Still streaming

About a year before Francis Scott Key wrote about the star-spangled banner in Baltimore, Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a different British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie, also known as the Battle of Put-in-Bay, the site of which is on the horizon beyond this streaming banner.  If you squint you can make out Perry's Monument on the island in the distance.

It was The Bicentennial.  I was in the sixth grade, and had a book about the flags of the Revolutionary War. I must have made a presentation about it in class, because the teacher had me draw a figure (like a minuteman marching by, in profile) carrying a blank flag; she copied them, and everybody in the class colored them in, adding the period flag of choice.  For some weeks, those figures marched around the top of the classroom walls like colorful crenelations.  Those varied Revolutionary flags are having something of a moment these days; I know them all well.  I’ve always liked our nation’s flags.

I was a Boy Scout, and for one season when I was in eighth grade, was a member of the color guard that raised the flag before the high school football game.  In Alabama we were serious about football.  For some decades now that team has been the Hoover High School Buccaneers, and there was a television series about them called Two-A-Days: Hoover High.   But back in 1977-78, they were the Berry High School Buccaneers, and won the state championship.  The crowds were huge, reaching ten thousand when we played hated rival Vestavia.  Four of us Scouts raised the flag during the National Anthem while the crowd silently saluted, and we took down the flag after the game with simpler solemnity.  We were serious about the flag, too.

Father Thompson, my predecessor and a Navy veteran, had a flag holder installed by the rectory door, and from May through November I put up the flag in the morning and take it down in the evening.  The other months of the year the daylight is too little and the weather too harsh for the good of the flag.  I have never accepted the new convention of leaving the flag up around the clock if there is some excuse for a light nearby.  Sometimes, I forget to take it down because I’m busy with dinner, but I always do penance for that later when I double-lock the front door.  We even bring it in if the weather gets bad. 

We have a great tall flagpole in front of the school from which a larger flag flies on schooldays.  Sometimes I notice the flag isn’t raised to the top, or the lanyard is too loose, and move to fix it myself.  I keep an eye on the condition of the flag, too, so we get a new one before it gets too ratty. 

A few years ago one of scouts installed a spiffy flagpole on the back field near the snack shack, and at the beginning of each season of munchkinball – spring baseball and fall soccer – some scouts raise the flag after I lead the munchkins in a prayer.  I am afraid they do not demonstrate much experience with the ceremony or mechanics of flag-raising to my experienced, grumpy old eyes.  And they always look at me in horror when I tell them they have to take the flag down at the end of the event, too.

Several times, the flag on the field or even the one in front of the school is left flying because somebody forgot.  I take it down as respectfully as I can and take it to the rectory, where I hold it for ransom.  I also keep the old, deteriorated flags until I can get them to our scouts, who helpfully will dispose of them correctly and respectfully.

Once, when I was retrieving a neglected flag, I laughed at myself, thinking, Who would expect me to be serious about the ordinary thing that re-presents something extraordinary and important, making tangible something so large as to be difficult to grasp?

Yes, the flag, our nation’s flag, is a sacramental, not of God or Christ or salvation, as we ordinarily use the term, but of our whole nation, history, hope, population and all.  It gives all of us and each of us an opportunity to express the respect and affection we owe our patria, our homeland that nurtures and protects us.  It is a country that is good because it is ours, as are all counties, but moreover, it is good because it is the greatest nation ever devised in its governance and guarantees of life and liberty. 

The founders, the fighters, the families that strove and established her; the leaders and the ones who served in ways martial and domestic; the conflicts recognized and resolved with mutual respect, the process that provides hope that good will prevail over preference, even of the many; all of this flutters gently in the summer breeze in a single, simple object immediately recognized over all the world for almost two and a half centuries.   We should all be serious about the flag, to nurture and express our seriousness about our nation.  

God direct and defend the United States of America!  Blessings to you this Independence Day.

Monsignor Smith

 

Process and personalities

Funny; it does not LOOK like a revolving door.

