Where’s The Fire

Pentecost takes me back to two separate though related occasions in my life: number one (chronologically speaking) was my first “mock” homily, preached to my classmates and homiletics professor. It pretended to celebrate the Feast of the Visitation (31 May). The second day usually falls close enough to it: 8 June 2003, on which the Church celebrated Pentecost, and I my first Mass in Thanksgiving for having been ordained priest the day before.

The two feasts bear a profound relation insofar as Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, was the first to communicate the Lord Jesus (who fully reveals Father and Holy Spirit as well) to the world, specifically to her cousin Elizabeth. The Holy Spirit, ever leading disciples “to all truth” (Jn 16:13), came upon Our Lady and the Apostles as a driving wind and tongues of fire.

This last manifestation—fire—was my chosen homiletic image for the Visitation. St. Luke tells us: “Mary proceeded in haste to the hill country” (Lk 1:39). In haste: the Greek μετὰ σπουδῆς pretty much means, “as if this were her business” (was she not her Son’s first and best teacher of what it means to be “about My Father’s business”? [Lk 2:49]). 

Sometimes when we see someone scampering about in haste, we ask them, “Where’s the fire?” Mary uniquely could have responded to such a perplexed passerby: “The Fire is within me.” She, the Bearer of Life, was the first “driving wind” to enlighten, embolden, and sanctify.

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The prophet Isaiah spoke of a “veil that veils all peoples” (25:7). We’ve been wearing masks that can obscure our voices, pinch our vision when we’re not wearing them properly, and in any case cause us layers of irritation—at the discomfort itself, yet also at the epidemiological and governmental reasons we’re wearing them. We want to shield not our sight or sound, but any possible droplets of COVID-19.

Meanwhile we show a certain obscurity and even obtuseness with our misuse of tongue and pen, fingers and feet. Hatred enters and escapes us, hardly veiled. We respire in fire, but of a spiritually destructive sort.

The latest ignition has been the riots in many cities across the U.S., but at their heart is righteous anger at police officers’ fatal violence toward Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, the most recent of millennia worth of racial violence. Had they not been black men, Arbery and Floyd presumably would not have been treated as they were, unto their humiliating deaths. Even though Floyd’ had exhibited actual criminal behavior, it received a gravely disproportionate response.

Widespread desecration and destruction are by no means a meritorious reaction; by proportionate means they are worth police response,.Yet dimly they reflect the burning of hearts for that justice which will bring true peace to the world (recall Pope St. Paul VI’s famous dictum: “If you want peace, work for justice”). It’s almost a type of what Saint Paul today referred to as “all creation...groaning in labor pains...as we wait for...the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:22-24). Not only do we not know how to pray as we ought, we also don’t know how to act, instead favoring to react.

Today I saw a photo of graffiti upon St. Patrick’s Cathedral: true profanation (L. pro+fanum, in front of the temple). True to form, I started reading the social media rejoinders. One: “All the churches in the world could burn down, and it wouldn’t be as bad as one child being molested by a priest.” Abusus non tollit usum, the Romans pithily reminded, but the kernel of truth and goodness here still obtains: human dignity is not to be violated, nobody no-how.

Return to Pentecost. As the Jewish feast of Shavuot it marks the collection of countless wheat sheaves into one granary. Eventually fire enters to transform wheat into bread. The Holy Spirit unifies and clarifies, undoing the original sin and its myriad offshoots. The primal defiance of God, further exemplified in the hate of one’s own brother, registered finally as a Babel-ing failure to communicate truth, goodness, beauty, and unity-within-diversity.

This the Spirit undoes in His descent of supernatural gifts (wisdom, fortitude, and the rest; Lk 4:18; Is 61:1), which in turn yield joy, patience, kindness, long-suffering, self-control, and other fruits (Gal 5:22). These gifts and fruits, uniformly sought and applied, would at last reconnect a disparate, disparaging humanity, turning prehistoric Babel into the new and eternal  Jerusalem. That is the hope dreadfully spelling itself out in the world in these days of viral vitriol. Clarify and purify the heart of the world, O Spirit-Fire!

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Almost a side note now, but something I never tire of telling: My alma mater of Nativity B.V.M. High School (Pottsville, PA) was built atop Lawton’s Hill, which once had been used as a KKK demonstration site. The chapel windows form a golden cross, which remains lit at night as if to redeem the crosses burned there years before. One way to make a statement, as to how the ardent devotion and service of Christians will channel the light of hope.

"Lest We Forget"; Of Michael Christopher and Christopher Michael

My latest Coronatide Consideration comes at the cusp of transition time, when the five counties in our diocese act in consort with civil authorities in permitting public Masses, albeit with still-appropriate safety precautions. The Gospel (Jn 16:29-33) packs the punch, which our deacon delivered deftly. As for my follow-up, I cannot say much, except everyone was left standing.

