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The End Of An Era

I actually yelled out loud when I got a text the other day. The receptionist at the cemetery where my parents are buried called to tell me the marker was in for my mom, who died in December, (which isn’t what made me yell). As I was looking at the picture of my mom’s new marker, I received a text from my little brother announcing the news that Angela Lansbury had joined mom and dad. I called out, “No!!” And eventually started laughing as my coworkers came running, thinking something terrible had happened. 

It had, but not in the way they expected.

Let me explain.

I grew up in a family that loved movies. My parents were the first to get a Betamax and, though it was the size of a small car, the quality of the video tapes was great and we enjoyed watching movies together every Friday night and Sunday afternoon. When the local theater hosted Sunday showings of all of Alfred Hitchcock‘s movies for a semester, we were there. One of my mothers favorite movie stars was Angela Lansbury. She loved the music from Mame and would start playing – and singing, “We Need A Little Christmas” long before Thanksgiving. She could watch, The Shell Seekers again and again. 

I was 26 years old when I moved out of my parents’ house. I stayed an extra year or two because I could not rationalize paying rent for an apartment and I wanted to buy a house. Plus, my parents had requested that I stay while my brother was sick. I think we all knew how that story might end and it I do not think my mother was ready for any more upheaval. So, a year and a half after my brother died, I bought a house and went out on my own. I made a deal with my parents that I would come back every Sunday night to watch Murder, She Wrote. It was a habit that had started several years earlier and, as busy as I was with work and ministry and graduate school, it was a promise I kept until the series ran its course.

My father would have to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room. I think it’s actually how his den became his den. He would appear in the doorway within the first ten minutes of the show with a grin on his face like he had just eaten the last piece of pie. He had already solved the murder and wanted to announce the results of his brief investigation. My mother would, sometimes playfully sometimes forcefully, yell at him to get out and go back to his cave. He would chuckle to himself as he walked away, sometimes muttering, “I know who did it.“ He was almost always right.

If I could not make it home for a particular episode, mom would tape the show so we could watch it another time. Invariably, she would miss the ending or tape over something someone else wanted to see. In those days, if you missed a show, you missed a show. To this day, I do not know who killed one of the ladies at Loretta’s beauty parlor.

When my wife and I started dating, Maureen invited me to go to a special event at the Kennedy center. The city of Atlanta was hosting a night with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, as a means of enticing meeting planners to choose Atlanta for an event. Maureen was invited and it seemed like a great opportunity for a free date and time to spend together, so I drove from Delaware to Washington for the evening. (The thought of doing that now makes me want to take a nap.) It turned out the evening with Sarah Ferguson included a special guest. The special guest was Angela Lansbury.

The two formidable women sat on stage and talked about family and the struggle of living in the limelight, something about which both knew well. Angela Lansbury‘s husband, Peter Shaw, had recently died so that was a topic of discussion, moving the audience to tears. The great star of stage and screen told stories of finding work in Hollywood, being a woman in a man’s world, the stars with whom she had shared the stage, the influence of her own mother, and the decision to move her family to Ireland so that her two oldest children could get clean from their use of drugs. They moved to the town in Ireland that my great grandfather had left nearly a century before. Another connection.

At the end of the evening, we were invited to a VIP reception. Maureen and I walked in and sat down at a table for three in the corner, leaving one empty chair. We were not quite sure what to expect and the food had not yet been delivered to the reception, an ironic scene considering the attendees were all meeting planners. Shortly after we sat down, Angela Lansbury walked through the door. She was much taller than I thought she’d be. She was unaccompanied and, spotting us in the corner, and for reasons I will never understand, walked directly to the table and sat down with Maureen and me. 

At first, there was silence. I remember Maureen and I looking at each other, wondering what to do. Then I decided to jump in. I took the chance to tell her what she meant to my mother and my family and me. We talked about my father having to watch Murder, She Wrote in the other room, to which she playfully replied, “Well, dear, we tried not to make it too difficult.”

We joked about why anyone would ever hang out with Jessica Fletcher because, as my dad always pointed out, “Everywhere she went, someone died” and she laughed when I questioned why the townsfolk never made her the sheriff. 

