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

 

HR (no puffin) Stuff

No puppy, either.

It’s that time of year again when students return to the campus.  Not only in our school, where the teachers have been working all week to prepare for Tuesday’s big First Day, but also in the rectory, where we have welcomed a new resident into our student priest suite.

You’ve seen his car in the carport for several weeks already; it’s the one with the Mississippi license plates.  He left it here, along with his worldly possessions and school supplies, after driving two days from Laurel, Mississippi, offering Mass and taking a shower here, then almost immediately leaving again for Dulles airport, whence he flew to Poland to visit his family.  Father Marcin Wiktor is a priest of the Diocese of Biloxi (the southern portion of Mississippi) who is beginning the course of study at Catholic University in, you guessed it, canon law.  He is originally from Poland and moved to the United States when he began seminary formation.   You will note he has an accent; it is up to you to determine whether it rings more of the southeastern US, or southeastern Poland.

You may recall that I was away for a week at the end of last month, visiting friends, family, and former resident priests around the near Midwest.  I picked up no souvenirs but did bring home something I did not carry with me when I left: the promise of a new priest.  The archdiocesan vicar for clergy called me while I was in Ohio to tell me we had been assigned a parochial vicar.

No, we are not getting a puppy.  All the new ‘baby priests’ were parceled out two months ago.  We are getting a veteran, eighteen years ordained.   He is not from outside the archdiocese either; in fact, he grew up just north of here in Greater Silver Spring.  He is not a stranger; more like a local celebrity.  His parents have been here for Mass more often than not over the past few years; his sister got married here two years ago.  Most likely you have heard of him: Father Larry Swink.

That he is coming here in late August is a clue that his move is out of the normal course of things.  But he had to leave his previous assignment, as administrator of Annunciation Church in northwest DC, for the best reason possible, when the pastor suddenly returned.  I am excited to have him around, as he has broad shoulders, not only literally but also pastorally, and the heart of a parish priest.  He will be a boon to us all here for as long as he is with us.  Never ask how long; nobody ever knows.  He and I have known one another for a long time, and we are both pleased at the prospect of being together.

He is being an awfully good sport about things, too, as his move came out of the blue and brought him here at an unexpected time.   Father Michael Novajosky is living in the parochial vicar’s rooms!  So Fr. Swink will be camping in the guest room for several weeks.

Receiving new priests into one’s parish can bring both excitement and trepidation, even more so when they move into one’s home.  But as we consider with some sadness the impending departure of Fr. Novajosky after three years here, we can recall that he was new here once, too, and none of us knew what to expect then.  But look how great that worked out!  

So for the next few weeks enjoy the benefits of a crowded rectory and welcome the new guys, Fr. Wiktor and Fr. Swink, as you enjoy and humor the familiar old guys.  One of us is getting really old, but that is another story entirely.  Despite the mayhem at this time of year, you make us all glad just to be here.

Monsignor Smith

 

Take a bath

The nightly candlelight rosary procession
has aspects both moving and amusing.

The baths are back.

Last year I was privileged to be part of a pilgrimage to Lourdes, which I had not visited since 1989, long before I was a priest or associated with a parish dedicated to Saint Bernadette.  Much had been reworked and improved in the more than three decades that had passed since my previous brief visits.  Staying there for three days to explore and to participate in the devotions gave me a better sense of the place and the amazing things that happen there.  I also had a chance while visiting the places of her young life to become better acquainted with, and more in awe of, our patron saint, Bernadette Soubirous.

One of the things that was different from before was that the baths were closed, the pools for full immersion of pilgrims in the cold spring water that was revealed to Bernadette by Our Lady and is known to be a fount of healing.  New spigots along the base of the rock wall beyond the grotto have been installed to offer the pilgrims access to the same water for a less immersive ‘water gesture’, which honestly was not only acceptable for me but I think also preferable.

The baths had been shut down during the pandemic restrictions of 2020, and that closure along with the change in expectations was subsequently utilized to renovate and refurbish the baths and the associated facilities.  The work is now completed, and the baths were reopened in time for the French national pilgrimage, which happens every year around the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady.  It is one of the times when the largest multitudes come to the site, right up there with the anniversary of the first apparition and Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes on 11 February.  Perhaps this year everybody who just enjoyed the Olympic Games in Paris will simply take the train down to Lourdes.  Perhaps. 

