At the door

Death comes for the Archbishop (with apologies to Willa Cather)

Before our modern dependence on text, images were a staple of the diet that nourished the Faith.  Now everybody has heard how those beautiful stained-glass windows catechized the illiterate, but the Church long understood that the value of visual images was not confined to those who could not read text.  Not least because reading was not the only medium for the verbal expression of faith, as song and spoken prayer reinforced what was heard as homily or instruction, but also because images are powerful in their own right to reveal the truth.

As the link between word and meaning dissolves before our eyes under the stream of corrosive misuse, diluting overuse, and twisting abuse, it is a good time to rediscover the power of images to reveal and convey truth.  As we head into November, the month when we reflect on the Four Last Things, let’s start with the first Last Thing: Death.

Last year I was in New York to see the exhibit at the Morgan Library of works by Hans Holbein the Younger, and among the striking things there were his woodcuts for Dances with Death.  This was a recurring form, partly comic and partly serious, showing how death comes for everybody.  In his day, the late fourteen and early fifteen hundreds, death was no more welcome but much more frequent, and there was no hiding from the reality.  

The Empress was caught unawares.

The woodcuts can make you chuckle unwillingly, as death, a grinning, grabbing skeleton, summons the oblivious empress or startled bishop, takes a chubby monk under his arm, or shows up at a joust to vanquish an armored knight.  The trademark hourglass, signifying “Your time is up,” is always nearby.  Not the funny papers as we have come to know them, these illustrations nonetheless amuse and entertain while revealing that one experience of human life is truly universal.

Nobody expects him to come for them.

More recently, I recalled this art form when confronted with a similar expression at the Prado in Madrid.  Without any preparation, I found myself staring at a large canvas depicting an army of skeletons laying waste the earth and all who are in it.  Gruesome, clever, ironic, and truly horrible deaths are inflicted individually by rioting skeletons, some in shreds of costume, with weapons, tools, or just main force.  An army of skeletons in unyielding phalanx moves across the composition; a crowd of wailing, resisting victims is herded into the gaping maw of an enormous coffin.  Cities burn in the distance.   There is no respite or relief to be found.  

The work is “The Triumph of Death” and artist, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, was a contemporary of Holbein.  Look it up; you can view it online at the Prado’s site here.  It was the time of the so-called reformation, the rebellion of the protestant theologians and their princely allies against the Church.  Sin and death, redemption and salvation were on everybody’s minds; it was what people talked about in the pub or at the fountain.  This vivid, engrossing depiction of the inescapability of death would have brought mortality clearly to mind in everybody who saw the painting.

Now, you may find that repellant, but honestly, such lofty sentiment is a modern luxury.  Our contemporaries are lulled into thinking that “we” have mastered death, or at least banished it to respectful and predictable boundaries.  But the grinning skeleton lingers and lurks, mocking us, too, for our obliviousness.  In some corner of our mind, we know how close he can be, and that none of us is ever out of his reach.  

This is why it is good to look this ghoul straight in the eye (sockets) and recall that while he will indeed have his fun with us, we will have the last laugh.  Death has not been eliminated from the earth or from human experience, but it has been changed.  Christ has conquered death and transformed it from the end into a beginning of new life for all who by Baptism live in Him.   For us who are members of Christ’s risen body, we already have eternal life coursing through our veins, and we know that life is stronger than death.

This is what I see behind our traditions at Halloween.  Little kids play at frightening us, dressed up as the scariest things we know, even as death or demons.  Then we laugh in one another’s faces, and give treats to reward the effort.  At the same time we remind one another of death and its fearsomeness, we also remember that we are rescued from fear.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt 10:28) To think about dying, to remember death, is to apply Christ’s prescription and turn away from the sin that can strangle the eternal life that has been poured into us, to eliminate the distance we have allowed to grow between ourselves and Christ our rescuer.  To place confidence anywhere else, in technology or progress or our own plan of life, suffocates the Spirit whose breath is eternal life.   

It is good to think about our own mortality, so we can remember our immortality, and the One who offers it to us.  We can say this over and over, but sometimes it can be much more effective just to look at the pictures.  Or the costumes: trick or treat!  ...But deliver us from evil.

Monsignor Smith

 

My brother's keeper

As I enjoyed a somewhat diminished scrum of tiny soccer players surrounded by their friends, families, and supporters this past Friday evening, I marveled at how much earlier darkness came.  It is shocking at this time of year how the daylight dwindles, and I did some research that revealed that this was not just my imagination.   This Friday, the second-to-last for munchkinball on the field, will have the same amount of daylight as February 19: eleven hours.  Now, I am pretty sure you picture February the same way I do: cold and dark.  The remarkable fact that we are outside playing at all, much less into the evening, reveals that length of day is not the only thing that affects our temperatures and weather.  

