Days, weeks, ever

First of all, let me thank everybody who worked to make our Fall Festival happen last Sunday, from every person who called bingo or baked a cake with six kinds of candy, through our vendors, the bridge-building Scouts, and the Rosensteel Knights who did get the tap working, all the way up through the aptly-named Genius Committee to the “Queen” who worked really, really hard, Elizabeth Narsavage.  The weather was passing perfect, so if you were on the prayer brigade for that, thank you too.  

It was great fun for everybody there, and I discerned that several guests had never been with us before.  You all made a great first impression!  We had one accident, too, the one thing we pray and work to avoid; so there’s new work for the prayer brigade.  There is always work for the prayer brigade.

This past Sunday, John Henderson, our music director, explained to me that for October, the 11:00 Mass would begin with a choral prelude instead of an organ prelude,.  Not just any choral work, either: every week we will hear a different setting of the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).   We started with Guerrero, a personal favorite composer, because John spoils me sometimes.  October is a month especially associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, not least because of the feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7, also known as Our Lady of Victory.

We sing the Salve Regina at Mass every Sunday in the simple chant version.  It is one of the four seasonal Marian antiphons that are Catholic Classics, or even Basics.   We sing the Salve from Trinity Sunday through Christ the King.  Then, on First Advent, we switch to the Alma Redemptoris Mater (Dear Mother of the Redeemer), which we sing through Christmas until the Presentation of the Lord.  Thence we take up the Ave Regina Caelorum (Hail Queen of Heaven) which gets us through Lent, then Easter brings the Regina Caeli (Rejoice Heavenly Queen), until the Salve kicks in again after Pentecost.  Possibly because the Salve has the longest season, and possibly because that familiar prayer is more deeply woven into popular devotion, it has been set to marvelous compositions many times over the centuries by the greatest composers.  So, come a little early to Mass and enjoy.  Other parishes don’t get this!

Today I spent two hours at the bank helping our scout troop open its new checking account.  It was more arduous than any of us expected, largely for the same reason that we even needed the new account: fraud.  Our scouts were hit hard by some fraudulent check writers last year, and they have been working without a functional checking account since then.  Their assets were restored, after some anxious months, but they needed the new account separate from the parish accounts, with which we assist as their chartering organization.  The bank’s processes have become more careful and complex, and therefore more time consuming.

We are being more careful, as well, and have switched our parish checking to a new system called “Positive Pay” that means that we notify the bank of every check before we issue it, and the bank will honor only those checks.  Yes, it is arduous, inconvenient, and time consuming, and it limits what we can do with our checks.  But we have already nabbed TWO fraudulent checks people tried to write on our accounts in just the last few months, so we are sticking with it.

And speaking of fraudsters, neither I nor any staffer at the rectory or school will email you and ask you to buy and send gift cards.  Even if the message insists “I am in a prayer meeting” (!!! Really?  Who emails about gift cards from a prayer meeting??) do not respond at all, but rather, if you are uncertain, contact us through our published email or telephone numbers.  It creeps me out more than a little that anybody would be sitting at a computer somewhere in the world pretending to be me for any reason, but especially in hopes of extricating a few hundred dollars from some unsuspecting, faithful person.  Now that I have learned about the remote hives of abducted, entrapped, and enslaved people who are forced to perpetrate fraud under threat of grave harm, I realize that not all of these perpetrators merit our wrath and contempt, but rather our prayers. 

There is something particularly blasphemous when these practitioners of “phishing” try to present themselves as if they were fishers of men.  That is not at all what our Lord intended by that term!  And, as St Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus before his departure for Jerusalem, I (K)now that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert.  (Acts 20: 29 – 31a)

Threats (fierce wolves) from without, and dangers (men speaking perverse things) within.  Be alert, indeed.  

Monsignor Smith

For the battle

Defend us

We speak of nine choirs of Angels, because we know, by the testimony of Holy Scripture, that there are the following: Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Nearly every page of Scripture witnesses to the fact that there are Angels and Archangels.  The prophetic books, as has been noted often, speak of Cherubim and Seraphim.  Four more orders are enumerated by Paul the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, when he says, "Above every Principality and Power and Virtue and Domination."  And again, writing to the Colossians, he says, "Whether Thrones, or Powers, or Principalities, or Dominations."  When, then, we add the Thrones to those he mentions in Ephesians, there are five orders, to which are to be added Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, certainly making nine orders of Angels in all.  Saint Gregory the Great, Pope from AD 590 to 603.    

