But not a singer

It’s a bit out of line, but having reflected on Monsignor Stricker, the indomitable and inimitable Founding Pastor of our parish, I want to jump to my immediate predecessor, Father William Thompson, the Fifth Pastor of Saint Bernadette.  When what was supposed to be a column about all five of my predecessor Pastors filled up very quickly with the muchness that was Stricker, I assumed I would write next about Bishop David Foley (or “Monsignor Foley” as many around these parts still remembered him) since he was, after all, the Second.  But I have already written about him on several occasions, and for reasons I do not entirely understand, Father Thompson has been very much on my mind the past few weeks, when both liturgically and privately my prayer has been directed toward the faithful departed.

Father Thompson was also my first pastor, since I was assigned here just after my ordination to the Priesthood.  He had been here only one year at that time, and he had spent part of that year in a continuing education program for priests that was given in Rome, at the North American College where I was finishing seminary, so we had already met.  His previous assignment had been Saint Mary, Bryantown, to which he had been assigned when he returned to the Archdiocese from his decade as a chaplain in the Navy. 

Large and loud like Monsignor Stricker, and his speech peppered with nautical terms after two turns in the Navy, one of his nicknames among the clergy was “Battleship Bill.”  With ten years enlisted service and ten years as an officer (chaplain) he was a classic “mustang.”  He had enlisted while still a teenager, having been invited to leave several of our distinguished Catholic high schools.  After ten years’ service, he went back to school, continuing straight through seminary to be ordained in 1971, then after a time returning as a chaplain.   He always figured that Cardinal Hickey treated him so well because after his retirement from the Navy, he came back to the Archdiocese to serve, whereas many chaplains, with their comfortable pensions, find more leisurely pursuits after separation.  

Father Thompson did not check all the boxes for the textbook exemplary priest.  However, among my seminary friends and classmates who compared notes frequently in those early years, I was unanimously recognized to have the Best First Pastor.   Not least among the reasons, but hardly the only one, was his generosity to me.  That includes gifts; I still routinely use the lovely embroidered pall he gave me a few months after I arrived, and he fed me very, very well.  More memorably, he treated me with respect, offered me friendship, and allowed me to thrive as a priest who was discovering just what an awesome thing that is.  As you might expect, this parish was itself an excellent teacher for a priest, by the expectations and requirements of her people.  He was not jealous of people’s affection, but rather was happy when I found welcome here.   He was also generous to my priest friends, treating them as worthy of his time, attention, respect, and affection.   Altogether, that put him head and shoulders above what many of my peers received.  

It was a magnificent first assignment, almost making necessary a predictably difficult second one.  As it turned out, when his time as Pastor here ended, mine began.  We remained friends, getting together for dinner, though not nearly enough.   He diminished rather steadily and died in 2015.

The names on the list vary as I mentally mention souls I remember at Mass, or when one of my other prayers concludes with “and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”  Most often, I lead with “Jack and Kay and Carl and Martha,” my grandparents.  Cardinal Baum and Cardinal Hickey both get frequent mention.  Other family, various friends, recent losses, people from the news pop up in their turn.  And yes, of course I remember Bishop Foley often and by name, as he also became a friend and generous mentor to me.  For some reason this November, most likely gratitude, but also because I hope someday someone will do it for me, Father Thompson has often jumped to the front of the list.  May the souls of all the faithful departed, especially Bill Thompson, through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Monsignor Smith

More than a name

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, Msgr. William F. “Pete” Stricker, 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; he retired after twenty-seven years as pastor almost fifty years ago, in 1975, and died in 1976.  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.

Why am I sharing this with you now?  It is November, and we remember and pray for our beloved dead.  This past Sunday, one of our Masses was offered for the repose of the souls of the deceased Pastors of Saint Bernadette; it is the least we can do.  For my letter this week, I thought I would share some stories about my venerable predecessors to put some flesh on their dusty old names and pictures.  But as you can tell, Monsignor Stricker used all the space I had.  Imagine that.

And that is what, and WHO, the Monsignor Stricker Room is. 

Monsignor Smith

It seemed like a good idea at the time

The Last Judgment, fresco in the Old Cathedral of Salamanca, image by Richard Stracke 

Here we are in the month of judgment.  That sounds like no fun at all, but really, isn’t it better to spend some time every year thinking about judgment than to spend all eternity wishing we had?  Because all this month, in the Gospel readings at Mass, we will be hearing Jesus draw our attention to judgment, and remind us that it is real, and our time to be judged will come.  