It is a good thing you all are good at this.  We have another round of personnel changes here at the Holy House of Soubirous this month and it’s another one of those if-you-blink-you’ll-miss-it transitions.  

This week Father Brillis, who showed up as a surprise in December, stepped back into the mystery from which he emerged and flew to Dubai, thence perhaps to somewhere in India.   His sojourn in the United States expired, he returns to his home(s) the better for having known you.  And, just like that, there’s room at the inn.

We had already taken on another lodger.  Just after Memorial Day, Father Philip Tran of the Diocese of Beaumont (that’s in Texas, east of Houston almost in Louisiana) arrived just in time to begin the intensive summer courses for the program in Canon Law at Catholic University.  If he can stand to live with me, he says he will be back for three more summers; the intervening three academic years (six semesters, fall and spring) he will continue to take courses remotely (now everybody knows how great THAT is) while running a thriving Texas parish.  

Fr. Tran is actually from Miami, having grown up and gone to college there, and been ordained Priest for the Archdiocese of Miami.   His parents are from Vietnam.  But a few years ago he followed a priest he knew who was appointed Bishop of Beaumont, a diocese desperate for priests.  That Bishop decided to send Father Tran to CUA to study less than two weeks before the first day of class.   

Just as the quiet of Memorial Day Weekend settled over the campus here, I got a call from my old friend Father David Toups, whom some of you remember from when he was working at the USCCB.  Well, now he is Bishop David Toups of – you guessed it --  Beaumont, and he called asking if I had a room for his man.  Five days later I picked him up at the metro and moved him into the guest rooms.   

Because Canon Law comes at you fast, just like “life” does in those ads, I have plugged Fr. Tran into the Mass rotation not much at all – though he has been “Father Mystery Guest” in the confessional a couple of time.  If you have seen him, it probably was as he concelebrated one of the Sunday Masses, or the 6:30 AM weekday that is his new praxis.  He has been very low key around here, so he could put his effort into coming up to speed on school.   That ends now.

With Father Brillis gone, and Father Novajosky taking a jaunt with some of his buddies, including the lamentably departed Father Peter Santandreu, Father Tran is STEPPING UP this week to keep the fires of sanctification stoked and burning for you here in Four Corners.  Welcome him!

If you think it makes your head spin with all the changes around here, imagine what it does for mine.  Meanwhile say a prayer that God’s providence soon be revealed for the coming year, since the Archdiocese will send us nobody.  That, however, is fine; many of the best priests we have enjoyed over the past eighteen years have come to us by other ways, and The Lord’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent. (Lamentations 3:22).  Not every parish can survive this way, much less thrive this way.  It is a good thing you all are good at this.

Monsignor Smith

 

A guy named Joyce*

 

Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it,
every winged thing in the shade of its boughs.

The marvelous ring of glory round the church where heaven comes to earth is green with leaves still fresh though no longer spring bright.  They whoosh and rustle with touchable lushness as the breezes ease these gentle days so soft and glorious it seems a shame to step inside.  Mainly maples but other trees too, our campus is pillowed with swaying green giants whose limbs extend in proffered embrace and whose whispers beg, please stay.  

This week as well is surrounded by trees.  We started the season of green Sundays with Genesis’ sad song of tree, fruit, and fall, shame and blame, the exile that endures for all.  Still green, this Sunday comes with promise of another tree, Ezekiel’s cryptic prophecy pointing to a tree planted atop a mountain by the very hand of God.   Though small, it will offer shade and shelter, rest and respite reaching unto every creature, all from the tiniest of seeds.  The cross of Christ seen from such great distance is too remote to recognize. 

Funny, isn’t it, how the work God does to rescue castaways is all organic as those markets claim to be, not mechanical, not political.  No program nor system, but seed and plant and sprout and shoot and life that grows green and new while our eyes are closed; we know not how.  Even death, death on a cross, is organic; no GMOs, you know. 