We talked about my coming home after leaving to go out on my own. We talked about family. We talked about parents and I got to thank her for creating a connection between a mother and her son. It wasn’t a long conversation and just before one of the hosts came to whisk her away to sign autographs, she took my hand and thanked me for sharing the stories. She signed my program and off she went. It was not as much of a brush with fame as it was an encounter with an old friend. Though we had never met before that moment, she had been a part of my life for years.

Murder, She Wrote, that cute little television show is now available to stream and it seems so quaint given everything else that’s available online. Still, it will always remind me of a simpler time, the love of parents, the meaning of home, and a brief encounter with a great lady. 

Rest in peace Mrs. Fletcher. Give my love to mom and dad. 

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Aunt B

The tomb is empty. Alleluia.

In the last two week or so, I have memorized the locations of every pot hole from Fairfield to Philadelphia.

When my dad died, he asked me to look after his sister. I have taken that invitation seriously since 2011. When we were in Delaware, we visited often, vacationed with her, and enjoyed many birthdays and special occasions with her. Since we moved in 2016, Aunt B has been with us for holidays and special feasts, not to mention the first stop on any trip south.

She fell Tuesday of Holy Week after being released “too soon,” she says by a doctor who “wasn’t paying attention.” She is nothing if not opinionated. At nearly 83, she has earned that right.

So I came down to Philly. Then again on Wednesday of Holy Week, so I came back. This time, she landed in the hospital and then rehab. I’ve made the trip five or six times and yesterday decided to stay for a day or two. While home last week, Maureen and I visited and spoke with about a half dozen facilities and last night, using the posters my kids made, Aunt B chose one near our house. Today and the next few days will involve trying to get the paperwork filled out, a few things packed, and then moving the patient north.

It’s all very overwhelming for her. We do not like to see the ones we love suffer. Aunt B has been a grandmother to my own children and a confidant to me for quite some time. She is a retired school teacher, lifelong skier, Irish step dancer, and a fighter. She is fiercely independent, so when the doctor told her she can no longer live on her own, it was a punch in the gut. My prayer these last weeks is to implore my dad to help me avoid doing a big thing badly. It is just so hard to make a decision for someone else, especially someone so independent.

Please pray for us this week as we upend our lives to bring her closer and for her as she leaves the only home she’s known for decades. As many of you know, caring for those in their wisdom years can be taxing, even exhausting.

But the tomb is empty, and there is hope all around us. May we find our strength in that simple statement. The tomb is empty.

Alleluia.

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The Other Side

In this morning‘s gospel reading from Mark, we read another story of the son of God conquering evil. A man who has been “dwelling among the tombs“ and was filled with an unclean spirit approached Jesus and begged for mercy.

Jesus communicates with the legion of evil spirits, takes them from the man, and puts them into the nearby swine. The swine, numbering around 2,000, rush down a steep hill and throw themselves into the sea to be drowned.

The author of the Gospel of Mark tells us that the swineherds, those caring for the swine, ran away and reported the incident in town and throughout the countryside. 

I wonder what they said.

If these people were in charge of the pigs and the pigs are now dead, I can’t imagine they were happy about that. If this is how they made their living, were they overwhelmed by Jesus’ power over evil, over nature, over animals, over their livelihood? Or were they just really mad? It must’ve been quite a sight for 2,000 pigs to throw themselves into the water, but I imagine the cost of this endeavor complicates life for the swineherds. 

I’ve often wondered when we read about these great signs of wonder what the other side reports. Everyone was thrilled when Jesus took two loaves and five fish and fed thousands. But if you were in the marketplace that day and didn’t get to sell food to anyone because Jesus had fed all the people, you didn’t make any money that day. Was that upsetting? 

When Jesus healed the centurion’s slave, did the slave have to continue to be a slave or was he set free?

People often say that there are two sides to every story. My father used to say there were three side. My side, your side, and the truth that lies somewhere in between our own interpretations. But now we cannot even agree on what truth really is…. and that should concern all of us.

Anyway, I thought about this reading this morning as we look around and see how divided we are as a country and as a church.

There is always a cost to fighting evil. For the swineherds, the cost was their livelihood. I wonder if they really were thrilled that the man was freed from his evil spirits at the cost of all those pigs. Maybe. Maybe not. 

