Dehumanization for Dummies

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and Josef Stalin (1878-1953)
They were not friends.

Long ago and far away, when I was a college freshman discovering the joys of great music, the Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich won my enthusiasm by its vigor and originality, with lots of trumpets and timpani to keep the excitement high.  I had already developed an interest in everything Russian, and this fit right with the program.   

That year also marked the beginning of my serious study of Russian history, and so I was able to situate the life and work of the composer in the context of what was going on in the Soviet Union.   Shostakovich enjoyed something of a love-hate relationship with the ruler of Soviet Russia.  That was a perilous way to live in the Soviet Union of Stalin, and the ‘hate’ part came around after Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich’s opera of 1936.  Just as another murderous wave of purges was getting underway, Shostakovich, his opera, and his fourth symphony were denounced in every official publication.  

Aware that not only his career but also his very life hung in the balance, the next year Shostakovich composed and published the fifth symphony, which was approachable enough for a teenager with little prior knowledge of music (like me!) to like it.  The composer added the note that it was “A Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism.”  He returned to good standing with the authorities, for a time.

The teetering brink between love and hate from the authorities would continue for the rest of his life, and that would leave a mark on the man and his music.  But this one episode that I learned early on would introduce me to one of the characteristics of Soviet and Stalinist tyranny that extended far beyond the realm of music, art, and culture, to every aspect of daily life under that oppressive regime.

When Shostakovich went from rock star (so to speak) to pariah overnight, the accusation levied against him by the cultural commissars and music critics was one of “formalism”.  This was a completely made-up word.  It gave a patina of the thinnest sort to the accusations against him, which were simply rooted in the dictator’s dislike.  

Ideological revolutionaries then and now have tipped their hands by resorting to this technique for hiding the murderous subjectivity behind declaring somebody or something an enemy because of the ideologue’s desire to eliminate the person, group, or phenomenon.  Some cockamamie terminology is cooked up to make it seem that a grave crime has been committed, when all that really occurred was that an individual or group, previously favored, suddenly got sideways of the tyrant.  The result is that there is only one possible fate for an “enemy of the revolution.”

“Formalism” was not then nor is it now much of a genuine musical thing, though the term has been used by a few music critics since Stalin’s time.  But it reflects the power of attaching an “-ism” to any adjective and making it an accusation, and an easy technique for making any difference of opinion, or even style, into a status of dissent, and to confer the identity of enemy.  Moreover, once you attach an “-ism” to a person, you make him an “-ist,” and thereby reduce him to less than his human reality.

Ideologues continue to wield these terms in our own time, eliminating the human standing of those to whom they are attached.  “Homophobes,” “RINOs,” and “climate-deniers,” are all nonsense words that designate something that merits a social death sentence in the circles in which they are used.  Ideological tyranny and tyrannical ideologues are not confined to the pages of history, far away lands, or even the secular sphere.  Even in the Church, the appellation of newly-minted “-isms” and “-ists” reveals more about the person wielding them than it does about the people so labeled.

Truth, beauty, and goodness are real and present, but the hatred of them all is neither long ago, nor far away.

Monsignor Smith

Taking us to the streets

Two years ago, when we had our parish’s first Corpus Christi procession, it was three months into the hard lockdown and our forced separation from the Mass.  Enthusiasm was high to be with one another, and to be with our Lord.  

The forced separation from the Eucharist that we endured had produced a longing, a yearning for Christ’s own presence and activity with us and for us and in us.  It was never more evident than that day.  One reason that peak remained unique was that a week later, when the local authorities again permitted us to worship, there was still fear and uncertainty of the virus, and there were so many protocols and practices that had not been part of our worship that being together with the Lord and with one another was deeply impaired.  It was strange, but it was Mass, thank God.  

That has been the story over the intervening two years, as we worked our way back into unimpeded communion.  Capacity limits were lifted, mask mandates withdrawn, and people got used to being with people again.  We sang; we reached again for holy water to bless ourselves.  Some people were still absent, but it was more and more like Mass, thank God. 

Over the same time, other activities resumed to their pre-pandemic levels, and the demands on our time multiplied.  Especially our kids had places they needed to be.  People started eating out and getting together in homes again.  In other words, Mass went back to being another thing we had to fit into our schedules.  Thank God?

Two years ago, when we had our parish’s first Corpus Christi procession, for weeks beforehand the streets had been filled with people marching, even in our own neighborhoods.  Anger, protest, and accusations were the norm.   When our procession came through the streets of Four Corners, there was visible hesitation and uncertainty as our neighbors looked to see what was this, what now?  Then, relief filled their faces to see that we weren’t angry peaceful protesters, but people of faith proceeding with the Prince of Peace.  

