The promise on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart came full circle through Mike Bergman, a young corpsman with the Fourth Marine Division who arrived in Saipan in 1944. During this bitter battle Mike crossed the entire island. While doing so, he came across a statue that had survived the destruction of the island’s church and family grottos. It was s six-inch ivory statue which was half buried in the rubble; it was a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Mike was touched and wanted to send the statue home to his wife Angeline, who was living with her parents at the time in Columbia, Missouri. But first it had to be cleared by the Navy intelligence officers to make sure that it did not contain any secret message. The Navy drilled a hole in it, and cleared it for him to send home.
It was Mike, along with other members of his unit, who had come upon the seven Mercedarian sisters living in a cave. Through a Marine interpreter, who spoke Spanish, they explained to the sisters that the war was over and they would be moved to a military compound. It was in the military compound called “Camp Susupe” that Chaplain Tighe’s Air Force men discovered the sisters, which led to the promise written on the dictionary flyleaf on the “Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.”
After returning home to civilian life, Mike kept the statue of the Sacred Heart. This was to him the symbol of faith that sustained him through many difficulties, including the loss of his right eye in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Later, returning to Kansas City, he said he wanted to give the statue to the Mercedarian Sisters. Today, it resides in the Eucharistic Chapel of the Mercedarian Missionaries’ Our Lady of Mercy Country Home in Liberty, Missouri. The statue found its permanent home there in gratitude to all the servicemen who helped the sisters in Saipan during World War II and for all the benefactors and friends who continue to support their Mission at this assisted living residence. Below the encased statue it reads, ”In Gratitude to Msgr. Arthur M.Tighe.”
Though we know that this was the work of the Sacred Heart, and that in the course of God’s plan there were many courageous people who made the work of the sisters in the U.S. possible, we are also grateful that Father Tighe allowed himself to be used by God for this noble work. He once confided to a fellow priest his convictions about God’s use of him as an instrument, a conduit even in the midst of the terrible agonies of war. He was a special person with wonderful oratorical skills and great compassion for others that helped these many miracles to materialize. Like Jonah, he did not want to fulfill this promise to the sisters, but God gave the Mercedarian sisters the gift of perseverance, and that inspired him to give God nothing less than a wholehearted “Yes!” So in the end, we honor Msgr. Tighe, who is living proof of another unwilling prophet Jeremiah, who found that ‘the Lord God is the stronger one.”
The beautiful thing about Msgr. Tighe was that he chose to spend his last years residing at Our Lady of Mercy Country Home there in Liberty, Missouri, under the care of the Mercedarian Sisters. He took care of the sisters and in his last years they took care of him. What a testimony of love given and love returned. Msgr. Tighe returned home to the God he so passionately served on February 13, 1990 at the age of 83.
The Sacred Heart has a special love for the Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz and the people of Saipan. One of the moveable feasts of the Church Year, the Feast of the Sacred Heart is June 28th this year.
Sources:
AN EXTRAORDINARY PRIEST CELEBRATES HIS GOLDEN JUBILEE: An Intimate Portrait of Monsignor Arthur M. Tighe by Phil Koury, undated pamphlet.
THE MAJOR AND THE MIRACLE by Sister Patricia Cody, M.M.B. (Based on an oral account given by Msgr. Arthur M. Tighe, April 3, 1982). THE PROMISE OF THE SACRED HEART-Undated story about Mike Bergman and the Sacred Heart Statue.
