Thank you for Kate Lewellen’s Sept. 3 article, “Iowa State loses spiritual leader,” concerning our Monsignor Supple. It brought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes.

In addition to his service to the students and to the university, James served as a Chaplain for two years during World War II, willing to lay his life on the line to minister to the needs of others — a dedication mirroring the sacrifice made by Christ.

I graduated from Iowa State in 1996 and left Ames. When my wife finished her graduate work in 1999 and we thought of where we would look for jobs, our hearts led us back to Ames. We could have found jobs anywhere, but we came back here. The one and only reason we came back was because of Msgr. Supple and the community he built here. And yes, when we returned he knew my name, my wife’s name and the name of our young son, too.

Numbers cannot calculate the lives he has touched and changed for the better; souls saved — not only those at Iowa State, but the countless lives touched by people he touched.

When someone dear dies, I have to ask, “Did they live the life that God asked of them? Did they do enough to make it to the promise land?” This week is the first time ever that I didn’t ponder these questions. I only wonder what joke he is telling now: the one about the bear in the bar or one about an Irish Catholic priest.

He ended every mass the same way, and I can still hear him say it now: “God loves you, and so do I.”

Paul Dosch

Program Coordinator

Residence Halls