His Last Lesson
For Fr. Robert Jack of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati; a man and priest who knew what it meant to be devoted to Our Lady, guiding us all closer to Her in everything he did and said, ever-so generously from the heart.
There are lessons in the spiritual life that cannot be learned through study alone. They come instead through witness — through the quiet endurance of someone who has suffered with Christ and found meaning, not in escape, but in surrender. For many Catholics, this kind of witness comes through the priest who stands at the intersection of human suffering and divine mercy.
For me, that priest is Father Robert Jack.
Fr. Rob had long been known for his steady presence — a priest who does not hurry grief or silence pain with platitudes. He held the gift of speaking simply about hard things: the loneliness that can come with faith, the hidden cost of love, the mystery of the cross. In his homilies and counsel, suffering was never treated as something to “get over,” but as something to offer. Through him, I came to see that suffering, when united to Christ, can become a form of prayer — a way of entering into the redemptive life of God Himself.
A priest like Fr. Rob carried countless unseen sorrows: the confessions of the brokenhearted, the deaths he witnesses, the burdens he bears alone. Yet his joy endures — a quiet, sober joy that does not deny the cross but draws its strength from it. His witness makes tangible the truth that Jesus did not come to erase suffering but to transform it. The cross was not an interruption in salvation history; it was salvation unfolding.
When we suffer, our instinct is often to recoil — to plead for relief, to question, to search for meaning. A good priest does not dismiss that impulse. Instead, he guides it toward surrender. I had heard Fr. Rob remind parishioners that in Gethsemane, Christ Himself prayed, “Let this cup pass from me,” but followed it with, “Not my will but yours be done.” That tension — between the desire for relief and the acceptance of God’s will — is the space where holiness is born.
In his priesthood, he turned our gaze toward Mary, the one who embodied that surrender most completely. Marian devotion, as he explains, is not sentimentalism or mere piety. It is a school of faith. Through Mary, we learn how to remain faithful in darkness, how to suffer without closing our hearts.
He would often reflect on Mary’s presence at Calvary — how she did not understand the full mystery of her Son’s suffering, yet stayed. She stood beneath the cross not because she found comfort there, but because love kept her there. “That,” he once said in a homily, “is the essence of Christian discipleship: to stay at the cross and still love.”
Under the guidance of priests like Fr. Rob, Marian devotion becomes more than reciting the Rosary or honoring her feasts. It becomes a way of life. It is through Mary that we learn what it means to consent to God’s will in the midst of sorrow — to say Fiat even when the outcome is unclear. Her maternal heart shows us that suffering, when united to love, bears fruit for the world.
Fr. Rob often said that Mary’s vocation did not end at Bethlehem or even at Calvary; it continues each time she helps one of her children bring their pain to Christ. When we entrust our suffering to her, she teaches us to bear it rightly — with patience, with humility, and with hope.
Through his example, he showed that priestly life is not separate from suffering but immersed in it. The priest becomes a living bridge between heaven and earth, between humanity’s pain and God’s mercy. He does not eliminate the cross; he helps others carry it. And in that hidden ministry, there is a reflection of Mary’s own vocation: to stand beside the suffering with unwavering love.
When a priest speaks of suffering, he does not offer empty consolation. Instead, he offers companionship — the assurance that God is not distant from our pain but present in it. Fr. Rob Jack’s Marian devotion, his fidelity to prayer, and his unflinching trust in God reveal something profound: that holiness is not achieved by avoiding sorrow, but by allowing it to be transformed by grace.
Through priests like him, we come to see that suffering, when offered in love, becomes a participation in Christ’s redemptive work. And through Mary, we learn how to make that offering — not with fear or bitterness, but with the quiet confidence of one who knows that every cross, carried with faith, leads to resurrection.