People were fed, literally and figuratively, but shopkeepers made no money that day.

A slave is healed. But he is still a slave. 

If we are the people of faith, there really should only be one side to every story. That side includes goodness, holiness, joy. You know the list.  

Resentment has no place in the kingdom of God. Neither does nationalism. 

In Christ there is no right or left. There is no black or white. There is no we or they. Saint Paul made that clear. 

The faithful are never called to warfare or violence or insurrection. Only peace. 

Religion, if you study it, can be tied to some of the worst of human behaviors.

Faith, if you live it, is only tied to love. 

This week, let us strive to be people of faith. 

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It Was Always Going To End Like This

Someone sent me a meme last week shortly after the horrific events at the capitol. I received it later in the week too, but it was that first person’s reaction to the meme (and the meme itself), that really irked me.

It was essentially a conversation where one side yells, “The Republicans are to blame.”

Then the other side yells, “The Democrats are to blame.”

Then a third side yells, “No, we are all to blame because we let you fight each other instead of fighting for us” – or something to that effect.

I remember it made me mad. My first thought, to be honest, was to be irritated because only hours after an attempted coup in our country, social media had done what it does best – turned it into a game.

Then I showed it to my oldest and she said, without hesitation, “Dad, that’s what guilty people say when they want to share the blame.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

I have voted for people from both parties and I have never considered myself very political, apart from stealing yards signs when I collected them and could actually run without getting winded. But all this week I have been thinking about the events of that day. Maureen and I sat down with the children to talk about it. We watched coverage on television. We prayed together for our country. We avoided talk of who is to blame and we talked about ways we could be people of peace.

But I kept being bothered by that silly Internet post and Ace Number One’s reaction to it. Then I figured out why.

It was always going to end like this. It is hard to say that and not sound arrogant or haughty, or better than those who backed the man. But that is the reaction of so many young people with whom I’ve talked about it. So let’s think about this for a minute.

When you begin your campaign by insulting people from other countries and spewing racist nonsense, you attract people who buy into that.

When you yourself have a history of corruption and surround yourself with people who are corrupt, when you begin your term in office by substituting the truth with alternative facts, when you promise to care for the most vulnerable at the expense of the living, and when you reinstitute a policy that actively seek the death of other people, you can hardly be surprised when followers begin to copy you.

When you tell violent people to stand back and stand by, when you simply refuse to accept that which is fact, and when you were default reaction is to condemn other people by making fun of them, ridiculing their families, insulting them on social media, and bullying other people to acquiesce to your demands, how can anyone be surprised that we are here?

When you ignore science, when you downplay the greatest threat to humanity in decades, when you not only hide the truth from people but knowingly and willingly lie about what you know, you are not called a leader. You are called a despot.

When I was a child, my father told me a story about a small boy who went up a mountain and, even though the child was wrapped in a coat and a hat, the air around him was frigid and the boy was cold. A snake approached the boy and begged to be picked up and kept warm. The child refused, “If I picked you up, you will bite me.”

The snake begged again and again saying that he would not bite the boy if the boy would only pick him up and keep him warm and take him down the mountain with him.

Finally, the boy gave in. My father never told me whether the boy gave in because there was no other option or because the boy didn’t like the other options that he saw or if the boy was simply overcome by the sales pitch the snake put forth. But one thing was clear, the boy believed the lies.

When they got to the bottom of the mountain, the boy took the snake out of his coat and placed him on the ground. The snake recoiled and bit the boy. The boy was stunned.

“You promised. You promised. You said if I helped you, you would not bite me.”

The snake, slithering away into the darkness, finally told the truth.

“You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

The snake bites.

And we knew it all along.

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Anniversaries

I have been thinking a great deal about anniversary lately. Maureen and I celebrated 16 years of marriage earlier this month. Saturday was the ninth anniversary of the death of my father and the second anniversary of the death of Uncle Bill.

A year ago today, we returned home from the Holy Land after ten days with young adults walking in the footsteps of our Lord, reading Scripture, studying the landscape and the people.

