and lead you into the holy city

After her husband Jorge recovered from a near-fatal illness, they went together on the anniversary of the apparitions (12 December) to visit Tepeyac in gratitude to Our Lady of Guadalupe along with the two million pilgrims there in those days.  
She brought me this tile as a memento.

It was just two weeks ago that we learned she was ill; then we got word over the weekend that she had died.  Delfina Castro was the business manager here at Saint Bernadette for years, from before I arrived as Pastor until just six or seven years ago.  She said she was retiring then, but did not really, not entirely.  She continued to work – as she put it, “to help out” -- at Saint Bernard of Clairvaux parish in Riverdale.  

She was very good at her work and was well known and respected among her peers and the administrators at the Archdiocese.  She taught me an awful lot as I learned the ropes of being a Pastor.  She also loved the church and was keenly attentive to the needs of the people of the parish.  I know she is still well-remembered by many. 

The following is a letter I wrote about her ten years ago, and I share it with you again now to awaken memories.  Please pray for the happy repose of the soul of Delfina Castro, and for the consolation of her family and all who love her.  May the angels sing her into paradise.  

Monsignor Smith

Delfina is after me again.  She just left a stack of checks on my desk to sign so that we can pay bills this week.   This morning it was a bank form so I could approve adding the new treasurer to the signature card of a parish organization’s account.  There was also a question about someone’s annual leave.

Delfina (Castro) is our business manager here.  Of course, since we have an administrative staff of four (including the volunteer) she does a lot more than any single job description can describe.  For example, she does a great job arranging flowers.

Honestly, Delfina is not always after me.   Most days, people are after her.  At some point a teacher will come by to deal with a withholding or insurance issue, but usually it is the phone – vendors and such.  Then there are the folks who take responsibility for all the groups in the parish who make things happen.  First and foremost among these is, of course, the CYO, but the Tuesday Club and the Home School Association are in a dead heat for close second.  Add to that Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the school Gala, the Fall Festival, a new account for our Haiti mission, and the upcoming youth pilgrimage or a class field trip, and pretty soon you have a crowd.  

One of the coolest things about the entire process she oversees is the incredibly precise tracking of donations.  Now there are plenty of folks here who throw whatever cash they have loose on their persons into the collection baskets, but that is neither a complicated nor a large sum to track.  

But the minute someone hands in a check, or an envelope, with an identifiable name on it, and (or) a designation for the donation, every detail gets recorded.  We have folks who give large checks with detailed lists of what amounts(s) should be taken from them for an array of purposes.  We get hand-written names on those “welcome” envelopes, or “memo” lines on checks that explain what the donation is for.  We have second collections and special collections, bequests and sacramental offerings, donations for repairs to the rectory, memorial gifts and offerings for altar flowers on a particular weekend, and anonymous help with a specific family’s tuition bill.  

Every gift goes precisely to its designated use, and nowhere else, down to the last penny.  And at the end of every January, every donor gets a detailed report suitable for presentation to the IRS.  If people only knew how much work goes into that incredibly conscientious stewardship of their offerings to God!   But in a way, that’s the easy part, and definitely the joyful part. 

The Archdiocese demands a lot of her time too, as she deals with Human Resources and the Controller’s office and all the technical systems associated with them.

And speaking of systems – hoo-boy have we had a couple of years!  In its serene wisdom, our Archdiocese a few years back introduced a sweeping new program of technology to manage data for accounting, personnel, payroll, and school data.  You will be shocked – shocked I tell you! (unless you regularly read Dilbert in the comics) -- to learn that this massive rollout did not go smoothly.  The technical people had a lot of harsh things to say about Delfina, whose fault they said it all obviously was.  Now, however, suddenly the Archdiocese is announcing that the new systems do not work as intended and maybe we shouldn’t all be using them after all.  

So after two years of being, shall we say, not in a position to control some portion of the information and technology that we need to manage the material aspect of this huge parish organization, Delfina and I finally have recovered (mostly) from the impact of mandated and problematic technological changes.

Delfina is after me again – thank goodness!

Nothing too yucky, nothing too boring

Saint Bernadette Soubirous would pray
before this image of Our Lady in her parish church in Lourdes,
so compellingly that Our Lady came to her in person.

What is there that a mom cannot do?

As a professional observer of moms, I would say that there is almost nothing a mom cannot do.  That is, there is hardly any need real or imagined of her child which a mom cannot address, respond to, and ameliorate.   We have all seen it in action: sickness, danger, injury, and annoyance can all be eliminated with the wave of the mighty maternal hand.  There is no distance a mother will not cover to reach her child, or to convey her child, to obtain what is necessary.  Vehicle optional.  

Before they become mothers, when they are merely women, I think the range of their future powers is hidden even from them.  Some things are too yucky, some things are too boring, some things are too hard or too heavy for them to consider themselves capable of doing.   Such reticence disappears almost instantly upon the manifestation of the child, and the child’s need, and the power of mom is revealed.

Tact, connivance, and persuasion all come within a mom’s portfolio, even if never before was eloquence one of her gifts; her very words are as strong as her mighty deeds, and her child knows it and shows it.  But not only the voice is so energized.

Eyes in the back of her head are commonly recognized as a mother’s gift, which sounds like exaggeration until you have seen it happen.  Alert to disaster, mockery, and mischief, those eyes cannot be spotted by any observer, but the one whom they have spotted has no doubt as to how he was nabbed.

