Are you ready?

Are we about to have a Padre Pio moment?  I mean, is Padre Pio about to become one of those cultural events that spill over from the Church into the wider life of the United States and western culture because somebody, somewhere, somehow, decided to present him in the popular media?  

Apparently, there is a Padre Pio biographic movie coming out, mainstream-Hollywood-made, with a real-live movie star, chap named Shia LeBeouf, playing the Capuchin saint.  It is generating some stir in the movie world as well as the Catholic world, because of that star’s alleged horrible actions before making the film, and because of his announced conversion as a result of his participation in the film.

Well, last week (23 September) was the liturgical memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, and because it fell on a Friday I celebrated it at a school Mass.  Trying to explain Padre Pio’s wild popularity throughout Italy wasn’t the easiest task; he is mostly famous for his suffering.   He received the stigmata – Christ’s wounds in hands, feet, and side – and bore them for fifty years.  The Church authorities were unsettled by his personality, his piety, and his popularity, and sanctioned him for years and years.  Are you wondering what the excitement was about?  So were the kids.  

Honestly, while I have been impressed by his authentic holiness and devotion, I never worked up too much enthusiasm for the saint.  But every time I heard something or learned something, it inspired increased respect and greater curiosity.  I was in Rome at the time of his canonization, when seemingly all Italy showed up (whence I chose the adjective “wild”, above), so I have never doubted that there is really something there.  

Another Padre Pio fact that left the kids wondering was that he spent most of his days in the confessional – like ten or twelve hours, every day.  The line to confess to him stretched out of the church and around the piazza, every day.  But what makes even grownups wonder is that he was known to be a particularly tough confessor.  Moreover, he was known to tell people their own sins, if they “forgot” or otherwise omitted them, or even were otherwise oblivious to them.  Picture that!  People would emerge from the experience often in tears, but always, always with an experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness.  

The schoolkids were visibly unmoved by that concept, but I think you and I have a responsibility to reflect a little more deeply before we dismiss it.  Under what circumstances is a regular, even run-of-the-mill Catholic ready to be informed what are his sins?

Think about it.  From whom are you willing to hear what you’ve done wrong; not just incorrectly, but immorally.  Selfishly.  Harmfully.  SINfully.  I’ll just give you a moment while you compile the list.  It’s an awfully short list; wait -- still nobody? 

Maybe once upon a time, your mom and dad were on the list, but that expired when you became a swaggering teenager.  How about your wife, or husband?  If that, too, has mostly expired with the practical frictions of familiarity, how about that same beloved when you were courting, or newly married?  How about one of your children, if they are still vulnerable enough to weep unaffectedly when you cause them hurt?  

I am not sure if any of those folks are on your list, but if they are or ever were, they share one qualification for the position: their deep and unselfish love for you.

Which brings us back to Padre Pio, and those odd but inescapably persistent wounds of his.   The marks of the Passion are the marks of unaffected love.  Christ Himself often speaks of our sins and reveals to us our sins, whether directly and personally or indirectly.  People forget that this, too, is a marker of His authentic love, just as it is for other authentic lovers.  Failure to instruct about sin is a failure of charity.   Christ’s charity never fails.  To “warn the sinner” is a spiritual work of mercy.  

To take umbrage when our sin is pointed out to us is to reject one of the most precious fruits of Divine Love.  How much love do you require before you respond with other than indignation?

Would you line up to go to confession to a priest who was known to be holy, known to be tough, known even to inform penitents of their own sins if they couldn’t bring themselves to confess them?  Would you do it only if you had seeping, bleeding evidence of his love for you and sacrifice for your salvation, or would you take it on faith?  Are you ready to have a Padre Pio moment?  

Monsignor Smith

 

Reminds me of a story

Old Yeller.  Everybody of a certain age has heard of it, and most know exactly what it means.  Old Yeller used to be a cultural reference that elicited immediate recognition and response from almost everybody when it was invoked.  Old Yeller has right near disappeared from our cultural consciousness, as it had from my own until recently.

For reasons I cannot interpret much less explain, sometime over the past month, Old Yeller moved into my mind and took up residence without invitation or explanation.  Without becoming a preoccupation, much less an obsession, it has simply been there waiting for a quiet moment, usually in the morning, when nothing else is on my mind.  Otherwise almost perfectly passive, it has stood forth in my memory for me to consider and contemplate.

It came to me as a single image, a still image because of course I first encountered it in a book.  The book had pictures, and I remember vividly the climactic moment when boy faces dog, the latter looking out from the shed or truck where it had been confined, wind-driven rain slashing the surrounding darkness.  What an image.  What a thought!

