for which the priests needed this special dispensation had passed. However, St. Felicitas continued this popular service, but it seemed like every time Father Kraker offered communal penance, he would have to answer the question, “Does the penance count?” He would say it did and then the inevitable would happen; he would be called into the bishop’s office. These confrontations between the bishop and Father Kraker became legendary.
It was not until Father passed away with one hundred and seventy-six priests attending the service,   that   I   really   got   a   glimpse   into   what I
 

interpreted as the truth in this situation. After Father Bober’s, (Father Kraker’s long-time friend and associate pastor at the parish) eulogy, in which he said that he thought Father Kraker’s ministry was prophetic and the prophetic was to project to people how fun it is to be a Christian and to be a priest serving God. Then the Bishop  began to speak and give the final blessing. “This is where I am supposed to speak as the Bishop, but I cannot.” Everyone laughed. “I’m speaking as a friend. Father  John Kraker was my best friend and classmate at the seminary.  He was the only one who visited me when I had a heart attack. My ninety year old mother gave Father Kraker the best compliment when she said “John is such a nice boy.””
My most profound exchange with Father Kraker was when he told me he had brain cancer after I had shared with him that Theresa wanted a  divorce.  He said “I’ll make you a deal -- you don’t  worry  about  your divorce and trust God and I  will  trust  in  Him  also and won’t worry about my brain cancer.”
After Father Kraker died, the parish went through many changes and eventually merged with another parish  and  became  St.  John  of  the  Cross.  An  era   had ended, but, if we’re fortunate, maybe some of the vision  will remain.