Bright darkness, or dark lights

Many single candles, lit.  
Pray for France!

‘Tis better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness, as we all know.  It could be a motto as I adjust the timers in the sacristy to ensure that the floodlights on the church are lit from evening dusk to the dawn’s early light.  In this season of rapidly diminishing daylight, I change the setting every few weeks.  This very morning there was barely any light in the sky when I returned after the early morning Mass and gauged whether it was bright enough to hang the rectory flag.  It is tough not to curse these days when the darkness gains so much ground. 

But cursing I avoid, and lighting I undertake.   Normally in full ‘Dad mode’ around here, locking doors and turning off lights while monitoring the thermostats for any excess or shortfall, this time of year I begin instead to turn lights on, a low-wattage lamp here or strategic down-light there, for the sake of safety and to make our home more inviting.  

Last month it was a triumph of light in the City of Lights as Pope Leo XIV’s visit to France drew an outpouring of enthusiasm and devotion unexpected in that country so long given over to secularity, what the French proudly treasure as laïcité.  Huge crowds displayed not only enthusiasm for and interest in the person of the Pope, but also piety, prayer, and believe it or not penance, in Paris of all places.  Catholic commentators accustomed to finding their cynicism rewarded were gushing with delight and surprise.  

There were different reactions among the French commenting classes.  Some were aghast at the resurgence of ancient practices they though outmoded and abandoned; lines for confession on the sidewalks drew especial horror.  Perhaps pockets of such superstition persisted, they thought, in the darkness of France profonde;  but in the capital of continental sophistication it was unimagined.  

This month, a very different sort of darkness has since emerged and stormed the streets and cities of France, and a very different type of light.  The burning of shops and cars and city buildings marks the path of riotous mobs wrapped in black.  The plausibility of calling these protests by students was quickly eliminated by the nature, size, and organization of the forces bent on destruction.  This is something far more sinister.

It has been suggested that this disruption is ironic in its juxtaposition to the pious outpouring in the same places mere weeks earlier.  But few have acknowledged the real possibility that the rage was provoked by the public prayer and piety.  The beauty and peace accompanying the unexpectedly large Catholic crowds suggested a vitality that would be a threat to idealogues bent on disorder and destruction, requiring a response.

It is foolish to think that faith can be contained and carried on as only private practice, with each pursuing privately his personal preferences and publicly practicing accepted and expected civic virtues in mutual respect and acceptance.  Our friends in France are learning how short the lifespan afforded that tenuous practice.  Churches there have been set afire with increasing frequency over the past decade.  Where the true light is not nurtured, the darkness will assert itself and even claim dominion.  

Rituals evoking this back-and-forth battle are woven into our culture even now.  Being otherwise fully prepared for Halloween and the doorbell onslaught of hungry goblins, I confess that I no longer prepare a jack-o-lantern.  I don’t even know if a candle is still customary in the pumpkin to provide the glow to eyes and grin; perhaps it too has yielded to LED technology.   But even if it is not an actual single candle, this quaint practice retains some of that spirit of refusal to yield to the darkness, and rather bring fun to drive out fear.  

Light in the darkness can bring so much good that even a little is worth contributing to the effort.  But as cities we think civilized endure nights with that eerie and alarming glow around the corner or on the horizon, what are we to make of the fires the agents of darkness are kindling?

Monsignor Smith

Worth another look

Three years ago, I wrote about our founding Pastor, Monsignor William F. “Pete” Stricker.   This past week was the fiftieth anniversary of his death.  As we look to All Souls Day in a few weeks and prepare our lists or the altar for Masses offered for our beloved dead every day next month, I thought I would put somebody in front of you who should be on your list.  

What is the “MSR?”  Yes, that is a question I get occasionally, usually from new parishioners who are looking for the announced Community Sunday donuts and treats.   The Monsignor Stricker Room is our multi-purpose meeting room in the undercroft (that is, basement) of the church.  It is named for the founding pastor of our parish, whose visage presides over the proceedings in that room, or the mayhem, from a creditable oil portrait on the south wall.  