Two years ago today, the family was in Paris. It was the first day of a  three-week adventure and someone (me) had signed us up for an eight hour walking tour of the city. It looked like a great idea and the guide had rave reviews, but who knew that it would be 100 degrees in Paris that day and I would catch a stomach bug (try finding a bathroom in Paris, I dare you)? After 27,000 steps and the traumatizing of at least one child I dragged into the bathroom (who would refuse a child who needed to go?), we collapsed at the un-air conditioned apartment we had rented while the children plotted a coup against their father.

Twenty three years ago this week, my dad and I were in Rome and, having just met Pope John Paul II, we set off to the catacombs. I remember our bishop asking if the afternoon visit to the tombs would be anti-climatic, having just hung out with the Holy Father. “After this morning,” my dad replied, “the rest of my life will be anti-climatic.”

I have an app on my phone that shows “photos from this day in history.” Sometimes, it is really neat to see how the kids have grown and to remind us what was happening. Other times, I stare at the picture and wonder what happened to that younger, thinner man I used to be.

The summer doldrums have set in and the children have begun to realize we will not be going to the Jersey Shore this year. I did convince them to take a break from electronics today and paint or draw or, heaven forbid, do some summer reading or their respective math packets. It’s 100 degrees outside, so I suggested we repeat our death march through the town but, not surprisingly, no one raised a hand.

I pray your summer is restful. I pray you and yours are healthy. Mostly, I pray for a return to some semblance of normalcy and a vaccine to keep this virus at bay.

Stay well this week and let us continue to pray for one another.

 

 

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On Praying the Rosary

I miss my dad every night around 7:30 pm.

That’s when we stop everything and pray the Rosary. We started back in March when we hosted Nine Days of Prayer in the diocese. That led to a few nights of Evening Prayer during Holy Week, which lead to the Divine Mercy Novena between Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. Then, I suggested we do another novena at the beginning of May but the Bishop had a better idea: why not the Rosary every single night in May.

And so here we are.

I log in around 7:15, just after the alarm on my phone goes off, ending whatever yard work or Zoom meeting, or dinner preparation that has been started. I finally got smart for the nightly Rosary and invited anyone who wished to lead to do so. I don’t mind leading, but it’s nice to have others give their voice to the prayers too.

It is a holy interruption in our household and it always makes me miss my father. You see, it was my father who introduced me to Mary.

Dad taught me how to pray and a big part of those prayers was the recitation of the Rosary. We prayed every day on the way to school. We prayed in the living room when my aunt and cousin were killed in house fire. We prayed around the bedside of my brother, Jim, as he lay dying of cancer.  We prayed for peace in times of trouble. We prayed in thanksgiving for good health. We prayed for each other. For others. For ourselves. We prayed. Together. Alone. We prayed.

Dad was introduced to the Rosary by his mother, who made them by hand. She gave dad his first beads – for his First Communion – and then made and gave each of the grandchildren one for that same celebration in each of their lives. I still have mine and am proud to say the beads are nicely worn.

As dad got older and spent his time working in the yard or cleaning the pool, he prayed the Rosary every day, just like he had every day of his life. But he found that the mysteries of the Rosary you and I know did not quite cut it anymore. So he made up his own. He contemplated five miracles. Five saints. Five parables. A few summers before he died, he asked me for new ideas I suggested he think of five priests who had influenced his life and, since so many relatives were women religious, five sisters. He liked that idea.

When dad was dying, we took turns sitting with him, praying the Rosary, asking for peace for him, freedom from pain, and a quick journey home to the Mother he had called “Holy” so many times in prayer.

When he was gone and mom was putting together an outfit for dad, she knew where to find his Rosary: in the pocket of the last pair of pants he had worn. We buried him with one set of beads. I have another, found in his office after the funeral.

So last night as I was sitting in my attic office, looking at my wife across the room, I thought of dad and I prayed. I thought of those drives in the early mornings to school and those times sitting around the living room. Eventually, my thoughts turned to the hours sitting by dad as his life slowed. I prayed and I missed my dad.

We gather each night during May – nearly 200 faithful souls – and we pray for each other, our parents, our children, graduates, those who have died, those who are sick, the unemployed, the underemployed, our leaders, our heroes, our families, ourselves. It is an holy interruption from the anxiety that surrounds us.

