Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Rest in Peace, Dom Lettieri

For 30 years, a small, steady voice has been sending out the gospel message through the AM airwaves in the Philadelphia region. Today, those airwaves are silent, but the voice of Dom Lettieri is singing in Heaven.

I didn't know Dom well, but I was blessed to meet him twice at the radio station in Rosemont. Once with Fr. Paul Dressler to speak about the New Evangelization and young adults, and the second time was in the middle of the DaVinci Code fever. Each time Dom had me on his show, he struck me as a man of deep peace and a rock solid faith. A conversation with him was always very warm and personal. And he had such a look of wonder in his eyes. I remember that. Wonder at the beauty and privilege of being Catholic. Wonder and dismay at the culture he tried so hard to reach, a culture that seemed to choose the selfish path over the way of the Cross, the way towards Jesus. For Dom, that was the definition of disaster. So he got on the air, and he talked about Jesus.

Dom was deeply spiritual, you could feel it in his presence; a man of charismatic prayer. Both times we met he'd pray before turning on the mics. Love and petitions poured from him; prayer came so easy. I thank God that I got the chance to see a little glimmer of his passion and love for the Church.

Please pray for Dom's soul, his family and the friends who will so miss him, and for the ministry known as the IN HIS SIGN. May perpetual light shine upon him, and may his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.


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"IN HIS SIGN NETWORK serves as a radio and communications ministry comprised of lay Catholics proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in obedience to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The mission of IN HIS SIGN NETWORK is to communicate Catholic Christian moral principles in accordance with the authority of the Church through the media; primarily radio, newsprint, and audio tapes. To have open and frank discussions of current interest, historical perspectives and societal mores and their effect upon the members of the Catholic and Christian communities of this century."

Dom was blessed to host on his show "Putting It On The Line" exceptional guests from around the world for nearly three decades including: Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua former Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia; the late Bishop James McHugh of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey; Rev. Michael Scanlan, T.O.R., Chancellor of Franciscan University of Steubenville; Mother Angelica, Founder of EWTN; Alan Keyes, former Ambassador to the United Nations and presidential candidate; Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum; the late Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey; Father Benedict Groeschel C.F.R.; Father Andrew Apostoli C.F.R. and Raymond Arroyo."

taken from www.inhissign.com

In His Sign Network
136 Garrett Avenue,
Rosemont, PA 19010, United States

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A very recent convert (Easter 06) L.S., a deeply spiritual man who probably has no graduate degrees responded to my question in a very powerfully stunning way. When my dear friend Joe Reilly and I picked him up to go the Fr. Chieffo’s Men’s Faith Sharing Group Meeting last month this was the exchange…:
"L., how is the Lord treating you?" and L. responded… "Better than I deserve." Both Joe and I believe that this is/was very profound. We are still pondering the deep spirituality of that response. WOW!

In Christ Jesus.
Bob Matthews

(P.S. I think Joe and I could now respond in the same way, but our brother Lynn taught us.)

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