Resurrecting Chicago

I dreamt of an acorn, a solitary oak seed in its tough shell. You know what they look like, just a capsule with a crusty gray cap on a slick brown hull.

In my dream, an acorn appeared prominently against a background of blackness that I took to be soil.  The acorn was solitary, suspended, fixed below a horizon of dirt and creamy-blue sky. There was nothing else.

This was the lone image that I was left with after a five-day retreat last Fall at the Joseph and Mary Retreat House located on the grounds of Mundelein Seminary.  The seminary is set in a forest that surrounds a large lake.  Oak trees are everywhere –tall, grand trees whose branches drop acorns in the Fall to the delight of the fox squirrels who gather them, bury them, and find them again in the coming winter.

It seems to me on my 83rd birthday that this dream represents a new life, a promise of a new planting of me in fresh ground. This was not a nightmare.  It was –and still is -an insight, even a grace. Maybe, you have had a similar experience, a vivid promise of a new hope for you.

An acorn is dressed simply: a grayish hat covers the top and the bottom is a hard-shell varnished deep brown.  Inside, though, there is an embryonic root and two latent leaves.  If an acorn germinates, the roots will go down and the leaves (cotyledons) will break out of the ground, as a seedling.

When I die, I will be placed in the ground with the hope of resurrection. New life will come out of the soil, an infant me.   It’s a drama that an acorn has taught me.

I brought home from Mundelein a single acorn to remind me of who I am.  I hold it in my hand now.  It solidifies my hope.

Father Don Suberlak, C.R. died this afternoon at a hospital not far from Three Oaks Michigan where he had served for many years as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. He was four months short of his 90^th birthday. Don and I were ordained together for the Congregation of the Resurrection in 1967 and he has been a friend to me all those years.  

Don was a unique person. Laid back, unhurried, and reliable as he was, I never heard him raise his voice in anger or frustration in all the years that I have known him, although there were and are many frustrations in ministry. 

He was a kind listener, genuinely interested in who you were. If you were a farmer, he asked you about farming. If you were a teacher, he would ask you about your students and how things were going for you at the school. If you were a father or mother, he asked about your children. He would listen to you and show interest in your life. Then, he remembered what you shared the next time he saw you.

Don’s mind moved faster than his speech.   In conversation, he would start and stop and throw away an opening line or two before he got to what he wanted to say. It was slow and frustrating at times for him.  He eventually would come up with the proper phrasing, but it wasn’t easy for him.

However, this problem never touched his preaching. His sermons were clear, folksy and short –memorable. I remember hearing him preaching about the home life of the Holy family with Jesus helping his dad in the workshop and Mary cooking something in the kitchen. You could hear the warmth of the Gospel when Don spoke.

He loved his priesthood and presiding at the Holy Eucharist in his parish church was the highlight of his day. After he retired, he continued to celebrate the Eucharist in his own home. He was thrilled when a bishop who was visiting the area on his day off asked if he could join Don for his morning Mass once a week. After that, the bishop joined Don regularly on Thursdays.

Several of us who were ordained with Don decided to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary of priesthood by taking a Caribbean cruise. Midway through the cruise, we disembarked for a land tour in Yucatan, Mexico.  There were 12 or thirteen of us Americans on a small group tour to some local Mayan ruins. We were on our way there and had stopped at a roadside restaurant for a quick lunch.

Once we got our food, Don asked an older couple if he could join them at their table outside. As he sat eating, he looked at them as if he thought they were the only important people in his life. There he was at a picnic table with two middle-aged people on one side and he on the other. I see him laughing with them and leaning in to be sure he didn’t miss any of the conversation. He would never see this couple again, but it struck me at the time:” Look how easily he relates to them !” 

Don had this rare and great gift of listening. He really did think that everyone was important.  He never made you feel like he was in a hurry to get rid of you. What a great gift for a pastoral minister of the Gospel!

Some years ago, we were at dinner at a local restaurant and we got to talking about how old we were getting.  I said:”Don, the sun is setting on our lives.” He looked up, smiled and said: “Jer, the sun has set!”

I already miss him.

It’s beginning to rain!  Welcome, wet, random drops fall on my head and arms as I sit in my yard on an early mid-July morning waiting for the sun. Warm drops begin to hit my Kindle and they sing just like they are supposed to: “pitter-patter , pitter-patter.”  It sounds to me like “Go-back-inside! Go back inside!” So, I  gather my stuff —coffee-cup, Kindle, cell-phone– and move inside. But, to whoever prayed the rain dance this morning, thank you!

We Catholics also helped to orchestrate this dance of the raindrops  We’ve been praying for farmers who have been watching their parched corn and soybean fields and hoping for a steady, ample rain.

It’s later in the morning now and raining strong.  The earth needs the water. It doesn’t puddle but soaks deep into the soil.  My tomato plants have been struggling this summer, all four of them.  I have hopes now that they will perk up as this soaking rain trickles down to their roots.

It’s amazing what rain will do.  My wilted basil plant now stands proudly erect and my front porch planter looks jaunty with it’s red geraniums, yellow pansies and purple something-or-others,poking out from leafy, green stems . There is poetry in this scenario of rain and plants..