Perhaps this week you might dig out your Rosary and pray. Perhaps its in your pocket or purse or backpack. Perhaps it’s been a while since you let the beads slide through your fingers. If so, start slowly. One decade per day, starting today. It will make a difference in your week, I promise.

Think of those who taught you to pray and thank God for their example.

Then close your eyes and open your heart and join me.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son….”

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Little Things

I broke my pinky in six places last weekend. Thankfully, it’s on my left hand. Still, it’s amazing to me how one little tiny part of the body can be so painful and can get in the way of opening bottles, rolling down the car window, holding a cell phone, and typing. In time, it will heal and I imagine I will grow to be grateful for the role it plays in my life.

I’ve been thinking recently about away little things affect our lives. I suppose I have St. Paul to thank for the meditation about how one part tends to affect the whole. In a large family, one disagreement among siblings or one child’s irresponsibility can affect all other relationships. At work, one employee’s incompetence or bitterness or passive aggressive behavior can affect the work of everyone. In a parish, the attitude of one leader of one program can poison the ministry of many others. One driver on your journey home can anger you, distract you, or even endanger you.

I suppose it all comes down to what we choose to care about. Perhaps it comes down to what we are willing to overlook, what we are willing to forgive. We can let the one driver ruin the rest of our journey or we can chalk up that driver’s negligence to ineptitude or other mitigating circumstances. I like to make up reasons for why people are stupid. I tell the kids that we should pray for the driver going 90 miles an hour because their mother must be sick and they are racing to get home. Or the person who never uses a signal and never lets you know where they’re headed on the road must be so consumed with thoughts of a sick child they don’t even think about using a directional. It’s an invitation to prayer and it helps me be less angry. It’s harder at work. Sure, everyone has a story and everyone has sick relatives or children or other responsibilities beyond the office, but some behaviors are just unprofessional.

Our town recently held a shredding day and we gathered up all sorts of whole papers to take to the park to be destroyed. I ran across a letter from my father that he wrote to me in high school. In it, he challenged me to be more tolerant of those who are not as smart, not as confident, not as creative as I think I am. It gave us all a good laugh because some things haven’t changed since I was in high school. Needless to say, I kept the letter as a reminder of things I still need to work on more than 30 years later.

I think sometimes we are addicted to outrage. We enjoy being irritated. Everyone on television is angry. Everyone is screaming at each other. The folks on the left hate the people on the right. The people on the right hate the people on the left. In the end, nothing gets done. We could all use a little more tolerance, a little more prayer, and a little less outrage.

We can all make little differences. My pinky taught me that. We can pray for each other. We can forgive one another. We can stop being needlessly concerned with the actions of people we simply cannot control. There will always be people who are dumb. There will always be people who are passive aggressive. There’ll always be people whose attitudes are poisonous because they don’t believe they have anything more to learn in life. But we don’t need to be one of these people. We only control ourselves, our reactions, our thoughts, our prayers.

This week, let us take responsibility for ourselves. Let God sort out the rest. Let us commit to doing our little part to make the world better place.

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St. Joseph, Pray For Us

Tomorrow, we celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He is the patron saint of fathers (Joseph is also the patron saint of the Universal Church, families, fathers, expectant mothers (pregnant women), travelers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers, and working people in general), so he and I share a bond. I don’t have any kids like Jesus, but they try.

When I was in the Holy Land last year, we stayed at a convent built over the site of where Joseph might have lived with Mary and Jesus. It is just down the street from the Basilica of the Annunciation and next door to Joseph’s workshop, so who knows?

Nothing is recorded in Scriptures about St. Joseph’s words to his family. He gets a message in a dream, but even the Blessed Mother gets to speak once in a while. And yet, he is a model for fathers everywhere. There’s a lesson in there, albeit an ironic one, about who gets to talk and who gets to listen.

