Archbishop James Golka

 For the boys and girls of GICC Elementary:

The Story of the Boy Who Would Become Archbishop

Boys and girls, even when Jimmy Golka was a boy, he wanted to be a priest.

This was not surprising at all. Jimmy belonged to a holy family. You wouldn’t think of them as holy if you saw all his brothers and sisters running through the yard with their many friends on Arthur Street. They shrieked and laughed and played ball and ran over the top of each other. Most days they fought over whose turn it was to sit by the window in the big station wagon or to empty the trash.

Jimmy in grade school

It was Jimmy’s small, red-haired mother - feisty and gentle and practical all at the same time - who showed her ten children how to be holy. Their tall, quiet father was holy as well even though he yelled very loudly at their school basketball games and sometimes embarrassed them. 

Every night Jimmy’s mother prayed with all her children. She sat with each of them on their beds and spoke directly to Jesus.

"Dear Lord, Jimmy’s worried about his math test,” she’d say as if Jesus stood close by Jimmy’s bed.

Jimmy marveled. 

“She really thinks Jesus is in this room,” he thought. “I guess He must be.”

No matter how busy his family was with their many school events, Jimmy’s mother and father made sure everybody went to Mass. They ate together, attended every school activity together, and prayed together. 

Jim in high school

As Jimmy grew, he read his children’s Bible from cover to cover. He learned all about Jesus and considered deeply that Jesus seemed to see something no one else did. He loved every single person - especially the people no one else loved. How could this be? Jimmy thought and thought. It was because, he concluded, Jesus was God. 

"I want to see the world the way Jesus sees it,” Jimmy thought with finality.

It wasn’t always easy. His first Confession made him anxious.

"What do I say to the priest?” he asked his mother.

“Johnny,” she called Jimmy’s older brother, “show Jimmy what he needs to do.”

With older brother patience, John related every one of his own sins to the imaginary priest beside him to show Jimmy how it was done. After that it was easy. Jimmy went to his First Reconciliation and confidently rattled off all his brother John’s sins to the good priest. He felt very satisfied with himself.

By the time he was in eighth grade at Central Catholic, the notion struck him that perhaps God was calling him to be a priest. He shared this thought with a school priest.

"You’re in the eighth grade,” the wise priest said. “Have fun, date a few girls, and pray.”

High school graduation
with mother and father-
Patty and Bob Golka

This was exactly what Jimmy did. All through high school he competed in every sport, attended school dances, and shot pool with his friends. Occasionally he stayed out later than he should have and helped sneak a friend out of the house. Still, he was always a good student and everyone liked him. He was voted the class president and class speaker. When he graduated from Central Catholic and was ready to start college, he felt the time had come to relax and to enjoy himself.

"I’m only going to college to make friends and not be involved in much,” he confided to his red-haired mother.

"We’ll see,” his mother smiled.

Instead, at Creighton he went every day to Mass, planned service trips to help those who were poor, and joined his campus ministry. He was still having a lot of fun, but the idea of joining the priesthood nagged him all the time.

After college, Jimmy decided to live on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a year. He drove a bus and tutored kids and coached. He loved the Lakota kids. When he was around them, he thought about the girl back in college he’d fallen in love with and wondered about having a big family. 

Just as Thanksgiving was coming that year on the Reservation, Jimmy felt God speak clearly to him for the very first time. He knew at last that he was going to be a priest.

Newly ordained Father
Jim Golka

And that’s what happened. Jimmy went to Minnesota to study, and his mom and dad and brothers and sisters and many of his good friends were with him the day he became a priest. No longer was Jimmy a Jimmy. Now he was Father Jim, and if he didn’t have a wife and lots of children like his good parents, he was a father instead to many, many of God’s children.

God sent Father Jim to serve good towns all across Nebraska. He grieved every time the Bishop sent him from one church to another. But every time, he loved his new parish as much as the old one. People loved Father Jim, too, because he was kind and humble and wise.

Visiting with flower girl,
little Charlotte Kilchriste

Everybody in Father Jim’s family was happy when he came back to his hometown to be the pastor of St. Mary’s Cathedral. At the big church in Grand Island,  Father Jim worked harder than he ever had before. There weren’t so many priests as when Father Jim had been a boy, and there were many more people to care for. Still, Father Jim loved his church. Every day he baptized babies and confirmed high schoolers and married couples and buried the dead. When the church needed money, he prayed, and God always came through. 

Then one year a terrible sickness shut down the church and the town and, indeed, the entire world. Many people died, and nobody could go to work or to school or to church. 

Father Jim processes through
Grand Island neighborhoods during
COVID. The Holy Spirit shines upon
His people.

