|
By Voice staff
Father Milton Eggerling, a former diocesan priest who
served as supervisor of a clinical pastoral education at Providence Hospital
in Oakland from 1980-1983, died on Feb. 29 in Boston, Massachusetts. He
was 86.
After retiring in the late 1980’s, Father Eggerling joined the Missionary
Society of St. James the Apostle, an international organization of diocesan
missionary priests who volunteer for service in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.
After working in Lima, Peru, for six years, he moved to Boston, the Society
headquarters, where he worked for 12 years.
Father Eggerling was a native of South Dakota. He taught in a country
school, served as a radio operator in the Air Force and studied at Creighton
University and the University of San Francisco before entering St. Patrick
Seminary in Menlo Park. He was ordained in 1954 and returned to South
Dakota where he was a high school teacher, counselor, pastor and Newman
chaplain.
He returned to the Bay Area in 1970 and served at St. Felicitas Parish
in San Leandro and Corpus Christi Parish in Piedmont. He then went to
the University of Texas in Austin to study for his doctorate in clinical
pastoral education and then became director of CPE at Providence Hospital.
Three years later, when the program was dropped because of financial cutbacks,
he was assigned as pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Oakland for a year.
In a 2004 article on the 50th anniversary of his priesthood, Father Eggerling
recalled the words of Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin: “Because
I am a priest I wish to be the first to become conscious of all that the
world loves, pursues and suffers . . . . and be more nobly of the earth
than any of the world’s servants.”
In noting gratitude for his vocation, he said, “I’ll keep
trying to adhere to the counsel given me at my ordination. ‘Lord,
make me interruptible.’”
Father Eggerling’s funeral took place at Most Holy Redeemer Church
in East Boston on March 3, with burial in Holy Cross Cemetery.
|