Behold how the cross of Christ stands revealed as the tree of life!   The trees on our parish lawn both protect and salute the mystery they surround.  

The trees of the two Sundays around this week and the trees around God’s house and  mine give glory to Him and joy to us.  The famous poem of these great green things was penned by a man whose infant daughter’s crippling illness brought him to the fullness of the Faith and the communion of the Church.  Both gave him solace and confidence, I hope, as he fought and died at the Battle of the Marne beneath trees stripped and shattered by the malice of men.  So here, now, Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree. 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Last week I recalled Saint Boniface, who put his axe to a tree that men had mistaken for a god worth worshipping.   This week it seems sensible and only fair to recall it was no fault of the tree, whose beauty is a gift from God, and whose wood once held Him.

Monsignor Smith

*While you may be surprised to learn that Joyce Kilmer was a man -- with a mustache no less -- that would have been less uncommon in his own day.  The founding pastor of Saint Catherine Labouré Church over in Wheaton was Msgr. Joyce Russell.  He had retired but was still residing in the rectory when I was assigned there as a deacon for the summer of 1997.

 

Our hope hangs on a different tree

This week we celebrated the feast of Saint Boniface, which gave another example of how the best way to come to know all the riches and talents of the Church is to enter into her Sacred Liturgy every day, not only on Sundays and feasts.

Now, I have known Saint Boniface for a long time.  He is the patron and founder of the town of my German brother-in-law’s family, Fulda.  His tomb is in the crypt of the  cathedral there, which is built on the site where the great basilica church of the abbey he founded stood for eight centuries.  

An Englishman sent on mission to the pagans, Boniface preached to the (barbarian) German tribes and brought many of them to Christ, founding monasteries and dioceses and building up the Church and the civilization that only she can provide.  However, those successes did not satisfy him, and late in life he set out to bring Christ to the pagans of Friesland. 

Like many of their cousins across the English Channel, the Friesians worshipped trees. Saint Boniface began his conversation with them by cutting down their largest and most sacred oak.  They were not amused.  Though a number were converted, a number also attacked and killed him, cutting him down much as he cut down the tree.  

I have always thought of Saint Boniface a bit much; over the top, pushy, and at the very least, undiplomatic.  But as I re-read (for the umpteenth time) his letter in the daily Divine Office, I was reminded of several things that it is easy to forget.

First, he emphasizes that the only thing we have of value is the Faith that we have received from the Apostles who came before.  Second, he reminds us that the Church is constantly rocked by adversity and attacked by opponents for her insistence on the Truth, but that adversity and those opponents will not prevail.  Third, he points out that those who have been entrusted with the mission of pastoring souls must speak this saving truth in its entirety to those entrusted to their care, at the peril of their own souls.  I give you some of his own words:

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life’s different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course.

The ancient fathers showed us how we should carry out this duty: Clement, Cornelius and many others in the city of Rome, Cyprian at Carthage, Athanasius at Alexandria. They all lived under emperors who were pagans; they all steered Christ’s ship—or rather his most dear spouse, the Church.  This they did by teaching and defending her, by their labors and sufferings, even to the shedding of blood.

I am terrified when I think of all this.  Fear and trembling came upon me and the darkness of my sins almost covered me. I would gladly give up the task of guiding the Church which I have accepted if I could find such an action warranted by the example of the fathers or by holy Scripture.

Let us stand fast in what is right and prepare our souls for trial. Let us wait upon God’s strengthening aid and say to him: O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations.

Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us. What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the help of Christ. For he is all-powerful and he tells us: My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Let us be neither dogs that do not bark, nor silent onlookers, nor paid servants who run away before the wolf.  Instead let us be careful shepherds watching over Christ’s flock.  Let us preach the whole of God’s plan to the powerful and to the humble, to rich and to poor, to men of every rank and age, as far as God gives us the strength, in season and out of season, as Saint Gregory writes in his book of Pastoral Instruction.

Thank you, Saint Boniface.  Now, hand me an axe for that stupid tree!

Monsignor Smith