We sell Our Eucharistic Lord short every time we simply consider what we are doing in regard to Him.  Are we going to go to Him Sunday morning, or in the afternoon?  Are we going to visit Him on our way home today, or are we going to try maybe next week?  Are we going to linger with Him for a few moments to try to work out a few of the things that are concerning us, or will we try to communicate from our home or car?  All of these are worthy considerations, but they are not all that we should consider.

When we attend Sunday Mass, He commands us.  When we visit Him in the tabernacle, He draws us to Himself.  When we linger before Him, He holds us and loves us and elicits from us our concerns and joys and needs.  And when we are away from Him, He makes us know where He is and where He desires us to be.   He initiates.

The point is what God is doing.  Last week, the first reading for Trinity Sunday revealed what Our Eucharistic Lord is doing with us:   then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.  (Proverbs 8:31).  By the power of the Spirit,the Eucharistic Son dwells with us and He delights in us just as the Father delights in Him.  He acts.

The point is that the Eucharist IS what God is doing:  Yet just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which I sent it.  (Isaiah 55:10–11)  Jesus is not the passive recipient of actions of our initiation, but rather He is active in Himself and through our actions.  He accomplishes.

Two years ago, when we had our parish’s first Corpus Christi procession, things were different than they are now.  Today we are restored to frequent and free Communion, but reduced in number.   Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us, commands us, elicits in us the desire to carry Him to our neighbors and neighborhood, whose dispositions now have changed in the intervening time at least as much as have our own.  Still, we respond to the Lord Who dwells among us; we embody His own obedience.  We take up and bear His Body before our neighbors who are hungry for love, authentic love.  We may be the ones who do the sweating, but He will be the one Who achieves the end for which He has been sent.  

Monsignor Smith

From glory into glory

The day lilies are living large these days,
making it easy not to notice the looming outburst
in honor of Saint Anthony, queueing up behind them.

You probably think Easter lilies bloom at Easter, and you would have good reason to do so; and in the managed and massaged world of the greenhouse, they do.  But on their own and in the wideness of the weather, the story is different.  In fact, so-called Easter lilies are only part of a progression of lilies that only begins after Easter, and because the campus here has so many garden spots on it, this progression is a delight to follow.

First in the progression come the lilies of the valley, easy to miss because they are so small.  These tiny white bells hang in an arc along their branches, wrapped in a trumpet of dark green succulent spears for leaves.  The whole plant is less than a foot tall and easy to miss, even when growing in a broad swath, as they do here behind the Mother Seton statue next to the rectory.  I have no idea how they got there, but when they appeared for the first time a few years back, it was the first time I had seen them since my family moved from our first house when I was seven years old.  Clearly that makes them a sentimental favorite.  Lilies of the valley hereabouts come early in the season, shortly after the hyacinths and daffodils open.  

Then after the azaleas and irises and flowering trees have had their fun, and the weather turns summery, the day lilies open up.  This outburst of peachy orange, their classic color, started about two weeks ago around the rectory and is still going strong.   Attractive as it is, it can distract us from buildup to the big show to come.

Every year after Easter, we plant the flowers that have decorated the altar for the Solemnity.  This also explains our abundance of hydrangeas; they will bloom in a few weeks.  But right now, the tall, straight stalks of lilies of Easters past are growing more prominent around and along every edge or circumference on campus, and looking like they could burst forth at any moment.

It turns out, they are right on schedule according to the liturgical calendar, even though the long Easter season is ended, late as it fell this year.   Because when they are in the wild, these are known as Saint Anthony’s Lilies, after the Franciscan saint associated with Padua; his feast day is Monday, June 13^th.    I looked up Saint Anthony of Padua on catholictradition.org to learn more:

Most images of the Wonder-Worker of Padua depict him holding the Child Jesus and with lilies. Now, it is a part of tradition in Christian art to use lilies as a symbol of purity when portraying Our Lady or the Saints and even Angels.

With Saint Anthony lilies have special significance. Lilies are in bloom around much of the world in the month of June, the month of his Feast Day [the 13th]. Of even more import there are two incidents hundreds of years old relating to the Saint of Padua and these magnificent flowers:

 In 1680, on June 13, in the church at Mentosca d'Agesco in Austria, someone placed a cut lily in the hand of his statue. For an entire year the lily remained fragrant and fully alive, without wilting. Then the following year it grew two more blooms, so that the church was filled with the fragrance of the flowers.