Does he want to scare us?  Not so much, I do not think, as he does want to remind us of our power and freedom.  We are able now to choose the good and avoid what is evil; that is an awesome power and a glorious freedom.  Should we not decide how best to use it?

There is a theory out there, not new but neither has it passed out of currency, that the key to making a good judgment is to choose whatever accomplishes the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  This theory is called utilitarianism, and it sounds awfully good up front, but has been flagged by the Church as very, very dangerous and false.   The shepherding rod-and-staff warns us who know Jesus to avoid falling into this trap precisely because it can make doing evil seem to be doing good. 

Now it is rare for a moral theory to display its inherent weakness in such a way that even the casual observer can see it.   But lucky us!  The sinister side of this siren’s song is revealed for all to see even now.

The fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried is an object lesson in the defectiveness of this attractive theory, and it is clear to all because the scale on which he applied it in his own undertakings is so huge that it is impossible to deny the devastating consequences.   

Now, the trial is still ongoing, and I make no claim to know whether the young man committed the crimes of which he is accused.  That is not necessary to judge.  However, simply on the basis of the motives and methods to which he himself has testified and even broadcast to the world, he has acknowledged himself to be a utilitarianist on the grandest of scales.

In the category of financial instrument known as “crypto” he attracted huge amounts of money from investors.  The explicit and promised return for that investment was profit, though there was the acknowledged risk of some loss, as with any investment.  At the same time, he freely announced that his goal in garnering profit to himself was to give it away; to use his resources for good.  

As a recent article in Forbes magazine explained, Effective altruism–known as EA—helped to facilitate Bankman-Fried’s rapid rise as someone with a vision beyond simply making money.  Unlike other crypto moguls who praised decentralization and libertarian ideals, Bankman-Fried professed a plain old desire to do good with his lucre. His crypto (companies) were, in Bankman-Fried’s telling, nothing more than a way to make as much money as possible so that he could give it all away… Practically overnight, he made himself into effective altruism’s most famous proponent and one of its biggest financial contributors, …. “In the end, my goal is to do as much good as I can for the world,” Bankman-Fried explained to Forbes earlier this year. “I’m part of the effective altruism community.” 

The accusations against him are that the money he used was not his own to spend; that the resources were not even his, to use as he saw fit.  There are many experts trying now to determine to what extent this is the case.  Because it was his announced intention so to do, did the investors consent to his use of their funds for this purpose?  Did he break any laws in reporting, management of resources, designation of funds, and so on?

But before that question is even asked, there is clearly a problem.  He gathered resources from other people in order to garner growth for them, and instead deployed that wealth toward some other purpose.  There are many, many unhappy people who will not receive their desired return, nor, conceivably, even the return of their original investment.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s situation is even more complicated because much, maybe even most, of his “effective altruism” was in the form of political contributions.  This is complicated because, first, it may be seen as a way to obtain influence with the politicians to whom he contributed, and status among the governing classes if his favored causes and candidates were to win; and second, because it reveals an underlying presumption to know which politicians and policies will accomplish “good.”  Without checking which politicians or parties or proposals he supported, you and I both, as seasoned observers of the world, can raise a hand of caution about trusting any politician to seek, much less to accomplish, anything good.  

One of the keys to understanding how he got himself into this position is to know something about his parents, both professors at Stanford Law School.  Academically, they share an interest in using tax law as an instrument of social fairness, and they describe themselves as “utilitarian-minded.”  (from a recent New Yorker article).  They raised the kids, Sam and his brothers, according to their moral vision – a utilitarian moral vision. 

So this very bright, talented, charismatic, and motivated young man suddenly finds himself on trial for enormous crimes committed while he assured himself and everybody who was watching him that he was doing good.

Without knowing how that civil judgment will fall for him, it is not hard to look at the wreckage of his life and the fiscal situations of many, many people to realize that what he was doing was not good.  Even if his goals were virtuous, his methods were harmful.  There were also serious flaws in his evaluation of which goals would be virtuous, and he clearly failed to ascertain which methods and instruments were virtuous.  

Parents, teach your children well.  God has given us knowledge of the truth, the treasury of the Church’s moral reasoning and instruction, and the ability to discern good from evil.  No human enterprise or calculation can improve upon nor escape the reality of divine truth.   Ill-intentioned or even ill-considered actions on your part or mine will not play out on a scale as vast and as public as this unfortunate young man’s have; yet even if they remain hidden, the devastation wrought by our self-delusion will cry out to God for vengeance.  Far better to consider such things now, in the month we have set aside for such reflection, than to regret them later, possibly forever.