Jesus' disciples claimed to appreciate His long-awaited clarity, though He never meant to be murky to them. In fact, the Lord observed, they still won't get it, "for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:8); they would never have done their part by abandoning Him at the moment of truth.

"Speaking plainly, with no more figures of speech"! I wonder where that would leave me, or any other poetically-plumed penman. Penmen of note like John McCrae of In Flanders' Fields fame, Recessional's Rudyard Kipling, or my man Hopkins' not-quite-titled "The Soldier," which starts with "YES."--fittingly expressing the consent of every redcoat and tar to their service.

In our day, to that last point, I would add "whitecoat" and "whitecap" to include nurses, doctors, and everyone in the way of this hidden harm, COVID-19. Many fallen heroes among them, too.

YES. Where would our world be without its poets? Some soldiers and patriots might opine poets' oft-controversial positions are posturings, virtue-signals, plain nonsense at best or subversive at worst. Casting things in a different light was never out of season, except in countries that weren't free.

The freedom in which we celebrated the Mass this morning was in some sense never withheld from us, although most bishops and priests considered it best to contain folks as much to their homes as possible, given how close quarters like churches can be flash-points for the sickness.

Today's open-air method is among the options when things officially open on 1 June. By then we will have an FM transmitter to spread the Word. (This morning I learned the transmitter is supposed to be coming tomorrow! Oh, to have been a little quicker to the draw when in other purchases a slower draw might have helped.)

Mass is at once a sacrifice, a banquet, and a memorial. The "Mystery of Faith" acclamation is ingredient to that part of the canon called Anamnesis (Gk, not-forgetting), according to Jesus' command to "do this"--take, break, bless, give, eat, and drink--"in remembrance of Me." Be with us yet, lest we forget, and do we!

Just as Memorial Day exhorts us not to forget the men and women "who more than self their country loved, / and mercy more than life," so every day's Memorial Offering mystically transports us to that moment of supreme truth, goodness, and beauty, the mountain of mercy that lends meaning to every sacrificial offering, large and small.

Please God, these days will remind us of the constant need for remembrance, in the Biblical sense that God remembers: acting concretely on behalf of the one in question.

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Sarah Coleman, top row, second from left; Helenann Welker, bottom row, last at right

My late mother was the best friend of Sally Coleman since high school and nursing school days. They both went on to be faithful and caring wives, mothers, and Licensed Practical Nurses.

They were so close, and so closely pregnant, that they made a kind of pact to name their children together. The first one to emerge was Michael Christopher Wargo (sharing her husband's first name); the second, a few months later, was Christopher Michael Zelonis (a name Mom had in mind and heart for years).

These two boys were in each other's company only a handful of times over the years, as their families' lives went on, fortunately enjoying periodic episodes of quality and quantity. This was much the case in the last fifteen years, after my Dad died in 2004. Mom had become an occasional beach bum in the Wargo pool. Many laughs and reminiscences shared, including a June 1977 birthday party of Michael when the two of us were in the same playpen--photo to follow. I met him as if for the first time at another party, years later.

Mom accompanied the Wargo family in moments delightful and difficult, especially when Michael, who had served his country nobly, took his own life on 20 May 2013, after an arduous struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which had taken a few family tolls prior to that day. As they do, every survivor was left holding the proverbial bag, mourning and speculating.

Many and varied are the battles of the "War at Home," as it has been termed, where servicemen and women still fall, often despite the best efforts of those around them--often amid a certain unawareness of those around them, or within themselves.

Mr. and Mrs. Wargo have since given their lives to foster mental health awareness and care for our veterans. They further honor their son's memory by volunteering for the "Valor Clinic" and "Mission 22," which has honored veteran victims of PTSD with steel silhouettes, including Michael's near the trailhead in his native Lehighton. I pass and pray often, while on the run. The templates of these soldiers are scheduled ("virus-permitting," Sally says) to repose permanently--appropriately, by name--in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, come October, having made a tour of duty in several spots.

Learning that my latest assignment would be in Lehighton was a joy, especially knowing the Wargos all my life, and even Sally's parents George and Margaret Coleman, who tolerated the precocious five-year-old who hung around George's typewriter stand at "the Auction" (the Hometown Farmer's Market). Margaret thought enough of me to buy me a religious item of my choosing at the one Catholic goods stand. I chose a crucifix, which I still have. God bless her, she still thinks of me so, with sharpest mind, in her 90s.

It was never far away: at my desk. St. Anthony has come through for me on lesser things with greater effort.

The pastoral delicacy surrounding self-wrought deaths is something that alas, not all priests, have exercised. I wonder sometimes, when it comes to any commendation in circumstances perhaps awkward, shameful, or volatile, how we do it. A Power Greater, no doubt, even when (only God knows why) that Power seemed utterly inaccessible to them, or they felt utterly unworthy of His regard--which in fact could never have been stronger, at any point.

Lord God of Hosts (armies), be with us yet, even when, for that final moment, we forget.