A little over a century later, during the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic French Revolution, on the island of Corsica, the Franciscans were forced to leave their parishioners. The people refused to give up their devotions although they had no choice in the matter of the Sacraments because they had no priests. They invoked the intercession of Saint Anthony. On June 13 they erected a shrine to the Saint in the deserted church; the shrine included lilies in his honor. Months later the blooms were still fresh as if they had just been placed there.

Every year, I take pains to express my gratitude and that of the parish to all who donate flowers to decorate our holy altar at Easter.  The outpouring is always generous and expressive of the glory of God’s salvation and our gratitude.  You’ve heard of gifts that keep on giving?  Look around this week!

It is only fitting that the lilies should find further calling in culminating annually the progression of lilies on our campus, reminding us of purity of the saint who lovingly holds in his arm the child Christ, whose resurrection we mark at Easter – with more lilies.

Monsignor Smith 

Soundtrack

 Bishop Earl Fernandes at his ordination Mass in Columbus, Ohio

Guess who just got back today?  

Them wild-eyed boys that'd been away

The boys are back in town (The boys are back in town) 

(as sung in 1976 by Thin Lizzy)

That’s the news this week; the boys are back.  Father Santandreu rolled into town Saturday evening, fresh from a friend’s priestly ordination in Paterson, New Jersey, a stopover on the roundabout way back from Buffalo.  Father Novajosky coasted in on Monday, having touched down here the weekend before for forty-eight hours of much-needed relief – of ME.  He helped me through that weekend, then rolled back out to further adventure.  They had their fun, they had their break.  Now, it’s back to the salt mines – the intensive summer classes of their Canon Law studies at Catholic University of America.  I’ve seen their schedule, and it looks brutal.  But it will keep them here for June and July, and I am grateful for both the help, and the company.

Now, in an extra bonus add-on, returning here for the first time since July 2019, before so many things changed, is Father Jason Williams.  He was here with us for June and July of that year for the first term of his Canon Law program, which we all expected to bring him here for four consecutive summers.  But no, Covid happened; and there were no in-person classes at CUA for him to be in-person for in the summers of 2020 and 2021.  Now he is back for his LAST semester, June and July again, and I for one am glad for his good company.  I think the other guys will quickly come to agree.  

Father Williams, remembered by some of you as Father Jeep for his distinctive mode of transport so conspicuous in front of the rectory, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.  He and I connected through another priest of that archdiocese, Fr. Earl Fernandes.  Fr. Fernandes and I were friends from more than a decade earlier, when we were both in Rome, and we reconnected after he came to serve a tour in Washington for several years, working at the Papal Nunciature (the “embassy” of the Holy See).  He knew Fr. Williams from home, and recommended that he live here with me while studying at CUA.  

Father Fernandes himself helped out here more than once, too, and you may recall one of the times he offered Mass here; so much has happened in the past few years that I would not be surprised if you did not.  But you most certainly will recall another priest who was here because of the connection with him.  Fr. Fernandes is the one who put Fr. Brad Berhorst on a track to live here while he studied at CUA, and I know you remember him.  So, Fr. Fernandes has been sneaky important to us here at St. Bernadette, and I mean that in a good way.

Well, one of the first advantages of having priests in the rectory with me again is that I can slip away for a few days, and I did just that this week as soon as they returned.  You see, Father Fernandes was appointed by Pope Francis to be Bishop of Columbus, and on Tuesday, 31 May, he was consecrated there to be their successor to the Apostles.  So, if you noticed my car was not in the carport for a few days in a row, it is because it was in Ohio, with me.  

On the basis of his relationship with our parish, and the good things he has helped to happen here, I think I can say that we are grateful to God for his elevation to this sacred office, and promise a prayer of support and encouragement.  It’s a tough time to be a bishop, and an even harder time to start at it.  I can assure you that Bishop Fernandes is good news for Columbus, and the church – good news that Saint Bernadette has enjoyed for some years, in fact.  

When other priests ask me how they can find a student priest to live with them in their rectories and help in their parishes, I can offer a few suggestions for things they can do, but I cannot explain the details of the complicated but beautiful web of relationships that bring to us here in our parish so many excellent priests who bless us with their gifts while developing their skills and knowledge at the university.  Every one of these relationships is a story in itself, and sometimes the story can seem so contrived as to be hard to believe.  But you believe it; so do I.  Because once again, the evidence is right in front of us.  Everybody sing:

The boys are back in town (The boys are back in town)!

Monsignor Smith