Monsignor Smith

At the door

Death comes for the Archbishop (with apologies to Willa Cather)

Before our modern dependence on text, images were a staple of the diet that nourished the Faith.  Now everybody has heard how those beautiful stained-glass windows catechized the illiterate, but the Church long understood that the value of visual images was not confined to those who could not read text.  Not least because reading was not the only medium for the verbal expression of faith, as song and spoken prayer reinforced what was heard as homily or instruction, but also because images are powerful in their own right to reveal the truth.

As the link between word and meaning dissolves before our eyes under the stream of corrosive misuse, diluting overuse, and twisting abuse, it is a good time to rediscover the power of images to reveal and convey truth.  As we head into November, the month when we reflect on the Four Last Things, let’s start with the first Last Thing: Death.

Last year I was in New York to see the exhibit at the Morgan Library of works by Hans Holbein the Younger, and among the striking things there were his woodcuts for Dances with Death.  This was a recurring form, partly comic and partly serious, showing how death comes for everybody.  In his day, the late fourteen and early fifteen hundreds, death was no more welcome but much more frequent, and there was no hiding from the reality.  

The Empress was caught unawares.

The woodcuts can make you chuckle unwillingly, as death, a grinning, grabbing skeleton, summons the oblivious empress or startled bishop, takes a chubby monk under his arm, or shows up at a joust to vanquish an armored knight.  The trademark hourglass, signifying “Your time is up,” is always nearby.  Not the funny papers as we have come to know them, these illustrations nonetheless amuse and entertain while revealing that one experience of human life is truly universal.

Nobody expects him to come for them.

More recently, I recalled this art form when confronted with a similar expression at the Prado in Madrid.  Without any preparation, I found myself staring at a large canvas depicting an army of skeletons laying waste the earth and all who are in it.  Gruesome, clever, ironic, and truly horrible deaths are inflicted individually by rioting skeletons, some in shreds of costume, with weapons, tools, or just main force.  An army of skeletons in unyielding phalanx moves across the composition; a crowd of wailing, resisting victims is herded into the gaping maw of an enormous coffin.  Cities burn in the distance.   There is no respite or relief to be found.  

The work is “The Triumph of Death” and artist, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, was a contemporary of Holbein.  Look it up; you can view it online at the Prado’s site here.  It was the time of the so-called reformation, the rebellion of the protestant theologians and their princely allies against the Church.  Sin and death, redemption and salvation were on everybody’s minds; it was what people talked about in the pub or at the fountain.  This vivid, engrossing depiction of the inescapability of death would have brought mortality clearly to mind in everybody who saw the painting.

Now, you may find that repellant, but honestly, such lofty sentiment is a modern luxury.  Our contemporaries are lulled into thinking that “we” have mastered death, or at least banished it to respectful and predictable boundaries.  But the grinning skeleton lingers and lurks, mocking us, too, for our obliviousness.  In some corner of our mind, we know how close he can be, and that none of us is ever out of his reach.  

This is why it is good to look this ghoul straight in the eye (sockets) and recall that while he will indeed have his fun with us, we will have the last laugh.  Death has not been eliminated from the earth or from human experience, but it has been changed.  Christ has conquered death and transformed it from the end into a beginning of new life for all who by Baptism live in Him.   For us who are members of Christ’s risen body, we already have eternal life coursing through our veins, and we know that life is stronger than death.

This is what I see behind our traditions at Halloween.  Little kids play at frightening us, dressed up as the scariest things we know, even as death or demons.  Then we laugh in one another’s faces, and give treats to reward the effort.  At the same time we remind one another of death and its fearsomeness, we also remember that we are rescued from fear.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt 10:28) To think about dying, to remember death, is to apply Christ’s prescription and turn away from the sin that can strangle the eternal life that has been poured into us, to eliminate the distance we have allowed to grow between ourselves and Christ our rescuer.  To place confidence anywhere else, in technology or progress or our own plan of life, suffocates the Spirit whose breath is eternal life.   

It is good to think about our own mortality, so we can remember our immortality, and the One who offers it to us.  We can say this over and over, but sometimes it can be much more effective just to look at the pictures.  Or the costumes: trick or treat!  ...But deliver us from evil.

Monsignor Smith

 

My brother's keeper

As I enjoyed a somewhat diminished scrum of tiny soccer players surrounded by their friends, families, and supporters this past Friday evening, I marveled at how much earlier darkness came.  It is shocking at this time of year how the daylight dwindles, and I did some research that revealed that this was not just my imagination.   This Friday, the second-to-last for munchkinball on the field, will have the same amount of daylight as February 19: eleven hours.  Now, I am pretty sure you picture February the same way I do: cold and dark.  The remarkable fact that we are outside playing at all, much less into the evening, reveals that length of day is not the only thing that affects our temperatures and weather.  