That portrait may be all you know of Monsignor Stricker.  You might expect that to be all I know of him, too, since I was in fifth grade in Alabama when he retired.  But no, I know rather a lot more.  When I first arrived here, the memories of Msgr. Stricker were still vivid and common, and I heard them all.  

The generation of parishioners who had benefitted from his shepherd’s care were always ready with an anecdote or observation about him. He wore white socks because of a dye allergy, and didn’t drive, so he would walk up to Woodmoor Center and invariably “find” (mooch?) a ride home.  He sang with the choir if he was not celebrating the Mass, and his love of good music laid the foundation for what we enjoy now.   Speaking of foundations, he oversaw the construction of the rectory and the church.

Every homily he ever preached is retained in perfect typescript in a heavy steel file cabinet in the rectory basement. Selected homilies were gathered into a little paperback, (Verbum Sapienti, that is “a word to the wise”) where I have delighted to read them.  He also published a book, still available in the second-hand market, called Keeping Christmas, An Edwardian-Age Memoir, about his youth in the German section of Baltimore.   

Cardinal Baum, for whom I worked for almost five years, remembered that early in his time as Archbishop of Washington, he had to ask Msgr. Stricker for his retirement.  Girded as he was for resistance from the famous curmudgeon, he was shocked when Monsignor gently agreed.  When Monsignor’s friends turned out for his funeral just a year later, Cardinal Baum inquired from where his nickname “Pete” had come.  They explained that in seminary in Rome in the 1920’s, young Stricker had been the captain or head of their camerata, the subgroup in which seminarians pursued all recreational activities.  He was our leader, our “Peter,” explained his classmate, who by then was Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago.  

His presence was so strong that not only parishioners remember him.  Neighbors and shop owners at the corner, kids who were friends of kids in the school, all knew and admired (in a vaguely intimidated way) the indomitable pastor of Saint Bernadette.  He was a large man with a powerful voice and a well-tuned intellect; he did not keep people guessing what he thought about things.   I have met non-Catholics who lived in the area and moved away fifty years ago who remembered him, and his name.

Monsignor Stricker retired as Pastor in 1975, to be succeeded by Msgr. David Foley.  He died the next year, on October 14, 1976.  With the help of the prayers of a grateful parish, may his soul and the souls of all the faith departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. 

Monsignor Smith

Where in the universe

 

In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death.  (Luke 1:78-79)

It is Columbus Day Weekend, three days off with a lot of nice autumn weather scheduled.  There will be sales.  Ballgames.  Trips.  You know – the usual holiday weekend stuff.

Why is it a holiday?  Ask a school kid; I do not know how many can even tell you anymore that, “In fourteen ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”

Aside from a widespread confusion about the difference between Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, I doubt there is any federal holiday to which less thought and appreciation is given than Columbus Day.  I admit that I myself do not think about it very much, and am embarrassed by my own inattention.

Sure, I know about the Castillian King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who financed the proposal of the Italian (Genoese) navigator with his theories of reaching “the Indies” by sailing west, instead of east around the Horn of Africa.  He pulled together three ships, which I hope everybody still knows were named the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, the largest of which was not as long as the average house in the neighborhood here.  And he landed on San Salvador, one beach that no one in this parish is likely to visit over the weekend. 

Does anyone say that he “discovered America” anymore?  That is so unfashionable.  Since the Americas, as these continents later came to be called, were inhabited, some question whether they wanted discovering.  His own awareness of just what he had discovered was a little slow in coming, and he was loath to admit publicly that he had failed to reach the Indies.

However aware of their own existence the native tribes of the islands he first visited were, I would submit that they too discovered something in being discovered.  By learning of the existence of other peoples from other places with other cultures and technologies, they learned something about who and where they themselves were.  Similar is how only in encountering and relating to others, from our infancy on, do we come into an understanding of our own identities.

