Resurrecting Chicago

Snow rescues dullness in my neighborhood.

It’s amazing how fresh snow highlights everything.  This morning the dawn revealed a wooly-looking blanket of white outlining everything: rooftops, naked trees, asphalt streets, and a tricycle in my neighbor’s front yard.

The tricycle irritates me because the only reason it still sits cluttering up the scene is that the adults in the house no longer notice it when they come in and out their front door. Other trash also in the front yard is highlighted by the two inches of white that reveal the junk. This, too, is cause for another “Bless the Lord.” Yes! Bless the Lord, O trash and junk!”

I thank God today as the psalms encourage me to do. “Bless the Lord, O you works of the Lord, bless the Lord.”  Sun and moon, dew and frost, ice and snow –yes, bless the Lord! The naked trees now wear a frosty dressing and for that, bless the Lord! The cars, too, show snow on their hoods and windows as they meander with more care than usual down the street in front of my house. The same people drive the same cars on the same days to work each morning at the same times. But, today there’s surprise snow.

My heart lifts all of this to the Lord and with the Church in every place and time, I, too, bless the Lord. But, today is a different kind of morning because dawn is not soaked up in shadows.  The snow diffuses the light and lifts everything out of the shadows and the whole world is lighter and brighter because of God’s glorious invention of snow. “Bless the Lord, O you works of the Lord!”

It’s the season of awakening light.  Every Advent the prophet Isaiah instructs, cajoles, and inspires us as the gathering light of Advent stirs the faith that gives us the energy to live.  His words sanctify the season.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” (Is 9:2) I’m aware that when I get up early it is still dark outside. I’m sitting on my enclosed porch, all windows now revealing shades of darkness out there. I look forward to the next hour when I can see the first light of day and then the sun reveals itself to me and the world around me. I’m waiting for that great light.  Meanwhile, reading Isaiah comforts me.This time of year I yearn for more light and I appreciate its absence.

The house sparrows are mute as they awake at first light searching for something to eat.  The robins, too, are scurrying around.  This morning it’s a crisp 19 degrees outside and the robins won’t find squiggling  worms or luscious insects as they hop here and there in search for food. They have to scrimp and try to crush seeds with their narrow pointed beaks. The sparrows, though,  have beaks that crack and extract the protein within seeds so the sparrows get along better in the unending search for the scraps of the past summer. Every winged thing has to tough out the winter here in Northern Illinois. I, too, have to tough things out and I am hungry, not for food but for light.

The Church uses Advent to tell me that the world waited in darkness and gloom until the Savior, He who is the Light of the World. came among us.  The winter solstice will occur in late December, coinciding with the traditional day of the Savior’s birth. Then, the days will extend slowly into full-blown Spring.  Meanwhile, there is a long winter ahead of us –and it will be dark. But, then, Isaiah startles me again: ” Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you…..” (Is 60: 1-2)

Living through Advent with Isaiah makes me yearn for the moment when I will see a brilliance that will never go out.

The cross of Jesus Christ is a powerful symbol and its monument is sacred to His followers. (author’s collection)

I just watched a video of Bishop Robert Barron,  chief pastor of the diocese of Rochester-Winona in Minnesota as he re-consecrated a desecrated Catholic Catholic cemetery in Rochester. Over last Halloween evening, vandals entered Calvary cemetery and spray painted obscenities and hateful graffiti on the headstones and other structures there.

“This is holy ground,” the Bishop says. He is vested in white cope and miter with acolytes and seminarians assisting him and a large number of lay people present. His informal words of gathering are spoken in sadness at the desecration of the holy ground containing so many family members — men, women, and children who have gone before us in the Faith.

Cemetery workers stripped and scrubbed away the graffiti so that most of the monuments are now cleansed and restored. Bishop Barron thanks the workers and then offers official prayers that the Catholic Church recommends for re-consecrating a cemetery. He is somewhat hunched over as he walks down the main road among the tombstones casting showers of holy water toward the monuments and the ground.  It is a baptism, a re-birth of this hallowed ground where loved ones lie awaiting the Resurrection.

We have just passed through an ugly, political campaign. It was often vicious and profoundly disrespectful.  However, demeaning and hateful attacks do work, says Chris Christie, a seasoned politician and recent guest on WGN’s The John Williams Show. Even lies and false statements about the character of opponents are now standard by those who want to lead us in government. After months of this type of hateful speech, do we expect that anyone would care about graffiti defacing and dirtying our holy images and sacred spaces?