Similarly, moral analysis requires that we take into account more than one factor.  The goodness or evil of a given action is more difficult to discern than many people credit.  The classic example is when one person takes a sharp knife and slices open the belly of another person.  Good action or bad action?  Well, it depends, believe it or not.  If one is a gang member fighting with a member of an opposing gang, for example, that is bad.  But if one is a surgeon and the other has acute appendicitis, it can be good.  The intention (to remove a diseased body part) and the circumstances (medical training, danger of death) both affect the value of the act itself (cutting a person open).

These are basic elements of moral analysis.  I am not a specialist in morality, but I do have to do some pretty keen analysis since I work in the confessional.  Sometimes I get to tell people that what they are confessing is not sinful, but more often, I have to help diagnose specifically what is sinful about a person’s actions or behavior.  That diagnosis not only locates culpability (guilt) but it helps the person target what needs to change.  Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it can be quite nuanced.  Either way, it ends well, with mercy and hope to avoid repeating the sin.

There is a grievous failure or even a complete lack of moral analysis in our public life now, as the default judgment is based on the person or actor.  Is the person who did the deed our friend, our favorite, on our team or on our side?  Then it must have been good, or if unarguably illegal or bad, excusable or even necessary under the circumstances.   Is the person who did it one of them or theirs, on the other team, or simply repellent to us?  Then his every action will be condemned.  The so-called moral judgment is based entirely on the identity of the actor.  

That is not moral judgment at all, but bluster at best and raging ideology at worst.  It is the opposite of the fruitful moral seriousness of the confessional, where every soul recognizes his own ability and culpability for sin, and seeks mercy and help to repair the damage.  Our identity as human beings marked by original sin makes actual sin something almost none of us can claim to have eliminated from our behavior. 

Some actions are intrinsically evil always and everywhere.  Intention and circumstance can mitigate guilt, but not eliminate it in those circumstances.  In most cases, however, a careful weighing of the action, the intention of the actor, and the circumstances in which the action occurred are necessary to determine the goodness or badness of an action.  

This complex analysis is best turned toward our own choices and actions, but the necessity of judging the actions of others is not reserved to those of us who sit in the confessional.  Sometimes, we must acknowledge that certain actions are evil and that the person who committed that evil, whether from our team or family or from the other team, has done a grievous wrong.  As Christians, the purpose of this analysis is to call sinners to repentance, that they find mercy and conversion, that is, change of life.  Because it is the act that is evil, and not the person, we can and must hope for that conversion, and even work for it, primarily but not exclusively in prayer.

Every mom or dad who has had to correct a son or daughter knows that our team, our family, and our favorites all do rotten and regrettable things, and that our opponents are capable of outshining us in virtuous behavior.  These are the judgments that are necessarily part of every healthy human relationship, and especially every loving one.  

It is not only in private matters, however, that we are obliged to take seriously the task of moral judgment.  Actions can and must be judged according to the criteria that we have discerned and defined, and the world cannot be divided into Our Team whose actions are right because they are ours, and The Other Team, who is evil. 

It is complicated but necessary work, and it should lead to circumspection and humility, because there are only so many of hours of daylight left for us.

Monsignor Smith

 

the darkness has not overcome it

Even in darkness, this campus is beautiful.  

Soccer practice had ended and the field was dark and empty as I made my rosary stroll before bed.  It was half past nine but already the place was August-still.  Not a creature was stirring, save the omnipresent rabbits.  Father Novajosky’s car stood alone in the front lot, for the principal’s was finally gone.  The cleaning crew had departed, but of course there were two police officers in their cars alongside the school.  

The leaves, still green, enhanced the hush with their rustle as their shadows flitted gently across the handsome façade of the school.  What a good-looking building!  Like the convent with which it was built in the mid-1940’s, it is solid as a rock and will stand long after you and I have slipped away.  Right after the war, there was an abundance of both labor and construction materials, and plenty of both went into these buildings.

But do you know what else went into them?  Sacrifice.  The people of the fledgling parish were young, many having just purchased homes.  They were not rich, and had no surplus wealth.  Yet of their lack they gave to build these buildings.  Over twelve years, they would add a rectory and a fine church building, also solid and suitable for their roles, and yet more classrooms for the school.  Two decades of sacrifice.

Together these sturdy, stately buildings embrace and define our beautiful grounds where children play in the grass on the ballfield and under trees that with their flaming glory when they die light up the zip code. 

