WHO MADE ME? GOD MADE ME...

American poet Dana Gioia received the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame this weekend, and his acceptance speech (found on “Whispers In The Loggia” and worth listening to) highlighted the role of others in making us who we are: God, parents, teachers, friends…

It’s a wonderful exercise (and probably done by most of us too infrequently) to take the time actually to write down all those persons who had (to our memories, anyway) a major influence in the ways we behave, or think, or love, or believe. It involves those who nurtured us, or challenged us, or engaged us, or taught us, or inspired us: those who encouraged us to be who and what we are, and to dream of being even more than we were at that time. The influences never really end; we can be “re-formed” at 70 just as well as at 20.

Who made you? This time, the Catechism answer is only the beginning!

COME, HOLY SPIRIT

It's the period of the "original Novena" of days of prayer in the Upper Room between Ascension and Pentecost. This "novena" concluded with the incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit--an outpouring we need today, as well.

Though there is no formal, shared prayer at Our Savior during this time, we are all encouraged to make our personal novena to the Holy Spirit--what will we do extra, do without, give away... as a means of entering into prayerful, hopeful watching and waiting?

Pope John XXIII called for a "new Pentecost" in the context of his convoking Vatican II. Pope Benedict XVI has called for a new efflusion of the Spirit, both a couple of years ago in his pastoral visit to the United States, and now as he has ended his pastoral visit to Portugal.

Are our hearts (is my heart) open to transformation? What might it ask of me--to do, to be, to surrender, to embrace...? The institution of the Church cannot be reformed unless the members of the Body of Christ (which is the real Church) are reformed: this is the conversion we must long for and be open to. Will we be ready to sing Veni, Sancte Spiritus on this Pentecost? This sequence will be chanted at Mass next Sunday. And just a couple of weeks later another ancient prayer will be chanted: Veni, Creator Spiritus--at the ordination of Fred Boni, Dan Good, James Morrison and Wayne Youngman to the priesthood. They will be transformed for committed service and ministry to the Church in a total way. Are we ready to be used by the Spirit, too?

The great prayer to the Holy Spirit is a great way to engage in this special novena:

Come, Holy Spirit; fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructs the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolations, through Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Below is a clip (this one is acceptable; I promise!) of one of the most famous of all settings of the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, by the 15th century composer John Dunstable (mis-spelled in the clip's title). And let's pray in these next days for the "fire" to fall!

APOLOGY OFFERED

Please see the bottom of the post "IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY" for an apology to all those who already saw that post and were (very properly) offended by the YouTube clip I attached at the end...

Thanks!

IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO TODAY...

Actually, it was 29 years ago today (see comment below) that Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II in the Piazza of St. Peter’s in the context of a Wednesday General Audience. Seriously wounded, the Pope nearly bled to death before surgeons at the Gemelli Clinic were able to get things under control.

People remember exactly where they were when the announcement of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was made (I am one of them). I also remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the word came to us about the Holy Father.

I was teaching an Honors Humanities class (world history/English/theology) at Montgomery Catholic HS that morning. Among the students was Laurie Gulley, now newly named the Principal of the St. Bede campus of Montgomery Catholic Prep. The word came, and I was stunned into silence and shock: I was leaning backward against my desk, and for what seemed forever I simply stood silent, eyes closed. I think it was at least 20 minutes. The students were all equally silent.

The fact the bullets missed the major arteries in the Pope’s abdomen was amazing: he knew it was a miracle, the protection of the Blessed Mother on the anniversary of her first appearance at Fatima in 1917. The Pope’s own devotion to the Mother of God, surely in its supreme expression for him in the “Black Madonna” of Jasna Gora, at Czestochowa in Poland, made it the most logical connection. It is no coincidence, then, that John Paul placed the bullet recovered from his wounds in a shrine at Fatima as a memorial and a thank-you. It is also no coincidence that the optional memorial we celebrated today was only added to the Church’s liturgical calendar by John Paul in the 3rd revision of the Sacramentary (this is the edition which has finally been officially translated into English and which will be implemented in the near future).

