REFLECTION FOR THE 24TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C
Throughout sacred scripture, God’s unilateral mercy and compassion are on display for us. The Sodom and Gomorrah stories are few and far between. From the moment that God cut a covenant with Abram, God reaching out to Israel through the prophets, to the Incarnation of Jesus, God’s relationship with humanity is less about fire and brimstone, and abundantly more about God’s love, mercy, and compassion. We hear so often that God loved humanity so much that God’s only Son was sent to redeem us. The Lord’s Prayer is all about God’s unlimited love and compassion.
The only
ceiling that God’s mercy and compassion has for us is determined by us. Jesus
tells us that the love and mercy we give to others will be the standard by
which God’s love and mercy will be given us. This is very important. In the
judgment of the nations (Mt 25:31-44), Jesus graphically describes what
eternity will be like for those whose love, mercy, and compassion is like that
of Christ’s and whose love, mercy, and compassion is contrary to that of
Christ’s.
Our
starting point is that of the apostle Paul in his 1st letter to
Timothy. He writes, “Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully
treated,
so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all
his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for
everlasting life. (1 Tim 1:15b-16)
If we are to receive the fulness of
God’s love, mercy, and compassion, we must not be blind to our own sinfulness.
We, like Paul, must acknowledge it and own it. One of the greatest gifts of
married life with my bride, Ruthie, is her ability to affirm me for being
loving and to address me at those times when I am unloving. She keeps me honest
and grounded in my humanity.
There will always be those for whom we have absolutely no sympathy, much less want to extend our love, mercy and compassion. Oh, how much we may want God’s wrath blaze and consume them, as described in the first reading. Think of how the early Christian community regarded Paul who was implicated in the murder of the deacon, Stephen, and countless other Christians. Do you not think they might have harbored feelings of resentment and even hatred toward Paul? Yet, God called them to forgive Paul, and he, in turn, became a mighty champion of the Christian faith.
I am no different than anyone. There
are those toward whom I feel great resentment for wrongs committed against me. Yet,
in spite of all this, I, as a disciple of Jesus, have to acknowledge that Jesus
loves them as much as Jesus loves me. They might be the lost sheep after whom
Jesus leaves his flock to recover, and over whose repentance all the angels
will rejoice.
It may irk me that as much as they
might repulse me, and I might generate enough ill will that I would wish them to
account for their sins in eternal darkness, Jesus thinks otherwise. Am I as
able as Jesus to forgive all the harm they may have caused me? I don’t know. I
hope so, for it is what Jesus is calling me to do (though I may vomit a little
in my mouth as I am doing so … alas, I am still human).
The scriptures make it clear to us
that if we are ever to heal from the injustices and harm others have caused us,
that healing can come only by forgiveness. Those who have witnessed the
execution of those who murdered a love one will attest that the satisfaction
the death of the murderer provided is at best temporary and heals nothing. In
the end, vengeance only consumes our lives and makes us bitter. True healing is
only found by walking a path of forgiveness. Jesus commands us to love one
another and pray for those who persecute us. To love as Jesus loved requires us
also to forgive one another as Jesus forgives us.
I sit in my time machine and dial my tablet to 1971, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and take my seat in the vast theater. With great anticipation I await with Jacqueline Kennedy Onaissis the great work of musical theater she commissioned Leonard Bernstein to compose, a living musical memorial to her late husband, MASS: A Theater Piece For Singers, Players and Dancers.
This is no Mass of my memory, Missa Solemnis, Mass in B Minor, nor anything that would ever spill from mind to quill to paper by Mozart, Schubert, or Palestrina. A formal choir, a street choir, a boy’s choir, dancers, rock musicians, assemble on stage, two orchestras, one on stage, the other in the pit, cavalcade of motion, bright colors, tonal colors, a brilliant and messy litter of musical styles: chant, rock, classical consonance, Jazz, blues, atonal dissonance and electronic. I ponder what I am witnessing: prayerful profanity? Sacred sacrilege? Thrilled, stunned, captivated, repulsed? No, no this is no Mass of my memory.