These maternal powers never really go away.  Their use, and therefore their manifestation, dwindles as the real or perceived need for them diminishes over time.  Whether the child grows in strength, wisdom, and ability, or merely thinks she has, that child flees the mighty power of mom in search of freedom and self-determination.  It is the way of things.  

What then of mom and her helpful and protective impulses?   There is one power she has that never diminishes, but rather grows even as the material control of child’s well-being eludes her.  

That power is prayer.  There are few things so powerful as a mother’s prayer.  

Earnest, devout prayer of a mother is so powerful that it has a special place in the arsenal of the universal Church: the Hail Mary, in which we ask the Mother of our Lord, who is the mother of the Church and thus our Mother, to pray for us.  From the moment the angel of the Lord appeared to her at Nazareth, through the wedding feast at Cana where she made discreet mention, They have no wine, the intercession of our mother Mary has been shown to be efficacious.

In this time of cynical scientific materialism and how-to books on everything, do not forget how powerful is prayer.  The mercy and providence of God are ordered to our good; how can His work on our behalf be anything other?  To participate in that, to ask for that, to plead for that is possible for anyone who shares even partly in that benevolent desire.  Who is more benevolent on earth than mom?  Who, then, is more attuned to the Father’s loving care for us than the mother whose love expresses itself in care?  

Moms, your powers are astonishing to all who see them, not least yourselves.  Please do not wait until they have been rejected by your little ones to resort to prayer, your best power.  Start while they are tiny.  Pursue prayer while they are growing.  Enlarge your prayer as their abilities expand, and their interests extend.  Pray now, let them see you pray, let them know the source of your power, and its limits.  Let them see whose side you are on.  Who else loves them, wants them to be happy, and wants them to live forever – even more than you do?   Who has more power to make it happen, more even than mom?  Pray to Him. 

Because there are things, however few, that a mom cannot do.

Monsignor Smith

Into Moderate Silence

Today at lunch, Father Brillis was moved to reflect on the importance of the voice as revealed in Sacred Scripture:  Didn’t John the Baptist say, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness?" Father Novajosky confirmed his suspicion.

In fact, the camel-hair-clad precursor did announce just that in his own, honey-hinted, locust-breath voice, and there is fruitful reflection to be had from the Church Fathers on the distinction between the voice (John) and the Word (Jesus) and the powerful relationship between the two. 

What moved Fr. Brillis to these rhapsodies will come as no surprise to you who were at the nine o’clock Mass last weekend, as you saw – or heard, more accurately – the beginnings of what has made for a most unusual week:  I have lost my voice.  

Probably precipitated by pollen-enraged sinuses, the damage that I did to my pipes by powering through a busy weekend filled with what I call ‘strong talking’ left me with very little vocal power when Monday morning dawned.  I think the school Auction Gala Saturday night was the final straw; it was fun, certainly, but three hours of talking over the din of music and chatter and clatter of people having fun together was absolutely devastating.   Of course I said Mass anyway on Sunday but did not sing (thank you for holding your applause), and that afternoon I instructed our First Holy Communion class on the how and why of receiving the Medicine of Immortality, the Most Holy Eucharist.  Add the other demands of a pastor’s busy weekend, and there was very little left to work with come Monday.

I have received advice from a parishioner formerly thus afflicted, a friend whose mother is a speech pathologist, my doctor, and almost everybody else who has learned of my affliction.  Most of it was pretty good advice, too, and in addition to mitigating the sinus cascade as best as possible, the key seems to be what the speech pathologist mom called “vocal rest.”

So Father Novajosky has heroically taken my daily Masses, and I cancelled some appointments and declined some phone conversations.  So much of my ‘job” involves talking.  I know, I know, you thought it was just a thing about ME that I seemed always to be talking – well, you may not be entirely wrong, but you’re not entirely right either.  Priesting is very verbal work, even when not preaching.  Pastoring, too, requires no few verbal interventions.

Speaking of misperceptions, in past days some wits have volunteered that nothing would be more difficult for me than a silent retreat.  WRONG.  I love them, I seek out times of silence and savor them when I get them.  My penance of the moment is not really silence, though, just reduced talking, but I admit I delight in it as well.

This is day three of my self-limitation, but folks here in the rectory will still holler greetings and questions to me from the next room.  I can’t ANSWER you! – I want to say but cannot.  Last evening I learned how hard it is to watch a baseball game under these limitations.  Some things just make me want to shout.

But I restrain myself.  I have another big weekend coming up and hope to be back on my game in time for Grandparents’ Day Mass on Friday.  At First Holy Communion Mass on Saturday, I will have to stand up and welcome Cardinal Gregory on behalf of our parish.   But no, I did not get him to come just so I would not have to preach, though that will be a welcome benefit.  The customary progression through sundry First Holy Communion luncheons and receptions and picnics may have to be modified according to my condition.

You will know as soon as anyone how goes my recovery.  Mindful of the old joke of the patient who asks the doctor treating his wounded hand, will I be able to play the piano?, I have refrained from asking, will I be able to sing at Mass?  But for the time being, Fathers Brillis and Novajosky are carrying the conversations at lunch. 

Monsignor Smith