The timing is providential as well as practical.  The Assumption of Our Lady is a feast that reveals and reminds us of the importance of our bodies, to us and to God.  This may seem like a commonplace, but a time when bifurcation between body and person is manifesting in gross and grievous ways in our society, it is helpful for us to grab one of the several lifelines that the Church offers to pull us, if not everybody, to sanity.

The womb that gave flesh and blood to God the Son, our Redeemer, is a precious body indeed.  That flesh was raised from the tomb alive and glorified and is now and forever in the intimacy of the communion of the Holy Trinity.  The flesh from which came that flesh is not, cannot be, left behind, much less discarded or even disregarded, and so of course Our Lord gathered to Himself His Mother, body and soul, at the time of her passing from this life.

Every third year, including this year, the Church turns for five succeeding Sundays to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel known as the Eucharistic Discourse.   Juxtaposed with precursor passages from the Old Testament, -- the manna in the desert, the hearth cake and water jug for Elijah – the words of Our Lord leave no room for doubt that our Creator God has always wanted and still now wants to feed us in our earthly bodies to nurture and preserve our life, and the Divine Redeemer insists that the only way to receive His glorified and eternal life is by eating and drinking in our mortal flesh His holy Body and Blood.  

We are enfleshed spirits; our bodies are who we are, now and forever.  They require and deserve our respect and care unto everlasting life.  Every physical healing that Christ worked to reveal His divine identity reveals also the indispensability of our flesh to our human identity.  His recurring insistence on feeding emphasizes our regular and recurring need for Him as nourishment on our journey.  God feeds us in our mortal flesh, insisting on our cooperation with His instruction to take and eat, lest the journey be too long for us.

There comes a time in the life of every adolescent boy when he needs to be instructed and reminded to bathe himself, a time that does not last long as he recognizes and responds on his own to the recurring necessity.  God’s repeated indication of bathing as a basic both in His interest and in ours has both spiritual and physical significance, revealing the inseparability to the dual aspects of our single human nature.  God purifies us in our mortal flesh, and offers us healing in our bodies and our spirits. 

God’s desire for our weal and not our woe was revealed again by the Mother of His Son in the salutary water that rises at the grotto in Lourdes.  Not a moment too soon for a population disappointed and disoriented in its own flesh, the baths are back.  

Monsignor Smith

 

A thousand years are but as yesterday

How 're you going to keep them down on the farm -
and would you really want to?

A friend just checked in from the road, with a photo of something he had seen along the way that he knew I would enjoy.  He is taking his son to begin college.

Last week after the five o’clock Mass a family together came to find me, as they were about to set out to take their oldest to start at a university far away.  They were not just letting me know why they would not be around this coming weekend.  In fact, they asked for a blessing.  It was also a leave-taking as the young person set out for a new chapter in life.  

This meant a lot to me.  I know that family, and that rising student, pretty well.  They have been parishioners here for six or seven years, and active.  I am pleased and proud, eager for things to go well, and hope to hear all about it on the next visit home.

This step, this stage in life, has been much on my mind this summer.  You see, many of our rising college freshmen have been in this parish their whole lives, which means they have had precisely one pastor: me.  I have known them since they were babes in arms; some I baptized. 

Rather than marvel at how long I have known them, I find myself sympathizing with parents at how quickly this day comes.  Eighteen years is hardly long enough to grow and learn and master all that you need to begin adulthood!  Sure, they are big enough, and suddenly they look like they might be university students, but really – they are far too young…aren’t they?

Apparently not.  I have been pastor long enough to grow from the ground up a promising crop of high-school graduates.   I know the parents did all the dirty work, and the heavy lifting, and the difficult phases.  But I was there!   I watched and encouraged!  I provided the sacraments that make possible growth in grace and life eternal, in holiness like unto God’s own.  Who knows, maybe I even said something that stuck in their minds.  And, though they may not know this, I have loved them.

They probably have no inkling how well I know them, much less how much I care for them.  That’s a safe bet, as people that age often have no idea how much they are loved.   They can’t wait to get away from all the same old grown-ups who have been hounding them and pounding them all their young lives.  Being grown-ups, that’s what we do – as near as they can tell.