Imperialism and colonialism are big buzzwords for what Columbus’s voyage represented and introduced to these lands.  I am not certain that anyone whose tribe fell victim to the Aztecs or the Incas would say that these concepts were particularly new, though.  Greed and the abuse of other human beings are remarkable only in how consistently they are present in every human culture and polity.  Recognized for what it is, it can be identified as original sin.

Which brings us to the one genuinely new thing that Columbus brought with him to these splendid continents when he came.  Not a thing, in truth, but a person, and a person who is both the response and the remedy to original sin and its universality among men of every race and land.

The good news of Jesus Christ, His presence in the Church, and His working in the Sacraments, first arrived with Columbus where heretofore none had known Him.  The evil spirits and petty gods to whom the native peoples enslaved themselves will never be completely driven from this land or any other, but thanks be to God, and with a little help from His Holy Mother at Tepeyac, these continents are marked for freedom.  No human being need fall victim to their depredations, for the Holy Savior – San Salvador – has manifested here the Divine Mercy.  That is something worth celebrating, not only one Monday, but every Sunday.

Monsignor Smith

Keepers

One Thursday afternoon in August when I arrived for our evening together, Mom handed me a little packet of papers with a simple explanation: I found these in your dad’s desk and thought you might be interested.  Over the past year she has persevered in sorting through everything in the apartment and finding what he saved that could now be discarded.  

Dad saved almost everything, at least as far as documents are concerned.  Window stickers and bills of sale for all the cars he bought, back to the early 1960’s.  Wow, the Dodge cost WHAT?   Interesting, but not really worth keeping now.

The packet mom gave me had several photos, including one I had taken in about 1975 of Dad at the wheel of his red Fiat Spider.  Now you know where I got my fascination with cars.  That is a keeper.  

There were all my report cards – from college.  Schools used to mail those to the parents of the undergrads, back in the day – can you imagine the gall?  I knew it happened but did not know that each semester’s grade sheet included a hand-written note.  I was shocked to see that all my freshman grades were accompanied by remarks from the president of the university!   After that, it was a dean who would add an observation.  Who knew these people were watching me?

In the mix was a baptismal certificate, judging by the date obtained as I began preparation for Confirmation, as well as a copy of the church bulletin from the day of my baptism that listed all five who were baptized.  From the certificate, I learned something I had not known, that the priest who baptized me was Father John Crawford.  Give me a minute here while I add his name to my All Souls list; done.  I also learned that the date I had in mind for my baptism wrong; I was off by four days.  September 20 makes far more sense since that was a Sunday back in 1964; I was twenty-three days old.  

Also listed were my godparents, John and Ceci Eichenlaub.  Uncle John is mom’s older brother, and Aunt Ceci (neé Spinola) is my only Italian relative.  After nine years living in Rome I now say that I am Italian by adoption; she does not object.  They lived nearby, busy with their three boys.  We were the ones who moved away after a few years to the distant and unknown South.

Aunt Ceci and Uncle John came to visit us there, once.  They came to my college graduation in Virginia, which was a great effort for them and great delight for me, and years later to my priestly ordination in Washington.  Despite their lack of enthusiasm for travel, they came once to Rome during my second assignment there and I was able to show Aunt Ceci the home of her parents and grandparents.  That was immense fun.

I always enjoyed visiting with them.  Occasionally we would overlap at the Eichenlaub cottage on Lake Erie, a happy place for them all their lives.  More often I visited them at their home, stopping any time I rode the Turnpike east or west.  Aunt Ceci would ply me and Uncle John with food in great quantity and variety while he regaled me with his latest discoveries about the history of our family, a result of the genealogical research that he took up in earnest after retirement.   One time he and I got in the car and visited several cemeteries to find the graves of diverse generations and branches of our family, including his own parents, only one of whom lived long enough for me to meet him, and he only a few short years thereafter.  He knew I would like that.  

Uncle John died quietly this past weekend, two months shy of his ninetieth birthday, after diminishing through a long series of issues and illnesses.  I’ll be slipping away midafternoon Sunday to drive up to Pittsburgh for the funeral.  I just wrote his name on my All Souls list, too, which is more than a paper for me to leave tucked inside my desk.

Monsignor Smith