Similarly, moral analysis requires that we take into account more than one factor.  The goodness or evil of a given action is more difficult to discern than many people credit.  The classic example is when one person takes a sharp knife and slices open the belly of another person.  Good action or bad action?  Well, it depends, believe it or not.  If one is a gang member fighting with a member of an opposing gang, for example, that is bad.  But if one is a surgeon and the other has acute appendicitis, it can be good.  The intention (to remove a diseased body part) and the circumstances (medical training, danger of death) both affect the value of the act itself (cutting a person open).

These are basic elements of moral analysis.  I am not a specialist in morality, but I do have to do some pretty keen analysis since I work in the confessional.  Sometimes I get to tell people that what they are confessing is not sinful, but more often, I have to help diagnose specifically what is sinful about a person’s actions or behavior.  That diagnosis not only locates culpability (guilt) but it helps the person target what needs to change.  Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it can be quite nuanced.  Either way, it ends well, with mercy and hope to avoid repeating the sin.

There is a grievous failure or even a complete lack of moral analysis in our public life now, as the default judgment is based on the person or actor.  Is the person who did the deed our friend, our favorite, on our team or on our side?  Then it must have been good, or if unarguably illegal or bad, excusable or even necessary under the circumstances.   Is the person who did it one of them or theirs, on the other team, or simply repellent to us?  Then his every action will be condemned.  The so-called moral judgment is based entirely on the identity of the actor.  

That is not moral judgment at all, but bluster at best and raging ideology at worst.  It is the opposite of the fruitful moral seriousness of the confessional, where every soul recognizes his own ability and culpability for sin, and seeks mercy and help to repair the damage.  Our identity as human beings marked by original sin makes actual sin something almost none of us can claim to have eliminated from our behavior. 

Some actions are intrinsically evil always and everywhere.  Intention and circumstance can mitigate guilt, but not eliminate it in those circumstances.  In most cases, however, a careful weighing of the action, the intention of the actor, and the circumstances in which the action occurred are necessary to determine the goodness or badness of an action.  

This complex analysis is best turned toward our own choices and actions, but the necessity of judging the actions of others is not reserved to those of us who sit in the confessional.  Sometimes, we must acknowledge that certain actions are evil and that the person who committed that evil, whether from our team or family or from the other team, has done a grievous wrong.  As Christians, the purpose of this analysis is to call sinners to repentance, that they find mercy and conversion, that is, change of life.  Because it is the act that is evil, and not the person, we can and must hope for that conversion, and even work for it, primarily but not exclusively in prayer.

Every mom or dad who has had to correct a son or daughter knows that our team, our family, and our favorites all do rotten and regrettable things, and that our opponents are capable of outshining us in virtuous behavior.  These are the judgments that are necessarily part of every healthy human relationship, and especially every loving one.  

It is not only in private matters, however, that we are obliged to take seriously the task of moral judgment.  Actions can and must be judged according to the criteria that we have discerned and defined, and the world cannot be divided into Our Team whose actions are right because they are ours, and The Other Team, who is evil. 

It is complicated but necessary work, and it should lead to circumspection and humility, because there are only so many of hours of daylight left for us.

Monsignor Smith

 

the darkness has not overcome it

Even in darkness, this campus is beautiful.  

Soccer practice had ended and the field was dark and empty as I made my rosary stroll before bed.  It was half past nine but already the place was August-still.  Not a creature was stirring, save the omnipresent rabbits.  Father Novajosky’s car stood alone in the front lot, for the principal’s was finally gone.  The cleaning crew had departed, but of course there were two police officers in their cars alongside the school.  

The leaves, still green, enhanced the hush with their rustle as their shadows flitted gently across the handsome façade of the school.  What a good-looking building!  Like the convent with which it was built in the mid-1940’s, it is solid as a rock and will stand long after you and I have slipped away.  Right after the war, there was an abundance of both labor and construction materials, and plenty of both went into these buildings.

But do you know what else went into them?  Sacrifice.  The people of the fledgling parish were young, many having just purchased homes.  They were not rich, and had no surplus wealth.  Yet of their lack they gave to build these buildings.  Over twelve years, they would add a rectory and a fine church building, also solid and suitable for their roles, and yet more classrooms for the school.  Two decades of sacrifice.

Together these sturdy, stately buildings embrace and define our beautiful grounds where children play in the grass on the ballfield and under trees that with their flaming glory when they die light up the zip code. 