For a while there a few years back, angels were wildly popular.  Posters and notecards, t-shirts and television shows, all featured angels, or someone purporting to be an angel.  This enthusiasm seems to have faded, and now the public fancy has turned to AI or zombies or something.  But we members of the Body of the Lord remain aware of the angels, even though they have no bodies, for together we serve the Eternal Almighty.   And we have just finished the week in which fall our annual liturgical observance of their importance.

Last Sunday, 29 September, was the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels, though suppressed because, you know, Sunday.  We know these Archangels from their missions recorded in Scripture.  Gabriel brought the message of the Incarnation of Our Lord to the virgin of Nazareth, whose name was Mary.  Raphael assisted Tobiah on his pilgrimage and identified the healing balm for Tobit.  Michael is in charge of, shall we say, less delicate matters.  He wields a flaming sword, and in addition to the several combats in which he intervenes in the Old Testament, we see this in the last book of the New:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Rev 12:7-9

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while.  Rev 20:1-3

This Michael is decidedly somebody we want to have on our side in our combats, and someone with whom we want to have clear and quick communication.  The ancient Prayer to Saint Michael is indispensable, and we should know it by heart and pray it readily and often.   We teach it to the students by praying it at the conclusion of our weekly school Masses. 

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!  Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

Michael is clearly one of “the big guns” for our fight against sin and death, as we might regard all the Archangels.  (Can you name the fourth Archangel?)  But that august group does not exhaust the assembly of angels we celebrate in these days.  Wednesday, October 2, was the Feast of the Guardian Angels, when we recall that God has assigned an angel to each one of us, to protect us (from sin) and help us safely on our way (to heaven): 

For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12

Angels are in Scripture, angels are amazing; angels bear messages and always say first, Fear not!   Where do you and I come close to these same Angels?  How can we share their company?  One of my favorite antiphons in The Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours or the breviary, points the way:

An angel stood by the altar, holding a golden censer; a large quantity of incense was given to him, and clouds of incense rose from the hand of the angel in the presence of the Lord.

Thousands upon thousands waited on him, and myriads upon myriads stood before him.  And clouds of incense rose from the hand of the angel in the presence of the Lord.

We are closest to the Angels, in our location and in our action, when we are at the Holy Altar of God during the saving sacrifice of the Mass, worshipping God, adoring Him and praising Him.  We announce our plea and our plan to be joined in our acclamation not only to the angels and archangels, but also to the virtues, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, and to the cherubim and seraphim too.   At the approach of the Lord Himself we cry out together Holy! Holy! Holy!

That is better, longer lasting, and more approachable than posters and notecards, t-shirts and television shows ever will be.

Monsignor Smith

Teeming with life

When visitors to our parish stop to say hello to me after Mass, the one comment most frequent is how many young families we have.  That may be an edited version of commenting how many children were at Mass, and how noticeable they were; but either way I joyfully acknowledge it.  Yes, it can be a little rowdy in the pews; isn’t that a marvelous part of worshipping God?

Last week at the end of my Masses, I reinforced the announcement about the upcoming (next week!) Fall Festival.  Invite people, I urged, who do not usually come here because they are not Catholic or not local, if you think they might enjoy a family-friendly afternoon.  It dawned on me to make the point not only because families with children have too few options attuned to their needs and that welcome them, but also because so many people, like those Sunday visitors from other dioceses in other parts of the country, no longer have any opportunity to be around families with children.

A few months ago, Timothy Carney, a local writer, gave me a copy of his most recent book.  I have known him since he was a solo young professional in the city (when I was in Chinatown); after that he was a parishioner here for a year or two when his family was getting started.  He then moved over by Saint Andrews for a longer time, and finally now is in Falls Church, Virginia (so his new pastor tells me).  His book starts with a description of our parish’s Friday Night on the Field, what I call munchkinball.  He makes it his lead example of what there is not nearly enough of, that is, time for kids to be kids together, and adults to let them do that while enjoying one another’s company.  

Among other things, this decisively sets apart from all that surrounds us in this, our little garden patch of heaven under the maples.  In our metropolis, children are scheduled, supervised, channeled, and contained, isolated and exempted from the general flow of society.  Their carefully chosen companions tend to be exactly their age and socio-economic group, and their activities directed and evaluated.  Parents provide transportation.  

The name of Tim’s book is Family Unfriendly, and he diagnoses this as one of the symptoms of what is terribly unhealthy about our culture.   I admit I have not finished the book, but neither have I read only the parts that mention our parish.  He has a genuine insight, and I commend it to your attention.  