In commemoration of this sorrowful (yet joyful) day, I offer the following clip from the 20th century Polish composer Henryk Gorecki—from his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Enjoy the music, and pray for Pope John Paul II (now declared “Venerable”)—if ever there was a true “Servant of God,” he was it.

APOLOGY!!!

I attached a clip as indicated above, and was recently told that a number of minutes into it images that were clearly inappropriate were being posted--I am embarrassed and VERY SORRY!

The great 19th century Oxford scholar Martin Routh, asked toward the end of his life for a word of advice, thought carefully and then said: I think, sir, wince you come for the advice of an old man, sir, you will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir!

Clearly, I did not, and I am at fault. I ask your forgiveness, and I encourage you to seek out your own recording of the Symphony #3 of Sorrowful Songs without my "special help"!

EMBRACING THE TRUTH IN LOVE ACROSS THE CENTURIES

Today’s Memorial (an optional one) was for 3 early Christian martyrs: Nereus, Achilleus and Pancras. The latter died for the Faith at the end of the 3rd century; the other two may have died then, or perhaps the beginning of the 2nd century—we’re not sure. What we are sure of is their tombs, and the churches built over the catacombs where they were buried.
They stood alone against the power of the Roman Empire and its leader, the Emperor Diocletian (and Trajan, if the first two were martyred in the early 2nd century as one source suggests). Their tombs and the churches over them are their trophies of victory. But who would have considered them glorious and “winners” back then?

We fast-forward to the 20th century. In the same spirit as these early martyrs, but even more “alone,” Franz Jägerstätter was a young Austrian who refused to be conscripted into the Nazi army after his home country was over-run by Germany. His was a martyrdom of faith, more “alone” because even the local clergy advised him that to oppose the regime of the Third Reich was pointless. His story was first told movingly by Gordon Zahn in the important book In Solitary Witness. And in a fitting “twist” it was the German pope, Benedict XVI, who declared him a martyr—he was beatified in 2007.

Finally, the three children (from left, Jacinta, Lucia and Francisco) who are celebrated especially on 13 May: the visionaries of Fatima. It is to commemorate the 10th anniversary of their beatification (more on this point in a minute) that Pope Benedict is now making his apostolic visit to Portugal.

These children did not stand up to the power of an “Evil Empire” but only to the local government authorities who tried to get them to admit they were making up the story of the Lady. But at ages 9, 9 and 7, a town police chief would seem equally as threatening, especially when he did in fact threaten the children. Lucia (the oldest) long outlived her young cousins (Francisco and Jacinta): they died in the influenza epidemic shortly after World War I, but she lived to age 97, dying in the Carmelite convent where she spent so much of her life. How “alone” must that have felt, I wonder? Beyond that, since she died so recently, Lucia is the one child of the visionaries not beatified. “Left out”? Probably not really…


Glory does not come from fame or praise: it comes from faithful, prayerful love of Christ, in and with and for others. It comes from only one word—that of our Lord, when He says to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Luke 19:17). May we all hear that word spoken to us in joyful welcome home!

UNDERSTANDING

At the reception Saturday morning after we celebrated First Eucharist with our children, one young person came up to me with a question: “What was it that I got?” I said, “That was Jesus.” The reaction was priceless—taking a jump backward and eyes widening like the plate the cake was on, the reply was, “Really?? Wow…!”

Perhaps folks are thinking that this little encounter should have left me (and the Religious Ed. teachers) somewhat depressed—after all, wasn’t a realization of the reality of the Presence the main point of their classes for several months now?

But I think the reaction of this child was very like the sense many of the children had that day: “Wow!” And when was the last time we adults had the same kind of reaction, realizing what we were actually doing when receiving the Eucharist?