The church is consecrated, the school and rectory blessed, but the constant course of divine grace that flows through the sacraments celebrated here is augmented and enhanced by the earnest prayers that are offered not only in petition and thanksgiving by adults, but also and especially in earnest by the children.   For help on a test or in a friendship, for an ailing grandpa or an ailing pet, the prayers of children go to the top of God’s inbox, ahead even of those of saintly nuns.  Simple and straightforward, they sanctify the fabric of the days and the buildings that bear them.

Having that evening opportunity to see the structures in the stillness, I was also reminded of two people who helped make possible the place we all enjoy.  This weekend marks the anniversary of Monsignor William Stricker, who died on 14 October back in 1976.  He was our founding Pastor, from Saint Bernadette’s establishment as a parish in 1948 until 1975, and in that capacity oversaw the construction of all these buildings. 

On 11 October, Wednesday of this past week, the Church celebrated the feast of Pope Saint John XXIII, “Good Pope John” who called and convened the Second Vatican Council, but died in 1963, before it was completed.  He acceded to the Chair of Peter in 1958, and was the fresh new Pope when our church building was built;  you can see that same year inscribed on its cornerstone.  Because of this, his coat of arms with its tower and lion hangs on the wall behind our sanctuary.  

1958 is not all that long ago, historically speaking, though no small amount of water has passed under the bridge in the meantime; 1976 even less so.  You will run into people here who remember both Pope John and Msgr. Stricker with both clarity and affection, though they are fewer than when I first arrived, and some of the clarity may be diminished.  But these lives, too, are bound up in the fabric of our facilities.  

Our parish buildings are durable and beautiful, even at night, and our buildings, our grounds, our entire campus is shot through with sanctity that shines in the valley of the shadow of death.   The fruit of selfless sacrifice, every wall and window, every hall is hallowed, conceived, sustained, and ornamented by prayer both public and private.  Holy lives have touched and directed the upward reach of our spire and our school, pointing to the gracious goodness of our Creator.  

This place, this little corner of creation, God’s Own Twelve Acres, is holy, glowing with grace and goodness, a refuge to the sorrowful and a rebuttal to the arrogant, beautiful inside and out, even in the darkness. 

Monsignor Smith

 

Hold that thought

Come to think of it, that was fun.  I mean our Fall Festival last week; it was an absolute blast.  The weather was beautiful – almost hot, but not quite - and everybody I saw was having a terrific time and ignoring their phones.  There were things you rarely see these days, such as children playing together outside with other kids they only just met, or fifty people gathered around one television to watch a single football game.  It was just good, old-fashioned being together.  I saw a number of people I didn’t know at all, and I hope they were our neighbors from the ‘hood who otherwise do not tread on our campus.  They saw a good side of us! 

A lot of people worked very hard to make it happen, especially the Genius Committee under the leadership of “queen” genius Elizabeth Narsavage.  There were some key sponsorships too, such as the Knights of Columbus who always provide the beer tent, the beer, and the proceeds therefrom.  Let’s not forget the ponies who patiently offered their backs for riding!  It is not a fund-raiser, you know, but a community builder; though we do try to come out at least a little bit ahead.  We will find out for sure after all the bills are paid, but it looks good from here.    

All the work and all the people and all the variables add up to what I think can be characterized as a “simple pleasure.”  There is something about all those people being together in festival form that is simply elemental to human thriving.  I hope it helped you thrive, and that it helped the parish thrive.  I know it was attractive to anybody in search of a thriving community!  

Perhaps this is the sort of thing that falls under the grouping Saint Paul formed in his letter to the Philippians that we hear at Mass on Sunday:   Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:7-8)  Sunday was lovely and gracious in this sense; and to think on it is a source of cheer and consolation to me.

It has been a week filled with actions, events, and efforts that continue to stun and sadden not only me, but so many earnest and otherwise unselfish people who simply want to see the nation and their neighborhood, the Church and their family thrive.  It seems such a modest aspiration, familiar to so many but clearly no longer universal.   Was it, really, ever thus?     

Perhaps.   But all that was, is now, and ever shall be, is Christ’s grace and truth.   He is the light that has not been overcome by darkness.  He is become flesh, and dwelt among us.  Our own eyes see that light among us in the midst of the simple pleasures that mark our communion, including but by no means limited to our Fall Festival.  Surely, clearly, when we kneel in adoration or stand to sing praise is this excellence revealed; but so is it as well in the lovely and gracious times marked by children laughing and parents laughing harder; shrieks and giggles, and easy familiarity even with folks we don’t know very well.   Think about these things.   Think about these things!

Monsignor Smith