Dear Friends,
As I write this column, we are in the midst of two days of the Church year, which call us both to hope and rejoicing, and also to deep prayer and reflection upon the core reality of Christianity.
The Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls are, for the Church, where the rubber meets the road.
It is the time when we, who make up the Church Militant — the Church still fighting and struggling in this life — recall the whole Church Triumphant and Church Suffering.
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Recently, I spent six days at a place only about a 10-minute drive from my home, but I had entered a country as “foreign'”to my experience as Botswana or Katmandu.
I had taken up residence in Hospitalland. I was brought in for an emergency appendectomy and had to undergo a second surgery, due to complications.
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| Morgan Smith |
As I drove home from my friend Andrew’s funeral, I noticed in myself a deep sadness. This sadness was and is a tension that is related to a huge question: Why?
I was so moved. When I stood in line to enter the church, I was looking at all the faces — these faces from my past that I now only see at funerals. A sea of shock, dismay, and disbelief.
Andrew committed suicide recently. This was the furthest thing that anyone would have ever expected him to do, and it feels so strange to type those words.
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The British writer, actor, and comedian Stephen Fry is featured in a YouTube video which has gone viral: over five million views.
Fry is, like his British counterparts Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, a fairly ferocious atheist and debunker of all things religious.
In the video, Fry articulates what he would say to God if, upon arriving at the pearly gates, he discovered he was mistaken in his atheism.
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We were one of those crazy couples. We wanted six or seven children (and still do!) when we were married.
Even though we didn’t have any money, we said “God will provide!” and did not use contraception or Natural Family Planning.
In fact, when we were dating, I remember having a conversation about children. Chris asked me, “How many children do you want? I was thinking six.”
“As many as God will give us!” I responded joyfully.
But, it has been almost 10 years, and we still do not have any children. I certainly did not think that when I said “as many as God will give us,” that that might be none.
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| This column is the bishop’s communication with the faithful of the Diocese of Madison. Any wider circulation reaches beyond the intention of the bishop. |
Dear friends,
You’ve been right at the heart of my prayers in the recent days and weeks. In addition to my usual prayers for your growth in the virtues of faith, hope, and love have been prayers for your warmth and safety, as well as for your joy in these frigid days!
I have been very fortunate to take some time for rest and renewal in warmer climes, as I’m blessed most always to do in January. (There are a number of things for which I am grateful to my predecessor, Bishop Bullock, but on a personal level, I’ll always remain grateful for his wise advice — and precedent — that I take my time for vacation in January, and not in the summer!)
I don’t take for granted for a moment the blessings that I’ve received. I’m grateful and I’m hopeful that such moments of leisure can prepare me all the more for my service.
And so it is with only the slightest sense of irony that the Lord has drawn to my mind the following three words and phrases from our readings this past Sunday: purification, suffering, and a sign of contradiction. And each of those words accompanies the readings, in order. Purification is spoken of in the first reading — Mal 3:1-4; suffering in the second reading — Heb 2:14-18, and a “sign of contradiction” in the Gospel reading — Lk 2:22-40.
For the past 10 years, members of Pro Labore Dei (PLD) — wearing bright orange aprons — have fed the hungry in downtown Madison every Friday since September 26, 2003. They began feeding people each Saturday a few months later.
When I was a kid back in the 30s and 40s, Grandma often came for a visit, always dressed in black, and usually it was a funeral that brought her to town.
I thought that was so weird. Did she enjoy funerals? Was that the only thing on her social calendar?
Well, guess what? I’ve arrived at that age when I open the paper first to the obituary page. First I check out to see if there’s someone I know. Then, I average the ages to see how I’m doing.
On a good day I’m younger than any of them. On a bad day I’m older. Too often, it seems, I find a friend has passed and I feel a stab of pain for the spouse and I want to express my sympathy and attend the funeral.
When I recently attended the funeral of my dear friend Betty, it occurred to me that funerals are really good for us seniors. They remind us of our own mortality, of course.
It is not easy to block out the multiple cries of pain and suffering that permeate the world. It is almost deafening.
All one has to do is turn on the radio, read the newspaper, watch television, or go online. We are bombarded with news of pain and suffering, almost to the saturation point. I think of the people in Libya, Haiti, Japan, and others affected by war and natural disasters. It gives me an overwhelming feeling.
A couple of years ago I attended several lectures on the martyrs of El Salvador who were killed during a civil war that took place there in the 1970’s and ’80s. Archbishop Oscar Romero, four women missionaries, and several Jesuits — only to name a few of hundreds of people — were brutally murdered because they spoke out against the intense suffering of the Salvadoran people and a system of government that perpetuated it.
During the 1990’s, scientists discovered two gene mutations in the BRCA family of genes that significantly increase a woman’s chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer.
