Not for nerds?

I am not making this up: “The Cool Church”.  I found it while out visiting my sister in Tucson.  It’s not far from her house, and apparently it is one of a chain – there is at least one other like it. 

After the heat wave last week, we can all appreciate the appeal of a cool church.  If this one in Arizona stays fresh and comfortable even in the crushing desert heat, they obviously have a more powerful air conditioner than I do, though in my defense, they also have a significantly smaller building.  

While it may be true that inside it is not hot, I doubt it is the intention of folks who named their church.  I have to wonder whether they want to identify their place as the popular church – that is, well liked, especially by all the people who are themselves popular, which is sort of what “cool” meant in high school. Maybe like some innovative gadget or other promising novelty, this church might make some folks marvel that it is “cool” because of some new invention.  They also might want to announce that they are not that bothered by or interested in the things that some other church is, since there is an aspect of the word that means certain easygoing unflappability, a carefree aspect. 

Doubtless, these folks named their church this because they wanted to make it attractive, make it sound popular, new, and probably even “laid back,” or some other word that means that it makes no demands. Aside from the promise of refreshment, I must confess that few of its characteristics have anything to do with the real Church.

What is attractive about the genuine Church, what she teaches and what she does, is attractive because it is true, not vice versa.  In fact, sometimes the truth is not readily appealing, and not popular at all.  The Church is popular in the sense that is of and for people, but her foundation and design are from God; she is a divine institution.  Popularity in the sense of being well liked is hardly a criterion, since from her very beginning Christ’s Church has been made up of unpopular people, the marginal and excluded, the poor, sick, or ugly.

And while the Church incorporates and embraces everything that is truly human, and that includes many innovations over the centuries, the divine element of her nature is eternal and unchanging.  Every human life has a fresh encounter with revelation in Christ Jesus, which is called the Good News because the newness of the experience, not anything recent or invented about the message.  Everything that is essential about salvation through Jesus has been consistently present in the Church for two thousand years now, even though that hardly makes it old news.

‘Laid back’ is a term I have never found any evidence in the Gospels for applying to Jesus or His followers. Jesus was most often calm, indeed, but He was always simultaneously intense.  He had a deep and abiding concern over the life of every person He encountered, and relentlessly set His face toward Jerusalem to save us from our own sin and its consequences.  He sacrificed his own life – not just his own ease, but His life!  How is that “laid back?”  And who can forget the whip of cords?

So, while you know I am very proud of our HVAC in the church and relieved that it held up during the high temperatures of last week, you won’t hear me trying to convince anyone that the church is “cool.”  Nothing finds a place here at Saint Bernadette because of its popular appeal, or because it is new and exciting. Nonetheless, you and I get pretty excited about it, excited enough to take its demands seriously. 

No, the faith of the Church is hard to consider cool.  But whatever you find here in our outpost of the Church, you can be certain that I am not making it up.

Monsignor Smith

Over-under

None for me this time, thank you.

Well now THAT was fun; a festive weekend for the national holiday.   I confess that I underachieved when it comes to most of the big public events.  I did, however, fulfill all righteousness by eating hot dogs and going to a baseball game, riding in a Chevrolet no less.  Hamburgers, ice cream, corn on the cob, and local lager also were on the menu.  Don’t even ask about pie; it was entirely too hot to bake anything and besides, the apples will not be in for months.  The menu was not the only thing that ran the gamut: the weather went from withering heat to gusting downpour and eventually yielded to a cool misty Monday morning-after.    

On the Fourth of July itself, the festive Mass for the nation that we added drew a crowd that was not large, but everyone was glad to be there, offering prayers of gratitude and intercession for our country, leaders, and fellow citizens.  I get the impression a lot of people were away for the weekend; not only were all our Masses underpopulated, but even the Beltway looked like our pews at 8:59 on any given Sunday morning.  Oddly, even the high temperatures did not cause lines to form for the cool, dark confessionals.

I underachieved in some categories for a simple reason: it was a weekend.  A friend was incredulous after the ballgame Friday evening when I told him that cookouts and fireworks were not on the schedule.  My other friend at that table, also a parish priest, sided firmly with me.  Mass and confessions and an extra Mass and more confessions then another Mass…that’s how weekends are for us.  Next time the Fourth falls on a Thursday, then we can relax and enjoy.   

I did make sure Father Tran got the benefit of his Washington sojourn; he viewed the midnight fireworks from a well-placed rooftop in the company of his classmates.  But he also did his part around here; he took the morning Mass on the Fourth and the latest Mass on the fifth to make it work.  When he returns to east Texas he will know where he was in summer school.

Those of you who have not fled the DMV will have noticed that Father Swink is back in the house and on the schedule.  His recovery is continuing according to schedule, but that schedule does not yet indicate “all better,” much less “cavorting like a teenager.”  We are trying to keep his yoke easy and his burden light, so to speak, to make sure that this stage of his convalescence bears good fruit in future health and ability. 