For years I have heard some of the negative experiences of our parish parents who find dirty looks or open criticism when in public places with their children, more than two at a time. But my own experience makes me suspect there are also other people, possibly many of them, who have a different attitude and a different reaction to seeing families and children.  

With no children of my own, I have nonetheless become accustomed to the environment here at the parish where kids are woven into the fabric of every gathering.  Sure, we have a school where kids take classes, and we have sports leagues where kids play in organized and supervised teams.  But that’s not the ONLY place the kids are; no, they are everywhere, and very often doing entirely their own thing, but also sometimes interacting freely and appropriately with people of other ages from other families whom they may or may not know terribly well.  Many if not most of them freely interact with me, always forthrightly, almost always politely, and in a manner that is best described as ‘childlike’.  (There’s an endorsement of being ‘childlike’ somewhere from somebody important, but I cannot lay hand to it just now).  This is one thing I enjoy most, and that I miss most on the rare occasions I take a vacation that lasts into a second week.  

What about the other people like me, who do not have their own children or whose children are not nearby, but would find it invigorating and encouraging to be in an environment where kids are being kids in a happy and healthy way, and their parents are letting them enjoy it?  It is so beautiful, so human, and so normal, it is hard to fathom how and why we have let it become so rare.

It is a matter of pride and delight for me when those visitors comment on the youthful rambunctiousness of our Sunday Masses.  I hope you, too, find our family-friendly parish and her young, energetic members a source of pride and delight, which you invite people you care about to share and enjoy.

Monsignor Smith

 

What do you know?

I believe precisely in order to understand. 

This statement from Francis Cardinal George, late Archbishop of Chicago, struck a chord with me as I read his posthumously published book, A Godly Humanism.  It resonated with a train of thought that had been chugging around in my head for the past few weeks: from the Big Bang onward, every event and element in the universe originates with and points to God, our origin and goal. 

Throughout the quarter of a century he served as bishop, Cardinal George was widely recognized to be the most intellectually capable member of the US hierarchy.  I was blessed to encounter him early and often during that time, and always found him kind and personable.  Frank and direct would also describe him, as his intellectual rigor revealed itself in unhesitant honesty.  All of this made him stand out among the many bishops I knew.

As Cardinal George prepared for death by the cancer that had come back for the third time, he meditated on the relationship between the realm of the intellect and the realm of faith, and their seeming clash in our nation and culture.  He found both to be bound up inseparably not only in his own life, but in human nature and experience.  It is insight from personal experience that he offers in his book.

He responds graciously and eloquently to the common assertion that faith and reason are opposites.  I am so grateful for this, because it has been bothering me lately.  There is so much science and discovery and insight out there, and every shred of it points to magnificence of its Creator.  Everything beautiful and everything dangerous, everything thunderous and everything still, resounds with the genius and glory of God.

In a time when we have a popular television show called The Big Bang Theory, with characters who are nerdy and supposedly extremely smart, most people do not know that the eponymous theory originated with the scientific work of a priest, Fr. Georges LeMâitre, SJ.  The intelligence and learning of the characters on the show include no interest in God, much less any concern for Divine instruction that would shed light on how they should live.  The smug and willful ignorance depicted is both widespread and pernicious.

To call oneself “agnostic” is fashionable, but how many realize that etymologically, it simply means “without knowledge?”  In common usage, it indicates a conviction that one cannot know about God, and therefore one does not know, and should not behave as if he does.  On the contrary, ignorance of God not only requires a great deal of effort to maintain, but must also first be taught or instructed.  

One of the phrases that Cardinal George brings out is the ancient formula, credo ut intelligam: I believe that I may understand.  It is the exact opposite of what so many people assert now, the proposition that one must choose either to have faith, or to have knowledge.  He explains: Because there are things beyond human understanding, faith is a vision of reality larger than that given by our own experience.  It’s a way of understanding something that reason couldn’t discover.  Once (divine) revelation has helped us to see things we wouldn’t see without its data, then we can begin to understand what has been given us by using the power of reason.

The irony is that faith, specifically Christian faith, is the root of so much of our scientific knowledge.  The foundation for the scientific inquiry that has brought about our technological mastery was and remains our confidence in the God who is intelligible to us, and in whose likeness we are able to know Him and all His work.   Therefore, you and I are better able to understand any and every science, any and every aspect of reality, because we study and believe in God.

This is why I nurture, protect, and value my faith, and why I ground every consideration and decision in what it teaches me.  Because I believe precisely in order to understand. 