Was the desecration of a cemetery just a juvenile prank for Halloween? The act of spray painting sacred images and monuments with vicious slogans and the name of the evil one seem more intentionally hurtful to me, not the work of children or even young people.

We Catholics are going to have to react to hateful actions against our buildings and against ourselves. We have a right to practice our faith and a right to expect respect from those who disagree with us. However, it looks as if not only our statues and monuments are going to be attacked. We Catholics are going to have to stand up for our Faith or be pulled down off our pedestals at the hands of iconoclasts who hold nothing sacred but their own opinions.

I was thinking this morning that the Creator must have warmed to the joy of fashioning nature. Look around and see His art and listen to His tunes. All of nature is so varied and interesting. And, it’s beautiful.

This morning I’m outside in my backyard on my birthday watching and listening. Suddenly I’m thinking: “What bird is that?” The song was new and complex, coming from two backyards away. It continued for some minutes. At first, I thought it was cardinal because the sound was flute-like and regularly melodic. But then it changed the melody and didn’t sound at all like a cardinal song.

I was surprised when the bird landed in a bush fifteen feet from me and began his song again.  What’s he doing (assuming it is a he) singing in late summer? Bird song belongs to setting up territory and nest building, doesn’t it?

This bird is sparrow-sized and similarly colored –kind of tawny– but with a prominent and long tail and with an elongated dark beak, curved slightly downward. Is it a Brown Thrasher? Too small. Nuthatch? The beak is not that prominent. Uncommon sparrow? Not with that beak!

I concluded it was a house wren. I am not certain because I didn’t notice the prominent upward position of the tail with its distinctive bands. Maybe this bird didn’t read its description in the latest guide to America’s birds. He was hidden most of the time by the leaves so he wasn’t easy to see but he hopped around in the bush, just like a wren.

So, I heard a new song as I began a new year.

If I continue to listen to the life around me, nature will likely continue to teach me new things. Maybe it will even teach me a new song of my own to sing.

I could use some new melodies and some fresh lyrics as I begin another year.

I can’t be sure how old was I when I began to understand that the resurrection of Jesus is about me, too.   When did I begin to believe that if it were not for the quick embrace of evil in my life Jesus would not have had to suffer? I know: this is a strange way to put it. Maybe that notion was more subtle than that but the deceiver was at work in me. Somehow, though, the Resurrection has become a great hope in my life.

Those who will hear the Gospel of the Resurrection will hear it I suppose in their own way.  How will it become real to ordinary people? It makes me think about the middle-aged, good-hearted man who wonders if he has broken any religious rules lately.  He’s “got to work on” his foul language,” as if it’s a matter of willing properly and controlling one’s self. He is not hearing the news that our efforts are not what counts but grace does. When we fall we get up because Christ Jesus did.

Then, there is the fifteen-year-old girl who informs me that she is reading the bible from front to back.  She does not tell me why.   Is she looking for the secret of life? Is she simply interested in the history of religion and likes the strange and fascinating stories of the Old Testament? What young person picks up a bible and wants to read the whole thing? She must have gotten this idea in defense of her name: “Catholic.” Because Christians of other traditions, especially those who believe that the bible holds all truth want to know why we baptize infants. And, why they can’t receive the Eucharist in our Church? She and others are looking for answers and missing the Gospel. Salvation is about you.

There are those others, too, who are wading through life. Somehow the death and resurrection of the Redeemer hasn’t hit home.  They are walking in fear that the waters that pull at their feet when they move forward might cause them to sink into the deeper murky, watery quicksand. They know, too, that lurking silently among the stumps and old trees there could be a moving log with eyes in sockets skimming the water and an overbite guarding a gaping maw filled with razor-sharp teeth. Deadly spiders hang from silent webs and if disturbed could inject poison, too. And, it’s a shadowy swamp and the waters are rank with sweet decaying life. It’s an exhausting desperate struggle to maintain life.  And where is the glorious Resurrected Christ in all of this?  Speak to me of God’s love in Christ.

Everyone now knows which country Charles III represents. He is king of the U.K. and regent of all the countries in the British Commonwealth.  Millions identify with him as their image of what their nationhood means. The king represents stability and endurance. For over seventy years Queen Elizabeth II maintained that role for her people.

When she died two statements reassured the commonwealth: ” The Queen is dead. Long live the king! No uncertainty here. The people endure while queens and kings come and go but the nationhood maintains stability.