Some of you even got to see Father Wiktor as he spent a few days here between driving back from his diocesan home in Mississippi and flying for a long visit and some academic research in his natal home in Poland.  He will be back here in time for fall term.  

Father Wiktor and I had a quiet dinner together Saturday evening before turning in early to be ready for the work that Sunday morning brings.  I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of distant fireworks, clearly a display for the ages.  I felt a twinge of regret for underachieving in that regard and missing a good party.  I did not awaken, though, in the wee hours when Father Tran came home after his patriotic adventure, and I was well rested and ready to leap into the saddle for confessions, and Mass, and baptisms, which is the festivity where I do my best to avoid any underachieving.

Monsignor Smith

Let it fly

For my seminary classmates, 1994 was the year that we did not set foot in the United States, because those were the rules.  As a result, it was the year that the Fourth of July did not happen.  Well, you know the date came and went, but wherever I was just then – Spain?  France maybe?  -- I was having a good time in a great place, but it was not the same.  On my second assignment to Rome, over four years I became accustomed to being in somebody else’s country for our national day.  It did not have the same sting as that first time in 1994. 

I have had epic Fourths of July.  When young, foolish, and living within walking distance of the National Mall, I enjoyed the concert and fireworks on the capitol lawn.  I have mingled at an elegant party of Important People on a balcony a mere block from the White House.  At my bachelor apartment, I pulled together my local friends with extended family visiting town for a fifth of July wedding in a great convivium that adjourned to the roof in time to see in the distance the fireworks of the Mall.  

The best ever was the Bicentennial in 1976.   The Tall Ships.   The Freedom Train.  The neighborhood parade with bicycles decorated by all the kids.  The Flags of the Revolution project for my whole sixth-grade class.  I got the “Bicentennial Camper” rocker for my Camp Sequoyah patch on my first-ever summer camp with Troop 21.  The Bicentennial-edition everything, even, I think, cars.  

The coming into existence of the United States of America is a never-before-in-human history event, and statistically as well as sociologically likely to be a never-ever-again.  Not being omniscient but also not being ignorant of history and life experiences very different from my own, I am firmly convinced that this existence is a good thing on a scale and at a level of impact unmatched by any other human undertaking.  (Before you extend that “just a minute here” finger at me, let me observe, graciously, that the Church is a divine institution.)  Yet I seek no controversy here; I am willing to let that assertion go by the by, undefended.

I will content myself to assert that the existence of the USA is a very good thing for me, personally, and for mine, however you want to parse that possessive.  This is my country, and this is our country.  It is our home, our patria – our fatherland.  As a matter of piety we owe our country love and devotion.  As a matter of honesty we have so much, even everything for which we must give gratitude.  My heart swells at the National Anthem, to which we indeed owe an obligation of respect, and therefore stand and salute.  Patriotism is the debt we cannot pay down for it enriches us far more than it costs.

Look, I am a Boy Scout.  In fact, I am that Boy Scout who would wear his uniform to our high school’s football games each Friday night to raise the flag at the beginning, and then lower it respectfully afterward.  Twenty-five years later, it seemed natural to take responsibility for the flag that flew in front of my seminary in Baltimore for my solitary year there.  I don’t care who calls me a nerd, it is important.  

One of the Catholic commentators I most greatly admire and enjoy solemnly intoned that, as America turns 250, we could all use some humility, austerity, and personal repentance along with the bombast and celebration.  I cry Foul! Wrong you are sir!  This is precisely what we must avoid.  

The toast at a wedding is not the time to make recriminations.  A rehearsal of grudges has no place at a birthday party.  And a eulogy is so called because one speaks well of the deceased – de mortuis nihil nisi bonum.  This is more than manners; this is the fabric that binds families and nations.   

Ours is not a Catholic nation, but Catholics have thrived here beyond the dreams of their forebears and continue to contribute indispensably to the greatness of our country.   From her storehouse of wisdom, our Holy Mother the Church can contribute a more pointed directive, a more foundational principle that can calm the turbulence and reduce friction in these days when everybody has an opinion and some of them are negative.  Remember, brethren, it is forbidden to fast on a feast.  

I may just join Father Swink in a beer this week – a domestic one at that.  Our cuisine will not be haute, but spirits will be high as we mark this great anniversary and celebrate our truly great nation.  To all my fellow citizens who find themselves abroad on this day, I send a greeting and a prayer; may you come home when you will, rejoicing.  To the rest who are somewhere, anywhere in this enormous land, I shout with Saint Peter on Mount Tabor: ‘Tis good, Lord, to be here!  God bless America, and deliver us from evil.

Monsignor Smith