Built upon the musical block of the old Latin stoic, emotionless Proper of the Tridentine Rite, juxtaposed with English language tropes, probing, questioning, doubting, condemning blind faith. Music shaping stoic belief with life influenced disbelief. The celebrant’s desperate attempt to move, persuade, instill faith into an atmosphere of escalating cynicism. Sung rebuffs of “Where is God” – in mass genocide, in terminal and chronic illnesses, in the torture chambers of dictators, the families of the disappeared, in poverty stricken ghettos, in the racism of Jim Crow, in cultures of excess?
The doubt and disbelief crescendos, in a cynical circle dance to Agnus Dei’s Dona Nobis Pacem, “Grant us Peace,” the singers dance, the dancers sing, a whirl of accusation against a God who promises peace but in whom none find peace. A chaotic peace, chaotic demands for peace assail and tear at the celebrant, his soul as ripped as his vestments, holding the sacred species, as a shield to ward off in desperation the sonic assault of anger and disbelief. In frustration and defeat, chalice and monstrance cast to the floor, shattering, spilling, broken shards of Christ’s body, mixed with that of his own.
How well have I experienced my own soul shattered, my spirit’s blood spilled by the people I served, by the Church I served, used, abused, and abandoned. How many times have I raised my arms to the heavens and cried, “Dona Nobis Pacem!” Then, nothingness. Silence. Gathering the shards of my broken self, carefully, trepidatiously, fit them together, and like the broken celebrant, hand grasped by an innocent, return to ministry, parting with my abusers, with an empty “Pax Vobiscum”.
My time machine whisks me back, no longer in my theater seat, but my red chair at home. Incredulity and condemnation, cheers and jeers, praise and admiration echoes from the now distant past premier. I bask in its sacred acrimony, uncanny its wondrous prophecy. The Church more chaotic peace, than Dona Nobis Pacem. The ordained offspring of John Paul and Benedict, clericalism parading about sanctuaries, a sanctimonious La Cage aux Folles. Demigods adorned in gold lamay, evoking Latin as it were magic, their backs to the people, their magician arms waving about trying to return to a time when priests were thought demigods, stripped of all humanity, though well we know by the lives shattered by their sexual sins of the past, their broken human nature. Present day demigods seek peace built upon a false past. Their Pax Vobiscum as empty as their mythological memory of what was once.
What truth is gleaned by Bernstein’s Mass? It was composed by a broken composer for the broken widow shattered by the deaths of her assassinated husband, her assassinated brother-in-law, and a nation broken by war, prejudice and violence. God’s Dona Nobis Pacem is not the domain of those who are whole, but on the fingertips of our broken fingers.
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
*As quickly as it was recorded, I bought a copy of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass in 1971. The family record player was in the finished basement of my parent’s home and I spent a countless amount of time listening to music there. I must have worn out that double LP set of the Mass. It was so out of the realm I knew as sacred music. It was sacred and profane at the same time. It was disturbing, musically transporting, captivating, and wonderfully corrupted by modern musical idioms. I have listened to it now and again over the years, but after forty-two years of church ministry have had the freedom to REALLY listen to it again, with a reflection on my experience juxtaposed with that of the celebrant.
My chair, at times over the past twelve weeks my prison cell. Seven weeks more before my sentence is completed. But today, my chair is going to be my time machine.
Not flashy and gaudy, with a Christmas display of flashing, colorful lights, nor as threatening as that celebrated machine of H.G. Wells.
I sit in my time machine. With headphones and tablet, I am able to travel to Vienna to hear Mozart and Beethoven, to be in the audience with the screaming horde witnessing the Beatle’s first appearance at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Perhaps I will sit in the historic Carnegie Hall, for the 1938 Jazz Concert with Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Harry James and Teddy Wilson, hearing in person, “Sing, Sing, Sing” and, “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon”.
