Mary and Gethsemane

(Note: As I say in the comments, this post came out of the need to bring all of myself, all of my past - even the ugliest parts - into the light of Christ Crucified. The first part is therefore highly personal; the second, from whence comes the title, is more general and no doubt of the greater interest.)

When I was seventeen, my mother had "the flu". She wasn't sleeping well, so I set my alarm to come in sometimes, see how she was. There'd been a bad scare two years before, and I hadn't forgotten. Around 4:00, I remember, I came in - for the third time, I think. Mom was awake; hurting, she said. And she'd been "waiting, yearning" - her words - for me to come.

I didn't even begin to understand. Hadn't I been in twice already? What could possibly be so urgent? I stayed a minute, then said something to her, I don't recall what, and went right back to bed: I'd check in again later. I never did. And there never was a later. By morning, she'd suffered a stroke and was confused. By afternoon, at the hospital, she'd slipped into a coma. A day later, she was dead of a heart attack - her third that day. I wasn't there when she died. I was hiding at the library; hiding from what I could not admit was the truth. My father was there alone.

I've never forgotten those last words to me.
I've never forgiven myself for not staying with her.
I've never stopped wishing for those hours to do again.

Nothing would have changed if I had stayed. She'd been ill for too long and now her body was simply shutting down. But still I would have been with her, I would have been some comfort to her. She knew what was coming; she was in pain; probably she was afraid. Instead, I got another two hours of sleep.

You know what parallel I'm drawing. We've all lived or witnessed our echoes of it. "Can you not watch one hour with Me?" Christ and His so-faithful Apostles who just could not stay awake; who were worse than useless to Him when He needed them most; who fled and, save for one, were not there when He died.

We've all lived our echoes of it; we all know the story. We could all, if you'll pardon me, recite it in our sleep. But how often do we recall that there was one who would have comforted Him? Who would have stayed awake with Him and not fled? Who would indeed rush to embrace Him - once all was accomplished?

When Jesus was in such agony and fear that He sweated blood, where was His Mother? It was Passover; she too would have been in Jerusalem; she was at the Cross the next day. So where was she that night? In the Garden, Christ must have yearned for Mary more than for any other human being. She would have been the comfort He craved, and He surely knew that and desired it. But precisely because of that, she could not be there. At Pentecost, yes; at the foot of the Cross, yes; in the Upper Room and at Gethsemane, no. She could not yet know of what was taking place - because she would go to her Son.

In 'Let God's Light Shine Forth', Pope Benedict describes hell as "authentic total loneliness and terror." At Gethsemane, that was what Christ experienced; that was His cup. "I looked, and there was none to comfort me." A Mother's total love was no part of the road to Calvary. Instead the denial of that love was; the added anguish of knowing there was one He could turn to but must not. Not even to let her know of what was at last beginning - and there was another sorrow, that He was denying her the chance to be there with Him.

Mary, "Mother of the Church and our Mother," is ever there to comfort us in our sorrows as she longed to do for her crucified Son. Our echoes are only and exactly those: they are no more the final word for us than Gethsemane and Calvary were for the Apostles and Mary, and they were taken up by Christ along with the rest of our sufferings and sins. There is the Resurrection; there is Pentecost; there is Heaven in which is the only final Word.

Our Shepherd

“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.” “Peter, son of John, do you love me more than these?...Feed my lambs...Tend my sheep...Feed my sheep.” There's more to it than feeding and guiding/leading. There's also what the shepherd must do for the sheep that are attacked by a wolf. What good is a shepherd who abandons the wounded sheep? Or who ignores the wound; pretends it is not there; lets it fester and stink and in the end kill the sheep? We, the American Church, had such a wound. And it was ignored, and it did stink, and it was permitted to go on and become worse. (Please understand, I do not condemn across the board. And I do think that “good intentions” played a role. How large, though...I don't know. I just don't.) That sort of abuse does perpetuate itself beyond the first victim. I won't here go into the case I have in mind, but it does.

Benedict is not one to ignore the wound. He's faced it three times in DC alone: to the bishops, to the 46,000 in the stadium and all those watching on TV; to the group of victims he met with privately and with absolutely no advance fanfare. It is a deep shame; it is a betrayal that he has said he cannot comprehend; it is indeed scandal; but he will not hide from it and he does intend, in the name of Christ, to bring what healing he can. More, he knows what the wolf is that he must guard against – what good is it for us to try to protect our children from exploitation, if we bring them home safe and then flip on the R-movie of the week? As Shepherd, of the entire Church or just of a diocese or a single church, the job is to guard the flock – not just run around chasing after each and every wounded sheep. Once again - praise God for such a gentle – but strong – and holy Pope. Praise Him for the gift of his visit to our country – and praise Him for his courage in tending to the injuries inflicted by our priests and reminding our bishops in no uncertain terms of their own obligations.