Joseph always makes me think about my father, quiet as a bookend and just as strong. As I try to land my dissertation, I am finding more and more research that speaks to the importance of fathers when it comes to raising faith-filled children. Nothing, it seems, can make up for a distant father. As I think about Joseph, I realize that in the Jewish tradition, the children learn their faith from the parent most like them. Dads teach boys and moms teach girls. It stands to reason, then, that Jesus’ own foundation in faith came from Joseph. He was the one who taught Our Lord to read, to pray the Shema, to understand the great commandments, how to worship in the synagogue, and how to rest on the Sabbath. Joseph was Jesus’ first teacher in the ways of faith. He was the best of teachers. Sure, Jesus was human and divine, but do any of us really believe that, as a small child, he was fully aware of everything, fully conscious of what was ahead? How do you square that with humanity? How do you put that in the head of an eight-year-old? No, Joseph taught Jesus, I am sure of it.

Like Joseph, I must teach my children – by word and example – what an intimate relationship with God looks like. I must teach them to pray, how to love, how to forgive, and how to rest. This week, I will be like Joseph and listen more. I will speak less. I will work hard. And, like Joseph certainly did for Jesus, I will teach my children well.

St. Joseph, patron of fathers everywhere, pray for us.

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Becoming my Father

Today would be my father’s 85thbirthday. It feels like a lifetime has passed since we lost him in 2011. There is so much that has happened in my life, the lives of my family, and in the world, since he’s been gone.

I think death is like that sometimes – a great divide where suddenly you begin recalling things that happened “with dad” and other things that happen “after dad.” The older I get, the more I realize how much I am like him – his mannerisms, his jokes, even, Maureen says, the way I sometimes shuffle around.

But I struggle to be like him when it comes to his faith.

Dad prayed the Rosary every day. He only spoke when he knew he could improve upon silence or break the tension in a room with a comment that made everyone laugh. When he said he was going to pray for something, you knew he meant it. Then, weeks later, he would casually bring it up in a conversation to check up on you. He was a man of great patience, filled with the gift of wonder and awe for the people around him. All was gift. He recognized that. He lived in that understanding.

This week’s first readings are all about the creation story and my own creation story is rooted in dad. I often think about how he and mom sacrificed to send many of their eleven children to Catholic school, how going to Mass on Sunday was part of who were as a family, and how my own parent’s involvement in the church led to a lifetime of my own working for the institution.

On Saturday, my office sponsored an event and, since I am a team of one, Maureen and the children came to help out. One of the kids handled registration. Another manned the bookstore. Another helped set up breakfast and lunch. Though tired from her own work, Maureen was overwhelmed by the mess of my office and helped put things together, hoping it might lighten the stress that has crept in.

As the people were leaving, someone remarked about how they loved seeing the kids as part of the day. “You remind me of my dad,” this woman said. “Church is a family thing and your children will always remember that.”

It occurred to me as she walked away that I learned that from my father. He and mom were the epitome of involved when I was a child and I am glad my own children are having the same experience.

Happy birthday, Dad. Thank you for the valuable lessons you left behind.

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Family Update

Child number two won second place in the science fair this week. Her project had something to do with whether girls were smarter than boys. The irony that a boy won first prize was not lost on her. Still, we are very proud.

Child number one did not place but did an excellent job on her project, “Can you survive a black hole?” The principal said that many of the judges found it fascinating and he wondered aloud if you could indeed survive a black hole. I told him I would let him know when teenage years were finished.

Child number three got a haircut that is too short for him. He complained that the stylist did not listen to his request. Good thing he’s a good-looking kid. He can pull it off. Dad…not so much.

Child number four was painting last week with child number three, when her sibling took the paint she was going to use. Rather than asking for the paint to be returned she whispered, “Sleep with one eye open, buddy, because I’m coming for you.” Too much Internet access for that child.

Maureen got home from a week away so our schedule of staying up late binge watching Monk on a school night will have to end. The kids said I was the best Dad ever every single night. The ice cream might have helped.

As we move towards Lent, we have been discussing what we could do as a family. Child number one suggested that we give up movie night but was horrified when I offered Stations of the Cross as an alternative. When another child suggested Taize prayer at our parish, all agreed, most of all the eldest. We also opted for more time in prayer each night and I have promised to get back on the exercise bike.

To cap out week, we went out to celebrate Dad’s birthday last night. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone six and a half years.

May your week be blessed and your Lent begin with humility and peace.