So as the summer slips away and August is suddenly upon us, my eyes dart around for a particular class of kids.  I want a word, just a word, to let them know that who they are and what they are doing is important to me.  They have been important to me for a long time, some of them fully eighteen years.  To see, to speak, to bless.  It’s all I’ve got, but it’s what I want to give. 

My friend who texted me from the road is taking his youngest to start college.  Talking about it last week, he envisioned the return trip with his wife sobbing for a while, maybe hours, in the seat next to him as they headed home to their empty nest.  The kids are entering a new stage, but they are not the only ones.

Because celibacy provides abundance, my nest is not empty, nor will it be empty.  I have no grounds to weep, only gratitude to have been woven by grace into the fabric of so many complex, capable, and charismatic young lives.  This I look upon, and see that it is very good.  Godspeed.

Monsignor Smith

 

Friends and enemies

 

The feast at the end of that road

When driving about last week in the heartland of our fair nation, the region often called “flyover country,” I found encouragement in the civic and human virtues evident in the fabric of the cities and small towns, the fields and farms through which I rolled with shockingly little traffic to obstruct me.  The people I encountered at every stop were remarkably gracious and charitable, which is even better than what most would say: “nice.” 

One evening I enjoyed the company of Fr. Clint McDonell (who resided with us from 2012 – 2015) and a couple who are dear friends of his and now mine too, along with the three children who joined their family since I first met them.  Fr. McDonell made his justifiably-famous pizzas for us, and we enjoyed a wholesome if somewhat manic convivium at the end of a delightful day together.  

But when I got back to my room, I found that a friend from back home had sent me a most disturbing image of a mock Last Supper tableau ripe with foul and disgusting images and actions.  It was only days later, as I finished all my visiting and re-entered the wired world, that I learned that this sacrilege had been part of the opening spectacle of the Paris Olympic games.

The reaction had been angry and widespread, more than the organizers expected, so they issued a non-apology of the type that has become so familiar: if anyone was offended, we are really sorry.  This puts the onus on the people who chose to be offended, which the nattering nabobs labeled the “Christian right,” lest there be any doubt where the fault lay.  

The organizers said their goal was inclusion.  That is a lie.  Their goal was to attack and to mock the faith of Christians; it is as simple as that.  It was offensive like any attack is offensive.  It was an attack on the Lord Who revealed His Eucharistic providence and presence at the Last Supper.  It is an attack on the Apostles and the Church whose life and practice are instituted in that sacred moment. 

Not just the little array of vulgar painted performers, but also the organizers and arrangers, and every level of (government) supervisor and (corporate) sponsor; all of these people have contempt for the Faith and the Church and the Lord Jesus Himself.  These people have contempt for you and me and everyone who believes, along with the centurion at the foot of the cross, Truly, this man was the Son of God.  

Powerful leaders.  Wealthy businesses.  The elegant and fashionable famous.  The hip artsy crowd.   When these people deride what is not only precious but also defining and definitive to you and to me and every believing Christian in the world, they are not sorry that we are offended; that is their goal.   

Their other goal is to turn souls away from the Faith and the Church to follow them and the ideology that will devour all who espouse it.  The narcissists and libertines whose craving for applause they use to their own advantage similarly work to their own annihilation.  Satan was at the Last Supper too, you recall, and he turned one to his way.  You also recall where that way led.

The inclusion they espouse in an invitation, maybe even a coercion, to abandon virtue for vice.  It is consciously and intentionally an exclusion of right religion and  worship of the living God.  It is an attack on human freedom, correctly understood.

A healthy society is built by souls committed to grace and charity, rather than the “niceness” that smiles and nods at the foulest self-indulgence.  The bonds of family life undertaken and fulfilled in fidelity and selflessness are the best human manifestation of the life and action of God.  The meal shared in that covenant is a daily, domestic echo of the communion Jesus instituted at the Last Supper, the dish and the dining He makes clear are essential, not optional, for the life we crave.   

In this cynical city, one may hear it said that somebody has “all the right enemies.”  It is a political analysis by which one takes a side because of who opposes it.  You may well ask, why would anybody enter the communion of the Church in this day and age?  Sometimes you find your best friend when you recognize her enemies.

Monsignor Smith