Letter to a lapsed Catholic friend

(--a friend who recently cracked wise about pedophile priests)

*


St Francis of Assisi once said that if a priest and an angel were to enter his room at the same time, he would kneel to the priest first and ask for his blessing before acknowledging the angel. Now I've known a few sourpusses in the priesthood, but this attitude is approximately mine. Most of the priests I've known have been monstrances. (Not monsters! Monstrances!)

You recall, a monstrance is the displayer of the eucharistic Body of Christ. I look at people like Fr C at the Prudential Chapel, and marvel that our rotten human race has produced such a gem of a human being! I look at Fr W in Roxbury, apostle of racial reconciliation in the 1970s when he was rector of the Cathedral -- now 72 years old, and walking like a man of a hundred. Battered by the wracks and ravages of time, he's nonetheless unstoppable. Looking at him is at least as inspiring to me as looking at a crucifix is to other people. (Our mutual friend D has briefly met Fr W; she'll tell you.)

So yes, I was somewhat offended (but alas, not shocked or surprised), saddened, disheartened, by the facile jibe at the priesthood. It is true that some have given scandal -- some are predators and criminals. To which I respond, "What else is new?" Human beings -- even those in the service of Christ -- don't often distinguish themselves. I don't see that those who have jettisoned Christianity or opposed it (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, to name a few) are notably better than those who have not.

But yes, what the very peaceful, very irenic, very life-giving writer Catherine Doherty once said: "It doesn't seem to affect me at all if priests are sinful or holy, or anything in between. I understand that they are men. But frankly, if I am in need of one of them and know that he is living a sinful life, I would still crawl to him to get absolution for my sins, or to receive Viaticum if I were in danger of death."

That's the rub for me. That charism of priesthood means baptism, confession, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Sacraments are the only things in the world that make sense to me, along with the Rosary and Sacred Scripture.

Sorry to go on at such length. Having said all that, I do concede that the name of that summer camp is gobsmackingly bizarre.

*

[ii]


The priest himself may not be worthy of veneration (and as I've said, I've known a couple of clunkers and oddballs and sourpusses), but the priestHOOD is nonetheless worthy of veneration.

About Catherine Doherty: You have to remember that she is Russian.  When one grows up in Communist Russia, and sees priests both Cathoilc and Orthodox being slaughtered for the mere fact of their priesthood -- it instills a sort of protectiveness and a compensatory love.

The priest may be sinful, carnal, uncharitable, mean, base, vile. The priesthood remains worthy of veneration. (Think of it: Would you go to meet any U.S. President at the White House, be he or she Democratic, Republican, Socialist, or Libertarian, in cut-offs and flip-flops and unwashed hair? I certainly wouldn't. If I can afford such respect to Kaiser Blythe, Curious George, and Captain Forward -- none of whom can consecrate the Eucharist, or anoint the sick, or absolve the sinner -- then I can respect the priest.)

And of course, I would address the Presidents as "Mr. President" and not by my pert nicknames!

Yes, you did apologize but you did make the remark nonetheless. (I'm picturing Kevin Kline right now. "Fraid so, old chap! Sorry!") And it was an attack on the priesthood itself, as you made no qualifications about good priests -- and as I've known some to be, heroic priests.

But no, I'm still with Doherty. If I were ever imprisoned for my Catholicism -- not as remote a possibility as I would like! -- I could see myself seeking absolution or Holy Communion from whatever priest is available.

Hypocrites? Fiends? Yes. But in kneeling to the priest, as St Francis and as Catherine Doherty and as Thomas D would, we're not venerating the priest's conduct. (Fr Frank McFarland: "Wouldn't it be horrible if the efficacy of the Sacraments depended on whether I was a saint?") We're venerating the anointing that he received, as it were, from the wounded hands of Christ.

Shattered and then mended

The monk must learn how to sin, to be broken, to stand in need, so as to taste the mercy of God. His heart must be shattered and then mended. It thus becomes a map of Christ's mercy. Scars remain deeply engraved on it, making the heart of the monk a testament to the unrestricted forgiveness of God still on offer to every human being.


Michael Downey in TRAPPIST: Living in the Land of Desire (Paulist Press, 1997), p. 72

Joy of the Rosary

Fr Philip Dabney, CSsR, of Boston's Mission Church (Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help) gives an eight-minute homily on the Most Holy Rosary:


 

Moderately

Roxbury and JP

Top photo: St Patrick's Church, Dudley Street, Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts.

