{"id":277024,"date":"2018-02-05T20:41:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T01:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleteia.org\/?post_type=post&p=277024"},"modified":"2018-02-05T20:41:17","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T01:41:17","slug":"rip-john-mahoney-ive-always-prayed-to-the-holy-ghost-for-wisdom-understanding-and-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2018\/02\/rip-john-mahoney-ive-always-prayed-to-the-holy-ghost-for-wisdom-understanding-and-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP, John Mahoney: ‘I’ve always prayed to the Holy Ghost for wisdom, understanding and knowledge’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This popped up on Facebook tonight, courtesy writer Cathleen Falsani Possley. (Huge h\/t to Frank Weathers for sending it my way!) She posted a long piece on the late, great John Mahoney, best known as Martin Crane, the plaid-shirt-wearing dad on \u201cFrasier.\u201d Mahoney died today at the age of 77. And he was, it turns out, a profoundly spiritual, even religious man.<\/p>\n

This comes from\u00a0her book \u201cThe God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People\u201d<\/a><\/strong> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).<\/p>\n

Snip:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

John\u2019s focus on kind living evolved over time. \u201cI was very, very self-centered when I was young,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought the world revolved around me. It even affected my work when I became an actor. I used to think about how great I had to be and how wonderful I had to be on that stage instead of honoring the playwright or honoring the screenwriter and becoming a part of something that was wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he can\u2019t put an exact date on it, John believes his mind began to change when his heart did, around the time he had what he describes as an \u201cepiphany\u201d in a Roman Catholic church in downtown Chicago around 1975. \u201cI was in the Loop, and I went into St. Peter\u2019s and went to Mass, and it was just about the most emotional thing that ever happened to me. I don\u2019t know where it came from, I just had a little breakdown of some sort, and after that, made a conscious effort to be a better person, to be a part of the world, and to try to revolve around everyone else in the world instead of expecting them to revolve around me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe it was the intercession of the Holy Ghost,\u201d he continues. \u201cI\u2019ve always prayed to the Holy Ghost for wisdom and for understanding and knowledge. I think he answered my prayers when I stopped in the church that day. My life was totally different from that day on. I saw myself as I was, and I saw into the future and saw what I wanted to be. And I sort of rededicated myself to God and begged him to make me a better person. It wasn\u2019t fear of hell or anything like that. I just somehow knew that to be like this, like what I was, wasn\u2019t the reason I was created. I had to be better. I had to be a better person. And I think I am now. I like myself,\u201d he says, breaking into one of his patented head-back-eyes-closed-mouth-open laughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty much in a spiritual state most of the time. Even when I\u2019m out drinking with my friends, and even when I drink too much, God\u2019s never far from my thoughts. I\u2019m not a freak, asking \u2018What would Jesus do?\u2019 and stuff like that. I don\u2019t think things like that. I don\u2019t pride myself on being able to do what he did anyway. We don\u2019t really know. I just try to live a good life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

God love you, John Mahoney. Thank you for your gift.<\/p>\n

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Check out a classic \u201cFrasier\u201d moment below\u2026and a wonderful interview with him above.<\/p>\n