(This is one area where I cannot understand John Paul. He was a great and holy man and deserves the title 'Magnus' – yet in this, he never did much. Not that we in America could see – and we needed to see, we needed to know that our Shepherd was attentive and would care for us in this as in all else.)

Lest I seem too much to ignore this – he came to renew we laypeople in our faith, in our obligations, as well. I don't mean to pin the problems in our parishes entirely on the priests, nor does he. Laity are failing badly as well. We too can do so very much better. “I believe and profess that you are truly Christ, the son of the living God, Who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.” A Byzantine pre-Communion prayer that we could all stand to know, or at least remember the essence of. Renewal starts with ourselves first of all – than outward from us. Specks and beams.

Reflection on the visit - Thursday, 4/17

“Not to us, not to us, but to Your Name give glory.” Not to us, and not even to Benedict – but to You through him, Lord. As I write, a group with drums and tambourines is passing by outside, singing at top volume. The Poor Clares that live here and keep this Adoration chapel are likely more used to drive-by rap music than Spanish praise-and-worship – makes a nice change for them. It's prolly another Neo-Catechumenate group – you can't turn around for bumping into them today. (How they manage to stay so utterly off the radar the rest of the time, I truly do not know.)

It's what I wrote before – by honoring the Pope, we honor Christ. And yet – we are proud. As an Archdiocese (I'm still there in spirit), we've not had a papal visit in 30 years – and to have Benedict, not a traveler, choose to visit over his birthday – we are PROUD. (Fine, let NYC have him for the anniversary of his election – we have him for his birthday!) It's the same spirit of community you see at the March for Life, or World Youth Day, any time you get a massive crowd of Catholics together: we are not alone; we are united; no matter how bleak things seem, we still have Christ and Christian joy and hope. Hope – that is the theme of Benedict's visit, and it something so terribly lacking today. Even in many Christians. We don't know what it is; we don't encounter it in others; so we never miss it and we take pale imitations for the real thing. “The one who has hope lives differently” - but how many of us do? "Philip, have I been with you all this time and you still do not know Me?"

It takes a Benedict to unsettle our “getting-by”; it takes a Benedict to speak words of healing and pledge to remedy actions that have so wounded our Church here in America. Yes, that; but also the sorry state of Catholic education, particularly higher education. Eight years later, I'm still appalled at reading a news article on what Loyola University in Chicago considered appropriate for its orientation program – emphasis on the 'orientation'. In just a few hours, the Pope will be speaking to the heads of Catholic colleges and universities. We Catholics are meant to have hope – and so I hope that this sorry era in Catholic education will begin finally to come to a close. Benedict does not waste words. He does not say what he does not mean or intend to see happen. So – I hope.

Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia

At the prayer breakfast this morning, Arch(?)bishop Finn summed up in a single phrase what I with my many words have been circling around and trying to find a way to express: “In this extraordinary week, we have been in the heart of the Church. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia – where Peter is, there is the Church.” For these few days, Rome was not the center. Washington DC was. The coming-home that I associate with St. Peter's, I experienced here. And I don't want it to end. Not that it does – more than any earthly place or person, the Eucharist is the center of the Church – but there are other sensible graces that come with the Holy Father. There's a real sense of the presence of the Spirit. We've had our Shepherd with us, and he has truly tended his flock. As before – soon come; too soon gone.

Christ our Hope – Christ our Truth. Freedom is not freedom when it ignores truth; when it ignores reason and rules. That was such a huge part of Benedict's message, as it has ever been – at the Mass; to Catholic educators; again at the UN. I'm not going to delve further into what he said; I am as I said exhausted and besides I don't have transcripts with me. But that point loomed large: relativism is not freedom; relativism is only a stifling of dignity and hope. There's no freedom in freedom of worship if faith is kept of out public life; is expected to be left at the church door in the name of “tolerance”.

And yet again – thank You, Lord, for such a Pope. Thank you for such an example of Christian dignity and kindness. Thank you for showing us, through Benedict, what it is to be strong in faith and in You. Grant, Lord, that we may answer with the renewal he calls us to; that we may work to end evil and find ways to bring good out of it.