The book was a collection of stories, I think, large format, with a familiar castle on the cover.   I associate, and perhaps confuse, that image with the one that began the television program The Wonderful World of Walt Disney that we watched as a family almost every Sunday evening.  It was there, I think, that I saw the film version of the story, which may have been in black and white, either in the original or simply as I saw it if it was before we got our color television at Thanksgiving when I was nine.

Old Yeller is a hard story. It’s about a boy and his dog, yes, and the dog is an adorable puppy who grows into a beautiful, loyal, smart, strong, and wonderful friend to the boy.  That much would resemble any story with currency and popularity today, but its unfolding and conclusion make it hard to picture families today reading it, or flocking to watch it with their children, and harder still to imagine the Disney of today proudly presenting it. 

Old Yeller is an old story, you see, from the time before The Parent Trap and Flubber, before Haley Mills and Kurt Russell.  It goes back the days of the original Cinderella, but was live action and not animated.  There are no princesses or princes in it, and I believe Disneyland never had a ride based on it. 

It is from a time when pets or other animals were not presented as protagonists or even heroes.  The presence and use of firearms in the story would incite violent protests today.  The depiction of the family, and what would today be called ‘parenting techniques,’ would draw scrutiny and perhaps opprobrium.  

But it is none of those aspects that stuck with me, and they are only peripheral to the central image and central impression that present themselves unbidden before the eyes of my mind.  What I remember is that the boy did it.  Through tears, yes, but at his own insistence, and even in the face of suggestion that he leave it to his dad.  At least I remember that the offer was made; my memory is imperfect but I have declined to check it on the all-knowing (sic) internet. 

The memory that has been making itself known is one of resolve and responsibility, borne on shoulders still small but clearly strong.   Absent the other anachronistic trappings, would anybody in our own time, whether for entertainment or exhortation, present this lesson as one for approval and even imitation?  Are we forming our children, or even strengthening ourselves, for the solitary work of moral decision and action?   

In our time of internet anonymity and crowd-everything, opinion polls, consensus, and committees, institutional processes and policies, are we nurturing any habits besides following the herd and passing the buck?  Will we ever see leadership again, or are we consigned to the doom of being perpetually “left no choice but to (insert pusillanimous action here).”

Doing the hard thing because it is the right thing must start young, but will never become automatic, much less easy.  The necessity and virtue of taking responsibility for our own actions and their consequences, even the unintended ones, is a lesson our infotainment celebrities, corporate barons, or governing sycophants will never produce, much less present.  

Jesus used parables because stories are effective at teaching complex realities and imparting lessons that endure and mature with time, experience, and consideration.  Old Yeller is a story that came back to me after decades of desuetude because of its vivid presentation of a virtue that I treasure and I crave, to which I aspire and whose absence I mourn.  But everyone who knew the story then or has even a vague recollection of it now will tell you that Old Yeller is a story that is very, very sad.

Monsignor Smith

 

Household names

Fr. Winthrop Brainerd, in his ceremonial regalia
as he might  prepare to attend the funeral of  the queen.
Father Brainerd was here 2004 - 2008.

This past Friday evening marked our first night on the field for what I call Munchkinball.  Pre-K through 2nd grade soccer is only part, albeit the central part, of what happens out there, and it was a perfect night for all of it. In addition to the Opening Prayer and the Flag Raising, the other essential ceremonial element of the first night is the Bestowal of Uniforms, and this year CYO presented uniform shirts to me and Fathers Novajosky and Santandreu as well the kids and coaches.  They were more appreciative of the correct spelling of their names than I was of mine, for some reason.  But it was clear that having their names on their shirts was the true goal, as many folks apparently still confuse them one with another.

Though I confess to having once or twice called them, with all affection, the Canonical Twins, it has never been difficult for me to distinguish my two housemates one from another.  Now that I have lived with them for a year it would be difficult for me to confuse them.   Often, I can distinguish their footfalls on the staircase, and guess which of them is entering or leaving by the front door.  More times than not, I can even tell which of them is in the kitchen without being able to see into the kitchen.  So perhaps my advice to you is to rely less on your eyes when you try to discern which of them you have before you.

One thing that they do have in common is that they are both in the same classes.  This is the first time I have lived with two students who come home each day discussing the same program, professors, and lectures.  It makes for a fruitful overflow of their learning from which I benefit directly, though I think it’s just a bad joke that by the end of their two years here I will qualify for a License in Canon Law by osmosis, or proximity.  Clearly I would still need to write at thesis.  

It is not unusual for me to learn a lot from the priests who live in the rectory with me.  One recent high point was the period when Fathers Joe McCabe and Clint McDonell were here.  With the former’s experience as a missionary in Tanzania and the Russian far east, and his ten years in the Vatican, mixed with the latter’s observations of a polymath philosopher, conversation around the table was never dull or low on content.  All the better then that it was often also hilarious.