Centre photo:  Changing leaves, Dudley and Hampden Streets, Roxbury.

Bottom photo:  Sculpture, Jackson Square MBTA Station, Jamaica Plain, Boston.

Sleds, Velocipedes, Rocking Horses

It's been 10 years

... but if anyone hasn't read this document by the late Blessed John Paul II, let me urge as gently but as firmly as possible:  You really, really, really, really should.

How could one possibly contemplate the mystery of the Child of Bethlehem, in the joyful mysteries, without experiencing the desire to welcome, defend and promote life, and to shoulder the burdens of suffering children all over the world? How could one possibly follow in the footsteps of Christ the Revealer, in the mysteries of light, without resolving to bear witness to his “Beatitudes” in daily life? And how could one contemplate Christ carrying the Cross and Christ Crucified, without feeling the need to act as a “Simon of Cyrene” for our brothers and sisters weighed down by grief or crushed by despair? Finally, how could one possibly gaze upon the glory of the Risen Christ or of Mary Queen of Heaven, without yearning to make this world more beautiful, more just, more closely conformed to God's plan?

Flowers near the brook

What are these called?  Does anyone know?  Asters, perhaps?

The Sure Aimer

(to Marianne Moore)

         Time falls,
      Falls into place
   And into stones, turned, ferned,
   Combed by continual waterfalls
   In a thunderdown burlying race,
      A music earned
By luck, as one said of Verlaine: 'He falters with grace.'

         The will,
      Watching that force
   And seeking how it may best wrest
   Life's ring from hammer and anvil,
   Leaps the precipitous course,
      A salmon at rest
In the trance, like a swallow suspended, of purposeful torse,

         That ease,
      Turning the whole
   Starred bestiary of heaven, even
   Past power of Hercules,
   A thirteenth labour of soul,
      To you is given,
Your needle uniting all mind's meandering scroll,

         What proves
      To the hypocrite
   Most hostile?  Vision reveals seals
   Struck and bequeathed by love's
   Authority.  But wit
      Reconciles planets' wheels
To plants, creatures and shells, and makes all fit.

         You take
      Both these, and free
   Time with stern details, logic the world threw, true
   And of archaic make,
   Which you restore and make us see
      In a flash, as through
Precision you humble strength, a David for accuracy.

~ Vernon Watkins (1906-67)


from Fidelities (New Directions, 1969), pp. 35-36

For a Wine Festival

Now the late fruits are in.
Now moves the leaf-starred year
Down, in the sun's decline.
Stoop.  Have no fear.
Glance at the burdened tree:
Dark is the grape's wild skin.
Dance, limbs, be free.
Bring the bright clusters here
And crush them into wine.

Acorns from yellow boughs
Drop to the listening ground.
Spirits who never tire,
Dance, dance your round.
Old roots, old thoughts and dry,
Catch as your footprints rouse
Flames where they fly,
Knowing the year has found
Its own more secret fire.

Nothing supreme shall pass.
Earth to an ember gone
Wears but the death it feigns
And still burns on.
One note more true than time
And shattered falls his glass.
Steal, steal from rhyme:
Take from the glass that shone
The vintage that remains.

~ Vernon Watkins (1906-67)


Vernon Watkins, "For a Wine Festival," in Fidelities (New Directions, 1969), p. 47

Captain Forward

Old Captain Forward didn't fool me once,
But some would give him 48 more months.
If he's at the helm till twenty-seventeen,
I'm bound to utter something quite obscene.

Memorare to St Joseph

Remember, O most chaste Spouse of the Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who implored your help and sought your intercession was left unassisted.  Full of confidence in your power, I fly unto you and beg your protection.  Despise not, O foster-father of the Redeemer, my humble supplication, but in your bounty, hear and answer me.  Amen.

St Agnes Church

under a cloudy sky:

Peter Kreeft

... we live in a flat world, an egalitarian world, while the ancients lived in a world full of spiritual heights and hierarchies, a world of spires and turrets.  But our hearts protest against our flatland, and yearn for their true country, their true dimension of verticality.  Love is, simply, superior.  It belongs on a throne.  It rightly brags, praises, exults, celebrates, sings its Song of Songs, its nonordinary song, its Greatest Song.  It deserves silver and gold and robes and crowns.  Heaven will be full of it (if the symbolism in Revelation means anything at all); had we not better practice living with it?