Young people’s engagement in the sacramental life of the Church is often very much deeper and more profound than we give them credit for, and often much more so than adults. I remember a First Reconciliation I was celebrating when the child went on for perhaps five minutes with sins; when I asked if that was all, the reply was, “Oh, no—I’m only up to when I was four”! During another First Reconciliation the child burst into tears and cried, “I’m so sorry!!” These children were capable of examination of conscience and repentance in ways that were truly amazing.

How much “understanding” is required to receive the Eucharist? Families with handicapped children have been challenged by priests on this score, and in some cases the priests have flatly refused the children. But the question can fairly be asked, “How much understanding (true understanding) do we as adults have, of what we receive?

“Transubstantiation” is a word that older adults may remember, and we may even remember the text-book description of what the word conveys. But do we understand it? For that matter, do we understand the idea of grace? We have had various descriptions of grace in the past, no doubt: the “gas pump” image, the idea of “uncreated Light,” or “God-life dwelling in me.” What do those images really mean? Do we understand the Trinity in any way beyond the famous illustration of St. Patrick with the 3-leaf clover?

I think my 3rd grade teacher, Sr. Emerita, was probably very wise, after all, in simply saying, “It’s a mystery.” This isn’t a cop-out but an admission that God is God, we are not, and if we think we can comprehend God and God’s ways, then what we’ve “understood” is not God at all but a figment of our imagination.

Trinity, Grace, Eucharist—these are God’s ways of dealing with us and sharing divine life with us—our job is less to understand and more simply to accept gratefully this incredible love.

NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES...

Jesus’ farewell gift in today’s Gospel (John 14:27-31a) is the gift of peace. He makes it very clear that this peace is given “Not as the world gives…” And this of course raises the question of how it is that the world gives peace (or, perhaps, what sometimes passes for peace).

One person who struggled with this question (with no conclusive result) was T. S. Eliot, in his drama Murder in the Cathedral. Eliot’s model was Greek tragedy, and his play is complete with chorus and couplets. But there is a prose interlude, a “sermon” preached by Becket in Canterbury cathedral on Christmas night—four days before his murder in that same cathedral. In this sermon, Becket (Eliot) comments that the world’s sense of “peace” is primarily the absence or cessation of violent conflict, whether between England and its neighbors, or king and barons or a happy householder with peaceful gains, a good friend and a cheerful family. Lord knows these are all blessings! But they are not the peace our Lord promises. And Becket (Eliot) has nothing concrete to offer beyond the statement that they are not the same.

Another person who struggled with the idea of the Lord’s peace was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. He knew much sadness in his ministry: for preaching and writing on the view that ALL life issues should be regarded as sacred, as a “seamless garment,” he was accused of being soft on abortion; he battled pancreatic cancer and beat it; he endured 18 months of slander before a false accusation of his being involved in sexual abuse of a seminarian was finally proved not only false but maliciously spread by a discontented priest. His proposal to bring divisiveness in the Church to an end with his “Common Ground” initiative was met with direct opposition by other American prelates. And then the pancreatic cancer came back.

Two things indicate to me the meaning of the Lord’s peace in him. After the accusations were proved false, he journeyed to the young man’s bedside (he was dying of AIDS); there was a reconciliation and forgiveness, and Bernardin was able to bring the young man back into the graces of the Church before he died.

Then when the cancer returned, it was the most powerful of all press conferences when he announced the fact and insisted that he regarded death as a “friend,” a friend who would take him to Jesus. On his deathbed he wrote his final memoir, titled The Gift of Peace. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially to anyone in whose life cancer has been an unwelcome visitor.

To forgive; to surrender; to be content—this is the essence of the Lord’s gift of peace. No desire for revenge, no petulant cries that the cancer’s return is unfair. Just a simple, heart-felt YES to the Lord. I am not sure whether the gift of peace enables the forgiveness and the YES, or whether the YES and the forgiveness bring the gift of peace. But I am convinced that they must all go together.

Who is ready for this gift?