Resurrecting Chicago

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.