The church is consecrated, the school and rectory blessed, but the constant course of divine grace that flows through the sacraments celebrated here is augmented and enhanced by the earnest prayers that are offered not only in petition and thanksgiving by adults, but also and especially in earnest by the children.   For help on a test or in a friendship, for an ailing grandpa or an ailing pet, the prayers of children go to the top of God’s inbox, ahead even of those of saintly nuns.  Simple and straightforward, they sanctify the fabric of the days and the buildings that bear them.

Having that evening opportunity to see the structures in the stillness, I was also reminded of two people who helped make possible the place we all enjoy.  This weekend marks the anniversary of Monsignor William Stricker, who died on 14 October back in 1976.  He was our founding Pastor, from Saint Bernadette’s establishment as a parish in 1948 until 1975, and in that capacity oversaw the construction of all these buildings. 

On 11 October, Wednesday of this past week, the Church celebrated the feast of Pope Saint John XXIII, “Good Pope John” who called and convened the Second Vatican Council, but died in 1963, before it was completed.  He acceded to the Chair of Peter in 1958, and was the fresh new Pope when our church building was built;  you can see that same year inscribed on its cornerstone.  Because of this, his coat of arms with its tower and lion hangs on the wall behind our sanctuary.  

1958 is not all that long ago, historically speaking, though no small amount of water has passed under the bridge in the meantime; 1976 even less so.  You will run into people here who remember both Pope John and Msgr. Stricker with both clarity and affection, though they are fewer than when I first arrived, and some of the clarity may be diminished.  But these lives, too, are bound up in the fabric of our facilities.  

Our parish buildings are durable and beautiful, even at night, and our buildings, our grounds, our entire campus is shot through with sanctity that shines in the valley of the shadow of death.   The fruit of selfless sacrifice, every wall and window, every hall is hallowed, conceived, sustained, and ornamented by prayer both public and private.  Holy lives have touched and directed the upward reach of our spire and our school, pointing to the gracious goodness of our Creator.  

This place, this little corner of creation, God’s Own Twelve Acres, is holy, glowing with grace and goodness, a refuge to the sorrowful and a rebuttal to the arrogant, beautiful inside and out, even in the darkness. 

Monsignor Smith

 

Hold that thought

Come to think of it, that was fun.  I mean our Fall Festival last week; it was an absolute blast.  The weather was beautiful – almost hot, but not quite - and everybody I saw was having a terrific time and ignoring their phones.  There were things you rarely see these days, such as children playing together outside with other kids they only just met, or fifty people gathered around one television to watch a single football game.  It was just good, old-fashioned being together.  I saw a number of people I didn’t know at all, and I hope they were our neighbors from the ‘hood who otherwise do not tread on our campus.  They saw a good side of us! 

A lot of people worked very hard to make it happen, especially the Genius Committee under the leadership of “queen” genius Elizabeth Narsavage.  There were some key sponsorships too, such as the Knights of Columbus who always provide the beer tent, the beer, and the proceeds therefrom.  Let’s not forget the ponies who patiently offered their backs for riding!  It is not a fund-raiser, you know, but a community builder; though we do try to come out at least a little bit ahead.  We will find out for sure after all the bills are paid, but it looks good from here.    

All the work and all the people and all the variables add up to what I think can be characterized as a “simple pleasure.”  There is something about all those people being together in festival form that is simply elemental to human thriving.  I hope it helped you thrive, and that it helped the parish thrive.  I know it was attractive to anybody in search of a thriving community!  

Perhaps this is the sort of thing that falls under the grouping Saint Paul formed in his letter to the Philippians that we hear at Mass on Sunday:   Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:7-8)  Sunday was lovely and gracious in this sense; and to think on it is a source of cheer and consolation to me.

It has been a week filled with actions, events, and efforts that continue to stun and sadden not only me, but so many earnest and otherwise unselfish people who simply want to see the nation and their neighborhood, the Church and their family thrive.  It seems such a modest aspiration, familiar to so many but clearly no longer universal.   Was it, really, ever thus?     

Perhaps.   But all that was, is now, and ever shall be, is Christ’s grace and truth.   He is the light that has not been overcome by darkness.  He is become flesh, and dwelt among us.  Our own eyes see that light among us in the midst of the simple pleasures that mark our communion, including but by no means limited to our Fall Festival.  Surely, clearly, when we kneel in adoration or stand to sing praise is this excellence revealed; but so is it as well in the lovely and gracious times marked by children laughing and parents laughing harder; shrieks and giggles, and easy familiarity even with folks we don’t know very well.   Think about these things.   Think about these things!

Monsignor Smith