The events surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II have reminded me of another former denizen of the Holy House of Soubirous, though it was longer ago and fewer of you remember him.  Father Winthrop Brainerd, with his doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge, had to renounce his Dukedom to become a US Citizen, and was a cleric of the Church of England before entering the Catholic Communion and taking Holy Orders here in Washington.  He sang as a chorister – a boy treble – at Elizabeth’s coronation.   When the Queen visited Washington on a state visit at some time in the 1990’s, one of the local people after whom she officially ‘inquired’ was Fr. Brainerd.  I am pretty sure he received a Christmas card from her every year.

The coming week will bring her state funeral, which many reporters observed is the first in Britain of such status since that of Winston Churchill in 1965.  Fr. Brainerd often spoke of his role in planning and executing the ceremonies for that historic function, and his skills and knowledge from it were among the many gifts he tried to impart to me over the long years of our friendship.  I am grateful for what I received and retained.  While I am not certain I will get a chance to watch any, much less all, of the Queen’s funeral, if I do, it will be with the sharp eye for ceremonies of one trained by one of the Queen’s very best.

I always learn something from the priests who live here with me, and it is my hope that you do, too.  If you still need help telling them apart, and you can’t see the back where the names are written, Fr. Santandreu’s jersey is dark blue, whereas Fr Novajosky’s is cadmium yellow.  Mine is yellow too, but recognizing me does not seem to be so difficult.  See you on the field!

Monsignor Smith

Lift it high!

We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection, through whom we are saved and delivered. (Introit, cf. Gal. 6:14)

So begins the Mass for this Wednesday’s Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  Easy to overlook as the train of our lives gains speed into fulltime fall frenzy, this ancient observance is not a rumination on the life-and-death cycle that prompts poets to muse on the beauty of autumnal colors, but rather a straightforward celebration of the redeeming value Christ’s brutal suffering and death.   It marks the anniversary of the discovery of the True Cross on September 14, 320 A.D. by Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, at Jerusalem, where she had traveled specifically to search for it.  Because she knew: of course they kept it, with the same human impulse that leads us to keep bits and pieces of all sorts of things that figured into major moments of our lives.   A bite of 14-year-old wedding cake, anyone?  You may be able to fit into your wedding dress, but I routinely wear the alb in which I was ordained a deacon back in 1996 A.D..

…So must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. (Jn 3:15)  So this thing that lifted up the Son of Man unto His death, thereby figured into the salvation of the world; this instrument of execution that became the instrument of salvation is itself lifted up, that is, exalted for us to venerate.  Hence this great feast: For God so loved the world.

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself, says the Lord. (Communio, Jn 12;32) O Come, let us adore Him!  Never is the love of God more perfectly manifest than in His saving sacrifice, exalted on the Holy Cross.  

At the heart of the Mass for the Feast is the Preface, which includes this beautifully poetic, almost arithmetic, tracing of the trajectory of mercy from the Fall of Man to the great Lifting Up:  

For you placed the salvation of the human race 

on the wood of the cross, 

so that where death arose, life might again spring forth; 

and the evil one, who conquered on a tree, 

might likewise on a tree be conquered, through Christ our Lord.

For those of us who lazily lapse into the irritable expectation that suffering is a sign of God’s negligence, or even his disfavor, this day is a reminder and corrective.  This is my beloved Son, the Father assures us more than once.  The one whom the tempter accused of being protected by the angels of God “lest you dash your foot against a stone” is Himself dashed to death against our sin.  God Who embraced our human nature and condition first in the helplessness of human infancy joins us in our helpless subjection to death.  The difference is that you and I deserve it, as the thief agonizingly observes.  So when pain and even death afflict us, God is not withdrawn from us, but rather He is waiting already for us to join Him there. 

The Liturgy pours out on us unmerited but much-needed riches and wisdom, for the day after we dare to exalt the Holy Cross, we mark, on the Octave Day of her nativity, the sweet privilege afforded the Blessed Virgin Mary, our race’s solitary boast:   

At the Cross her station keeping, 

stood the mournful mother weeping, 

close to Jesus to the last! (Sequence for Our Lady of Sorrows)

So if, as the days grow shorter and your to-do list gets longer, you find yourself wondering Lord, why do you let this happen to me?, come to the fountain of consolation that is the holy Mass.  Then, whether you find yourself stuck in traffic or on a gurney in pre-op,  Rejoice when you share in the sufferings of Christ, that you may also rejoice exultantly when his glory is revealed.  (Communio, Our Lady of Sorrows)

Monsignor Smith

What's the worth of a thousand words?