Contrast Charles III with Pope Francis. Francis is the regent of Vatican City, the smallest of all nations but he also represents over 1.3 billion Roman Catholics as their leader. When he dies, cardinal electors will gather in Rome and elect a new pope. While the cardinals deliberate there is an interregnum, the Chair of Peter is unoccupied. “Sede Vacante.”

The difference between the two rites of passage is that those who are represented by the regent have no say in selecting who their next leader will be.  For good or evil and for everything in between, it is the next in line for the throne who is proclaimed regent.

In Vatican City, at the death of a pope, it is not at all clear who the new pope will be. Locked into the Sistine Chapel a hundred or so bishops will choose the man who will lead the Church. The electors pray for direction and wisdom.  They entreat the Holy Spirit to lead them to the one who will step into the “shoes of the fisherman” and represent the face of the Church to the whole world.

I’m having a solo lunch at Chili’s on Monday, my day off.   My server is an attractive z-gen female who wants to talk. Her bright eyes easily engage mine.

Me? I am a grandfatherly figure with my cane hung behind me on my chair and my suspenders unfashionably holding up my black pants. She tells me she’s a college student finishing her third year in computer programming. She’s excited about it. Only one year to go!

She lingers after I place my order. “What did you do before you retired?” she asks.

“Well, I’m a Catholic priest and I’m still able to help out on Sundays when I am needed so I am not fully retired, I guess.”

“A priest? You don’t look like a priest.” I wondered what she thought a priest looked like. She pauses and says:

“Why did you become a priest?”

I thought: “O.K. I’ll give her my elevator speech.”* My life wrapped up in thirty seconds.

“My family went to church every Sunday. I was about fourteen and was in church with my family listening to the pastor give a sermon. He was quoting Jesus  Who said, “You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” At that moment, I was ready for the road of perfection even though I did not know what to be perfect meant.  I simply heard in my heart Jesus calling me to holiness and to helping people. So after high school, I entered a seminary where I thought I could become holy and also help people. I still want to.”

From the first to the eighteenth floor in about thirty-five seconds.

She gathered the soiled breakfast plates, thanked me, and placed the bill on the table. I noticed she’d written something at the bottom of it: a smiley face and the words “Go for it!” Sandy.

*Elevator speech: You enter an elevator.  You strike up a conversation with the person next to you who for some reason asks you what you do for a living. After he/she leaves, you’ll probably never see that person again. So, you make your answer short and sweet.

According to a recent poll, 69% of Catholics say Jesus is only symbolically present in the Eucharist.  About a third of those polled believe in His actual presence: real food, bread and wine, become the flesh and blood of Our Savior.

The Eucharistic Bread and Wine.

I’m in the second group but I don’t understand His presence as meat. If that reference sounds crude to you — it is.  I remember discouraging a parishioner from showing a film in our parish hall that purported to show at Holy Mass a cracked and bleeding host.

But! what about the story in John’s Gospel (Jn 6:55-63) where Jesus faces this issue head-on. He says “My flesh is real food and my blood real drink.”   And, His hearers say in disgust, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat? We then read that many walked away after hearing this. What sane man asks that his flesh be eaten?

Why is it so easy for us to materialize this message that we hold by Faith?  It seems to me that His presence in the Eucharist goes way beyond descriptive or scientific terms.  Yes, you might argue, but doesn’t transubstantiation define the physicality of this greatest mystery of our Faith? St. Thomas Aquinas, using the philosophical concepts of Aristotle describes the substance of the bread and wine being recreated as the substance of Christ.

Although, the bread and wine after consecration look and taste like what they appear to be, St. Thomas describes what we see and touch as only the “accidents” of bread and wine. The substance of these elements is Christ himself. And, that miracle of  Faith is beyond our reasoning.

I have respect for but less belief in consubstantiation where using a similar Aristotelian analysis, the bread is present with the Body of Christ and the wine is present with His Blood, both substances present in each instance.  I have little respect for trans-signification, where the purpose of the bread and wine changes from being mere food to the elements of the sacrifice of Jesus. Bread and wine placed on the altar and offered to the Father changes its significance and become the Body and Blood of Christ. Nothing physical happens.

Jesus means what He says, not what we think He means. I believe He is truly present, though what I eat seems bread, and what I drink appears to be wine. It’s as if love itself becomes for me a real thing in both the bread and the wine. This I believe by Faith. I understand that Jesus used the words “body” and “blood” but it means that when I receive Him in the Eucharist, He in all his human and divine reality unites himself to me in a mystery of love.  For God is love. It is what I have been searching for my whole life. What about you?