Monsignor Smith

 

Resonances

Well, this week has been a bit manic, and the moment for your letter arrived too fast after other moments that were claimed or spent or demanded.  It’s not a bad thing to read and reflect, to wrap our minds around words deeper than first they seem.  It trains our brains for the Word, and helps our hearts find truth.  I hand the baton to Czeslaw Milosz, an old favorite who can be counted on to lay it out before us.

Monsignor Smith

 

Account

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own — but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late.  And the truth is laborious.

 

Window

I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree
translucent in brightness. 

And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with
fruit stood there. 

Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what
happened in my sleep.

 

And Yet The Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings, 
That appeared once, still wet 
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn, 
And, touched, coddled, began to live 
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up, 
Tribes on the march, planets in motion. 
“We are,” they said, even as their pages 
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame 
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth 
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more: 
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant, 
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. 
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, 
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

 

 

Sons of the Father

Father & son

Labor Day evening, I came home from my folks’ early enough to slip in with Fr. Novajosky and watch the end of the first episode of Ken Burns’ video series, The Civil War.  I knew what was coming and could almost recite along as the narrator read Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife, Sarah, professing his love and accurately predicting his death in battle.  He had so hoped, he said, to have seen with her their boys “grown to honorable manhood,” one of several poignant phrases that never loses its resonance.  

Prescinding for the moment from the value of ‘manhood’, let’s simply leave it as a differentiation from ‘boyhood’ and move to the real question here: ‘honorable.’  As often as we hear the word ‘honor’ used in our own time, do we give any thought to what it meant in our country a century or two ago?

In his book, Young Washington, Peter Stark recounts many of the adventures and episodes in the young adult life of the first president, and frequently cites with bemusement and disapproval the young man’s stated desire to obtain ‘honor’.  Understood in a way that jibes with modern use, it could be taken to mean fame or celebrity, approval, and maybe even fortune.  Today’s cynicism would call his efforts ‘brand management.’  In his shallowness, Stark attributes shallowness to the sine qua non of our nation’s founding.

But in pre-modern American culture, as in a millennium and a half of Christian culture before that, ‘honor’ was more akin to respect and rectitude, a hard-won reputation for doing the right thing, the good thing, the selfless thing, when it was hardest, because it was right and good and selfless.  Honor was the basis of trust, and the requisite for leadership.  It was the greatest asset that a father could bestow on his children, but it could also be squandered or lost by either generation.  George Washington’s family in his youth presented him with such an honor deficit. 

Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that lightly treated the phenomenon of young adults sharing or inquiring after one another’s FICO credit scores as an element of dating or mating.  This is a desperation move by servants of technology in a commoditized society, and its many shortcomings are evident.  This is what is left to a society that values only being ‘true to oneself,’ rather than any real goodness or truth.  It is a vain attempt to fill the gap left by the abandonment of honor.

People are confused now when all the time they hear silliness like the announcer’s invitation before ballgames to “Please stand as we honor our country with a performance of the national anthem.”  We stand for the anthem out of obligation, for our nation’s honor is not dependent on our salute, but rather the reverse.  We salute our nation who bestows on us the honor of being her citizens or her guests, and when we stand for her anthem, we honor our debt to her.  This behavior is simply honorable but does not garner honor for us, who fulfill the most basic of obligations at little real expense, or even effort.

Honor is not something we bestow on another by our intentions, efforts, or accolades.   When we say we honor our beloved dead, we are honoring our debt of life, and honoring our obligation as Christian souls to pray for them.  We are especially indebted to all whose death obtained anything good for us, like freedom or safety or another day of living, and to fail to repay that would be dishonorable for us but detract nothing from them or their honor.  Be wary of anything proposed ‘in honor of’ someone, or worse yet, a Mass offered ‘in honor of’ any mortal. Worthy is the Lamb to receive honor and glory… 

Fr. Nova was taking up this classic and moving video series as part of his recent wading into that troubled period of our nation’s history.  Knowing my long-time interest, he shares things he learns or encounters, and thereby sparks from me a torrent of thoughts, recollections, and observations that you would think by now he would know enough to be able to dodge.  Such a torrent you might just be enduring even now as you read this.

But Fr. Novajosky has been a good companion these three years because he has not shied away from such complex questions, nor has he refrained from sharing his insights and erudition with me on questions both consequential and recreational.  I think both of us, indeed all of us in the rectory and the parish, have been spurred to do what is right, good, and selfless on more than one occasion because of his participation here these past three years.  His is indeed an honorable priesthood.

Monsignor Smith

 

The Weight of Years

Saint Henry's Cathedral in Bamberg, 
still looking good one thousand years later.