One of my favorite poets is the nineteenth century Jesuit curate, Gerard Manley Hopkins who wrote often of nature.  One of his dearest poems has the rain reminding him that the birds are out there building nests in bushes and chanting about it each morning.  The bushes themselves are deeply green and thick with branches, Everything is giving birth out there along a hillside. Beautiful!

What I am going to do next is sinful.  I’m going to paraphrase one of  Father Hopkins greatest poems. It’s a dishonor to a poet to try to explain what a poem means because the poet intends every word and each word is part of that creation.  However, Hopkins’s style is unique and I’d have to recite the entire poem to get to what I want to say about it.  So, forgive me, Gerard.

In his poem, “Thou art Indeed Just, O Lord,” Hopkins complains about God not answering his prayers. He feels so dry and confronts the Lord about his frustration  because not one of his dreams has  flourished and born fruit as he had expected. Hopkins speaks for each of us who feel disappointment and confused when our prayers are not answered in the way we had hoped.  What follows is my sinful paraphrase of the ending of that poem:

. “What about me?”  Father Hopkins prays. “Where is my lush interior garden? Why do all my endeavors seem to dry-up? Why do you not answer my prayers, I who spend my life serving you? Where are my blessings, my verdant graces?”

Hopkins ends his poem with this plea: “Mine, Lord! Send my roots rain!” (Find Hopkins’ poem here.)

In the end, Hopkins continues to pray for grace to rain down down on his efforts.  You and I like Hopkins continue to pray through our disappointments and dryness.  We know that grace will come.  The rain of God’s mercy will fall drop by drop upon us but –Darn it!–we have to wait.

At this stage in my long life, I can’t walk well enough to enjoy tours, visit other countries on my own, or even take a cruise.   That’s why I am enjoying vlogs that allow me to experience countries that I know I will never be able to visit.

Harry Jaggard on the streets of Pakistan. (www.HarryJaggard.com)

Take Harry Jaggard’s vlogs for example.  The guy walks around with a selfie device filming his every move.  He walks down a street in Delhi talking to the camera as if someone (me) is actually present.  It’s interesting because Harry goes to markets and restaurants and makes every effort to engage with people on the streets –things I would like to be able to do. Yes, I know it is only virtual and that Harry really isn’t my pal and I am not with him in the market stalls, etc, but he makes me feel like I am there with him, somehow. (See Harry Jaggard’s YouTube site.)

He visits a Buddhist temple in Tibet, a mosque in India. Religious holy places that I will never see. Incidentally, Harry seems unaffected by religion and religious practices. To him, these practices are just another aspect of a culture of differences. As far as I know, he hasn’t blogged about a visit to a Catholic church.

He’s incredibly generous and has an open regard for everyone he meets.  He doesn’t get to know locals well, but he passes through their lives like a friendly ship, hailing them and gesturing warmly. He is a mellow fellow, good natured and smart. Most of what I have viewed is Harry traveling through Asia by himself.   A friend appears now and then and even his dad is a featured player in his journey through Tibet.

He learns a few phrases in the local language, for example, “Namaste” which seems to work everywhere in India, Pakistan, and Tibet.  Then he asks locals their names or comments on, for example, their market shop of trinkets. “Nice!” is repeated many times as he tries to relate to the locals. He likes to joke around and does a good job of engaging people but hasn’t time to learn much about their history and local customs. In that regard, he is like most other tourists. However, Harry likes to eat so he finds ways to understand and relate by eating as the locals do. In Tibet and India, this is quite a challenge. He’s not afraid of exotic condiments and spices as well as hot chiles so he does well with relating to the locals through their cuisines. People love it when he likes their food.  They smile and appreciate how generous Harry is with his compliments.

If I were on a trip with Harry, though, I would have to stop and look for Catholic churches and shrines.  When I toured Italy by myself some forty years ago, I visited the home church of St. Maria Goretti who at the beginning of the last century was attacked by a rapist in her village, Nettuno, about forty miles South of Rome. She was only twelve when she forgave her attacker and died two days later of stab wounds. She is interred in a glass casket at the main altar. An old man at the entrance to the

The cross of Jesus Christ is still a powerful symbol.

church greeted me and explained the holiness of the saint. I swear he told me that he knew her and her family. (My Italian wasn’t that great!)

Just a few years ago, while visiting Cartegena, Columbia I searched for and found the church where the bones of St. Peter Claver lie at the base of an altar. In the late seventeenth century, this humble saint gathered a group of Christian helpers to minister to Africans as they arrived at the docks of Cartagena on slave ships.  Claver’s group brought bread, water, and fruit for these hungry and thirsty Africans. St. Peter and his helpers tried to clean them up and even burnt fragrant incense on the docks to cleanse the air of the stench of the hold. I saw his dry, skeletal remains and marveled that he had actually lived.

Today, July 6, both of those saints are commemorated in the Catholic calendar.

If I were accompanying Harry on a journey, I’m sure he’d respect my interest in the religious part of a culture.

I don’t think Harry has been there, but somewhere in India that he loves, St. Thomas the Apostle, the first missionary to India is buried.  It’s a  holy place for both Christians and Moslems. I’d annoy Harry until he went with me to that holy site.