‘True leadership comes by being a servant first’
WINSTON-SALEM — “Every day I wake up and thank God for being a priest,” says Father Brian Cook, who is retiring as pastor of St. Leo the Great Church effective Aug. 4. He has served the parish for the past 14 years and marks his 35th anniversary of his priestly ministry this year.
Father Cook grew up outside Washington, D.C., where in his childhood he met a young priest who was to become the third Bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte.
“I was fortunate as I met a young priest at my parish outside Washington, D.C., by the name of Wil-liam Curlin, who gave me my first Communion and preached my first Mass and was an endearing in-fluence in my life, just a dear friend. That was absolutely profound,” Father Cook recalls.
He remembers Dec. 8, 1985, when then Monsignor Curlin preached at Father Cook’s first Mass after ordination. “He looked out at the congregation and said, ‘Father, there is your family. In time, for one reason or another, they will move away and your parish will become your family.’
“He said, ‘Love your people. If you love your people, they will do anything for the Church and they will do anything for you. If you do not love your people, they will not cross the street to say hello.’”
“That has always stuck with me,” Father Cook says. “Certainly in my ministry I have tried to love what-ever congregation I am serving, imperfectly to be sure.”
Father Cook was asked by Bishop Curlin to work with him in the 1980s at Gift of Peace, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity’s home for people dying of AIDS.
“Those were the days when there was no treatment, where people came to our home to die,” Father Cook recalls. “That had a profound influence on me as a young priest. Mother Teresa always encour-aged us to see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the dying and, by His grace, we did.”
He says, “What I have tried to impress on my ministry, with notable mistakes, is a type of servant leadership. Even with all of the grace involved in the laying on of hands by the bishop, true leadership comes by being a servant first. You must be a servant first before you can lead others.”
“You have to have that kind of experience,” he continues, “and you have to be ready to accept your failures and move on. It is the humble and fallible servant that becomes an effective leader in the Church to pastor his flock.”
Father Cook has spent much of his adult life working with the sick, first in health care and later as a priest. In the Washington area he worked as a paramedic, then later in respiratory therapy in a hospi-tal, and for the past three decades he has ministered as a priest to the sick and dying in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice facilities.
Enduring his own physical illness over the past several years has given him a new appreciation for people who serve the sick and dying.
“When the tables are turned and it is you in the hospital bed and you see the smiling face of a priest, a deacon or a Eucharistic minister coming around the corner to bring you the gift of the Eucharist or provide the anointing of the sick, I can’t tell you what power that sacrament has.”
The prayers and encouragement of his parishioners have also had a profound impact on him.
“My advice to the People of God is to pray for your priests. We are not supermen,” he says. “We have been given an extraordinary privilege and grace, but no one in the pews understands the particular joys and challenges of a priest. So pray for your priest. Be supportive. Be encouraging, and do not be afraid to disagree. Do not be afraid to speak to your parish priest.
“We are learning. We are pilgrims on this road together. We can learn from each other.”
To his brother priests, Father Cook says, “Trust your people. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council said that the People of God share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ by virtue of our baptism. So trust that grace. There is a wisdom, experience and transparent faith from which we priests draw tremen-dous strength if we are open to it. Walk humbly with your God; walk humbly with your people.”
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
Pictured: Father Brian Cook, longtime pastor of St. Leo Church in Winston-Salem, will retire effective Aug. 4 after 35 years of priestly ministry. Father Cook learned the joys of servant leadership from the late Charlotte Bishop William G. Curlin, whom he met as a boy. Bishop Curlin enlisted his help in the early years of his priesthood at Gift of Peace, Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity’s home for people dying of AIDS. (Photo provided by
St. Leo the Great Church Facebook page)