 “A listening church.”  This is a meme, a theme, an assertion and a cry.  “A listening church.”  Our Bishops' Conference provides a photo of Pope Francis with his hand cupped to his ear, and looking out over his notes and over his glasses at -- whom?  You?  Me?  We do not see, as nobody else is in the image, no aides nor audience, only a hot-pink background with tangerine text that asserts in several scrawled fonts, “A listening church.”  

People want a listening church, goes the story, and we have to be a listening church, goes the directive.  We are having synods and sessions, we are being a listening church; that is the narrative.  Okay.  I am fine with that, for all that is worth.

But something about that photo: the hand cupped over the ear, the searching, almost eager look.   It rang a bell, reminded me of something I had heard a few years back that stuck with me.  A protestant preacher was talking about how Catholic pastors have an advantage over protestants when it comes to preaching.

Now, to me at first that sounded absurd.  I mean, I grew up in Alabama surrounded fifty-to-one with protestants: happy, practicing evangelicals; zealous, assertive fundamentalists; and circumspect, sarcastic, or even skeptical but still proudly self-identifying protestants.  And I was glad to be a Catholic!  Happy, and proud even.  But when it came to preaching, I was under no illusion that any advantage was to be found on our side of the split.  What we got was on average, if not without exception, horrible.  Protestant preaching was engaging, energetic, assertive, emotional, Scriptural, prepared, practised, occasionally silly, often demanding, almost always long.  

So where was this Catholic advantage, in the eyes of this preacher not-Catholic?  He said it lay entirely in that we priests hear our people’s confessions.  

Conceding no sacramental power or efficacy, the preacher saw the sacrament of penance as the preacher’s chance to hear from his parishioners their deepest and otherwise hidden thoughts and yearnings, faults and fears.   That information, like intelligence got by hook or crook, in his assessment gave priests an advantage passing any depth of soaking in Scripture, even exceeding having six days of uninterrupted preparation between only-on-Sunday sermons. And it dawned on me that he had a point.

Being focused on the sacramental efficacy, I had not considered this contribution to my preacher’s tool-kit; though when I thought about it, I recognized that I had unbeknownst incorporated it.  To hear my people speak frankly of their own lives, and of their souls, gave me an awareness of their understanding and their misunderstandings, the shape of their consciences, and their fears as well as their hardships.  With this now-conscious awareness, I am helped in doing what the Letter to the Hebrews exhorted just last week: So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.  Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.  (Heb 12:13)

Long had I been aware that the Holy Spirit moves first in the Sacrament of Penance by inspiring the penitent to present himself for forgiveness, and then in how he express his regrets and repentance; that is, what he says about his sins.  And so first, as a cooperator with the Spirit, I listen.  It is called auricular confession, after all – it’s all about the ear.

Long have I found myself while hearing confessions closing my eyes, or focusing them in the middle distance, even when the penitents present themselves for face-to-face.  Except for small kids – first penitents through, say, sixth grade --I have found eye contact to be more of a distraction, and occasionally an obstacle, rather than an aid.  I even conspicuously point my ear in the direction of the penitent to emphasize to both of us what is at work. 

Then, during Covid, when I kept hearing confessions, and demand for it soared as other options closed down, I accommodated the fears of the moment by encouraging people to keep the screen between us, and I even swiveled my chair around so I was not breathing in their direction.  Thus facing into the corner, I could stare at the psalm open in my lap, or at one of the two rich paintings on the covers of books I have left on my side table because they are such feasts for the eyes.  One has a baroque Annunciation scene, the other a medieval Christ at Creation.  With my eyes thus occupied and making no demands, I can listen.  

Occasionally I have to remind penitents not to tell me what other people have done wrong, especially to them; or what circumstances have compelled them to transgress. So much else becomes clear when souls express their own sins with genuine sorrow!

What happens after that is important and essential too, by all means.  Perhaps a question, maybe a spot of advice, occasionally a concise conversation; then I assign a penance, speak the Absolution, and say those words that Christ Himself utters: Your sins are forgiven.  It is the forgiven penitent’s chance to listen, and in the hearing is it so.  

While rarely do I remember the specifics or content of confessions (that’s a real thing; it’s called the gift of forgetting), my understanding is enhanced and my knowledge enriched of the real needs of the people entrusted to my care.  Even if some of them come from neighboring parishes, another authentic Catholic tradition, I know better what people genuinely crave and require, because in their humility and trust they have expressed it to me.  Complaints and grievances come to me by plenty of other channels, but in this grace-guided encounter I hear the authentic cry of the poor – and the sheep make themselves known to the shepherd.  

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!  (1 Sam 3:10) is always a good prayer to include in your time before the Lord.  Labor Day weekend, because it is the end of summer and the beginning of a new routine, is always a good time to go to confession.  Don’t hold back; this is your chance to shape the preaching and guiding of the shepherds of the church, including yours.  Speak, child, your shepherd – and the Church – is listening!

Monsignor Smith