There was a time when I could devour a serious book in mere days; I peaked with Anna Karenina in two.  Now, not only is my attention span damaged by the infernal machine, and my eyes by the passage of time, but so also my brain simply takes longer to comprehend anything of substance.  The last book I finished was (another) Cormac McCarthy novel, on which I am still mentally chewing, and from which emotionally I am still recovering.  It took me about four months to read that.  

Why I thought I could handle the book I have taken up now, I have no idea.  I found it on a friend’s shelf as I traveled last month, and it followed me home.  Yes, I asked permission.   It is history, and an academic book at that (lots of footnotes), so potentially dry as dust.  At least I knew its demands would not be emotional!  But already in one week I have enjoyed almost a quarter of Before the Gregorian Reform: the Latin Church at the Turn of the Millennium, and I am laughing at myself for it.

Why on earth would I pick up such a book, much less enjoy it?  It’s a funny chain of events – funny for me, anyway – but the answer is that I really know very little about what was happening at that time, and more to the point, recently I have been reminded about how much was going on at that time about which I know only a little.  

For example, July 13 is the Feast of Saint Henry, whom I always claim is the first saint I “met.”  My junior year in college I had a semester in Germany; it was my first trip abroad and my first trip on a jet, in fact.  We visited Bamberg and its ancient cathedral where Henry and his wife Cunegunda are buried.  There are neither emperors nor saints buried in Alabama, where I grew up, so he was my first.   Anyway, he did great things for the Church in central Europe in the early years of the eleventh century.

The other thing I knew about the eleventh century was from the excavations under the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, where the old basilica, which dates back to the fourth century, was enclosed and reduced by new masonry walls, walls that look like they were built by a middle-school shop class.  Romans, whose masonry work from two thousand years ago you can still admire all over Europe, had forgotten by one thousand years ago how to build a brick wall.  Sad.  One of the reasons for this deterioration was that Rome’s population then was reduced by about ninety-seven percent from its imperial peak, and it had just been sacked by the Normans.  Yes, those Normans – the ones from Normandy, which we all know is very far away in France, who were, in fact, Catholics.  So it seemed that the eleventh century was an epically stinky time for the Church.  

Then, in 1099, to cap off the eleventh century, Pope Urban II called the first Crusade.  And I could not help but wonder – how did we get there?

So I found this book and it is fascinating.  The history of the Latin Church, as the author calls it, is my history and our history and the history of human development and the world.  This time in that history however draws to the fore people from my own ethnic background, which is largely Frankish, specifical East and Central Franks, that is, the people along the Rhine River who became Germans, Dutch, and Alsatians, who were very much at the heart of what was happening in those centuries (see Saint Henry, above) from the time of Charlemagne (about 800 AD).  The remainder of my ancestry is English, and the Anglo-Saxons were quite closely involved in these same developments as well.

I also find it fascinating that a modern academic treatise, or a modern academic author, cannot or will not acknowledge Jesus Christ and faith in Him and life in His Church is a motivation that is distinct and different from political or economic or ethnic/racial or tribal or hegemonic or organizational or any of the other templates that are used now to categorize individual and social human behavior.  

The author grapples with the very term “reform” and tries to explain it from civic necessity and from imposition by authority, but evades the acknowledgement that the encounter with Christ necessarily is a call to reform: repent, and believe in the Gospel!  It is organic, or better, intrinsic to the Christian cultures that called not only themselves but also the peoples who raided and pillaged them – the Northmen who became Normans, for example – to conversion, that is, to belief and change of life in a communion and a culture.

No other template explains this blossom in the pavement except the life of Christ in the Church.  And this was the great engine of the civilization that roared back to life after depredation and disintegration.  To read the catalog of disasters that befell every effort of Christians in their civic and ecclesial identities for several centuries, and then to find this great gleaming life that arose and reaches out in myriad concrete realities even unto our own day is to take hope in the face of our own day’s depredations and disintegrations.  

Human history is my history.  Church history is our history.  Salvation history is our past and our present, as Jesus Himself is at work in the world in His Church, which includes and involves you and me.  There is nothing dry or distant about an account of events, artifacts, and personalities from a sweep of time in which many hearts turned as one toward the Lord Jesus and found life, and found it in abundance.   

Christian civilization, the marvelous terrestrial architecture of man’s redemption and salvation in Christ, happens in time and becomes intelligible over a great sweep of time.  Maybe I am not entirely ridiculous for reading this book after all, even if it might take me months to finish.

Monsignor Smith