Peter Kreeft, from "Love is Triumphalistic," in Three Philosophies of Life (Ignatius Press, 1989), pp. 130-1

Arch Street

Exterior of St Anthony's (Franciscan) Shrine, 100 Arch Street, Downtown Crossing, Boston, Massachusetts.  Known to every Catholic Bostonian simply as "Arch Street."

Photographs

All photos are of my old beat-up New American Bible, bought used in 1992 in the basement of Harvard Book Store.  I taped the Blessed Elizabeth quotation onto the blank page preceding the New Testament.  The Scripture verse in the second photograph is from Psalm 22: "He has not spurned or disdained the wretched man in his misery, but when he cried out he heard him."

And yes, it is a worn-out old Bible, isn't it? It was probably 15 years old when I bought it 20 years ago!  It's being held together by masking tape, and corners of the cover have fallen off. Still, despite the poor condition -- and the vexingly cacophonous quality of the translation! -- I have a sentimental attachment to this Bible, my first "adult" Bible, bought when I was in the company of a dear, dear friend.

The mystery of the cross

is intolerable from without -- which is why it is intolerable for the large number of Christians who consider it as such.  If considered from within, one discovers the cross as the victory of love, and as a means.  The cross is not a stopping point.  The cross is a passageway; it is a Passover.  The cross is God's true "passage."  But one does not stop or remain there.  One does not abide in the cross; one abides in love.  Abiding in suffering is bad.  One does not abide in suffering, but in love. And because one abides in love, one assumes suffering; one assumes the cross. It is important to have a good understanding of this.  The cross is unbearable if viewed from the outside.  The cross is wisdom if viewed in the light of faith, that is, from the inside, as God himself views it.

~ Marie-Dominique Philippe, OP

[Meditation in Magnificat, September 2012, for Saturday the 15th, pp. 204-5]

Nos in cor tuum trahe

O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in your wounds I find my consolation, in your pierced heart I find a companion for my sorrows.  O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in your heart's joy I find my contentment, in your purity I find my hope.  O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the radiant light streaming from your heart, my blindness disappears; in your fiery love I am ablaze with awe.  O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in your humiliation I can bear scorn from others, in your longings I am fulfilled.  O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the blood and water which gushed forth from your lanced heart I am reborn in you; you refresh my very being.  Forever beating in the love of the Holy Trinity is found your human heart, authoring life and radiating eternal affection.  Would that I could find God's treasure, it would be found in a humble and contrite heart.  You by your divinity know all things divine and by your humanity you feel all things human.  By the mystery of your Sacred Heart, you have united man to yourself forever.  Hold back nothing from me that could draw me more completely into the deepest recesses of your heart.  Whether peace or distress, bliss or grief, I accept all as an invitation to know you and love you more profoundly.  O Lord, perfect me in your love, confirm me in your grace and take delight in the richness of my surrender.  Where your treasure lies there will you find my heart.  Amen.

~ Pedro de la Cruz

women are always right

with regard to the subject of your letter:our nonhero has a single statement to make;not a generality,but a function of his own particular experience--women are always right

by this,I emphatically don't imply the merely logical or pragmatical or legal or whatever "right" which men(who are essentially cowards)have invented to cover a multitude of wrongs.  I do imply Something equally at right angles to "right" & "wrong";Something which is to "right" & "wrong" as Joy is to "pleasure" & "pain",or as Truth is to "fact" & "fiction"

today's "fact" is tomorrow's "fiction"--Copernicus supersedes Ptolemy--& only perhaps a billion fools confuse the transient with the timeless.  "Pleasure" & "pain" are heads and tails of the same coin:"pain" equals un-"pleasure","pleasure" equals un-"pain".  But Joy isn't un-anything;Joy IS

precisely so,while soidisant men are content to simply exist in the silly finite tiny trivial realm of either-or which their cowardice has evolved & their arrogance has entitled "reality",women(totally & mysteriously)ARE

this is what I imply;& can only imply,since the thing in itself(like all Good True & Beautiful things)eludes description,being strictly immeasurable.  Women ARE,not because or although or for any selfstyled reason,but like Birth & Life & Death.  They ARE like feeling & like breathing;like a bud exploding & a leaf spiralling:like the stars setting & the sun rising,& the moon closing & the moon opening

E E Cummings to Omar Pound, from a letter dated November 8 1954, in Selected Letters of E E Cummings, ed. F. W. Dupee and George Stade (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), pp 236-7

Recently updated

the new Crystal Tambourine, with poems entitled "Late August" and "Verily."