People missed Jesus so much that Father Jim took Jesus to them. He wore his priestly robes and a mask  and a hat and marched to all the neighborhoods of Grand Island. Everybody crept from their homes like prisoners from behind bars and bowed before Jesus in Father Jim’s hands. 

One day a young woman rushed out of her house to beg Father Jim to pray for her father who was sick and dying in the hospital. It was very dangerous, and no one was allowed to visit the hospitals because of the sickness that was everywhere. Still, Father Jim wrapped himself from head to toe and went to visit the young woman’s father who lay close to death. Even though the father was asleep and would never wake up again, Father Jim anointed the man’s hands with oil and prayed for Jesus to heal him.

Later that day, the daughter called Father Jim to tell him that a miracle had occurred. 

"My father woke up!” the daughter cried.

When the good man could speak, he told Father Jim that he had been in a dark place of death but had suddenly known that Jesus was with him in the darkness to heal him.

“Jesus does it all,” Father Jim said to the happy man, and they cried together.

Father Jim happily would have stayed at St. Mary’s forever. God had other plans.

One day the phone rang, and the voice on the other end told Father Jim that Pope Francis was sending him to Colorado Springs to be a Bishop. 

Father Jim’s heart sank.

"Why me?” he said to God. In Father Jim’s eyes, he knew himself to be a shy, quiet man. How could God ask him to be a Bishop, of all things?

But God knew exactly what he was doing. 

Bishop Jim Golka of
the Diocese of
Colorado Springs

Father Jim was not a Father Jim any more. Now he was Bishop Jim. He was sure he had learned to trust Jesus. Now he had to learn to trust him all over again. But just the way it had always happened before when he was called from one place he loved to another, Bishop Jim discovered a great love for his big Colorado diocese. God knew things about Bishop Jim that even Bishop Jim didn’t know.

Although he was far away from home and family, Bishop Jim still came back to see all his Golka family and his St. Mary’s Cathedral church. He even came home to bless the brand new GICC Elementary School, boys and girls - this very school we’re in today.

One day, though, he came home for a very sad reason. His little sister Jean died. All her family was filled with sorrow, and Bishop Jim’s mother and father seemed to grow old overnight. They gave their precious daughter back to God, and Bishop Jim buried his little sister. 

The church was standing room only. Everybody cried at the sad funeral - the loss of a beautiful young woman was very difficult. But when Bishop Jim stood in front of the congregation and smiled at his family and prayed for his sister, every person in the church could see the faith shining from the Bishop’s face. In fact, all the Golkas radiated that faith. Even in their heartbreak, this holy family trusted God. 

It seemed Bishop Jim had barely been named Bishop when another bolt came from the blue. God called Bishop Jim to become the Archbishop of Denver. Again, Bishop Jim grieved. He had grown to think of Colorado Springs as home. Yet, here again God was calling him to a new challenge.

Bishop Jim was not a Bishop Jim any more. Now he was Archbishop Golka taking care of the great and wonderful city of Denver. All his family came to Denver to celebrate the big announcement - all except Bishop Golka’s feisty, kind little red-haired mother. Only two months before the announcement, she died in the arms of the good Lord with her big family all around her. 

With great gentleness, the new Archbishop of Denver embraced his frail father - who beamed upon his son with heartfelt pride. 

Bishop Golka blessed by his father.
His mother stands just to the right 
during his Colorado Springs
Installation as Bishop.

"When I was named Bishop of Colorado Springs,” Archbishop Golka told all the people assembled for the announcement, “my father put his hands above my head and blessed me.”

It was a special day to celebrate the new Archbishop of Denver. Sadly, however, just days later, Archbishop Golka’s father, the saintly man who roared at every athletic official in Nebraska, quietly died and joined his wife and daughter in Heaven.

People thought how very sad it was that his mother and father couldn’t be at the great ceremony in Denver to see their son become the new Archbishop.

But, of course they will be there. Heaven is not so far away that a mother and father and beloved little sister can’t be present for their much loved son and big brother. Heaven is much closer to Colorado than Nebraska is and much closer to Nebraska than Colorado is.

Rest assured, every member of the new Archbishop’s family will be there - even the ones from all those generations ago who will smile from Heaven at the man they’ve loved as a boy. They remember the way he searched for Jesus even when he was only Jimmy - not a Father Jim or a Bishop Jim or even an Archbishop - but just Jimmy.

They are very proud.

Nobody, however, is prouder than the three people who will beam from Heaven’s first row: the beautiful little sister, the quiet man who still bawls out Nebraska referees, and the feisty little red-haired woman.

She’s known who Jimmy would be from the day he was born.

Archbishop James Golka, she knows, is exactly where God needs him to be.