Or shall I travel to the Civil War battlefields of Stephen Crane, to Guadacanal, or Iwo Jima, to Ireland and William Butler Yeats speaking his magical words?
Shall I travel inter-dimensionally to Asimov’s Foundation, or Frank Herbert’s Dune, and the future worlds of Heinlein, with a detour to Tolkein’s Middle Earth, dodging orcs and spending a day with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry?
The gift of time and Inter-dimensional travel. Where shall I travel today?
Were I to be as kind as my father, who saw God’s face equally in the rich and the poor alike; Whose honesty was impeccable, whose integrity could never be challenged, who worked always for the greater good; Whose wisdom was greater than Solomon’s; Whose compassion and love defined his every action and word.
Were I to be as kind as my mother, who had such great trust in God, in whom her twelve year old self found comfort and love at the deaths of her mother and sister; Who taught in the ghetto schools of Pittsburg, Whose knowledge never inflated her ego but compelled her to serve others in love, Who centered all on her husband and family, Who invited the friendless to her family’s table at home, And took them in as her own; Who continued to comfort those lost and forgotten even at times she felt lost; Whose compassion and love defined her every action and word.
Yet, I am not my father and my mother. I am not their identical clone. They loved me and taught me, fed me and shaped me, then let me go out on my own. I must choose to be honest as my father, to see God’s image in every face, to place great value in personal integrity, and to work for the greater good. I must seek God’s wisdom in all things, and, like my mother, trust God in all of life’s tragedies and joys, To seek out God in the poor, give all to my family, and, welcome the friendless around my family’s table at home. I must choose to comfort the lost and forgotten, even at times I feel lost, to choose to allow compassion and love to define my every action and word.
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
*I have been thinking of my mom and dad a lot, the last couple of months. I have thought often of the lives they led. In spite of the great adversities they experienced personally, the deaths of parents and siblings, the Great Depression, poverty, a World War, religious discrimination etc, they never allowed their adversities to color their lives negatively. Rather, it seems the adversities compelled them to define their lives in a positive way, to make a better world than the one in which they grew as children.
We often hear such sayings like “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” While children may choose to adopt the values and attributes of their parents, the truth remains that many children also choose to do otherwise. In the end, we are not clones of our parents. It is always a matter of choice. In the end, it is for us to choose the direction of our lives and how we respond to the tragedies and joys. I far prefer to be remembered in the way others remember mom and dad, people whose compassion and love defined their words and their actions.
You walk into the room With your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked And you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard But you don’t understand Just what you’ll say When you get home
Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?*
For those who have followed my blog via Facebook (though Facebook is making this increasingly difficult), this has been a very difficult Summer. A broken ankle, three surgeries on that ankle, the most recent on September 6th, and another projected 7 weeks of healing, and watching my favorite season, Summer, pass by my window as I sit in my chair, has been an experience of varying degrees of frustration. There are times I sit here stewing in my lack of independence.
Ruthie, my loving bride of almost 45 years, has been remarkable, helping me in a myriad amount of ways, from fetching medication, food, water, emptying urinals, helping me bathe and more. My gratitude for all the love I have experienced from Ruth, family, and friends has far out-weighed the pain and inconvenience this injury has caused me.
Ruthie likes to have a lot of background noise around her, hence, her favorite cable news station is on quite a bit (thankfully not the mindless dribble of Fox Cable News). Every now and again, there is a respite from Cable News with sojourns into HGTV and DYI TV. One can only see the same old episodes of Chip and JoJo Gaines (Fixer Upper), ugly Americans, spoiled by opulence, trying to assimilate to life in other world nations (House Hunters International), or Tarek and Christina play out the real life drama of their broken marriage while flipping houses in Orange County, California (Flip or Flop) so many times before going brain dead. Cable television is not quite the panacea of entertainment we would like to think it is. HBO keeps on playing the same films, most of them either depressing, sophomoric, or uninteresting.
Into this bog of intellectual, moral, and mindless decay (reminiscent of the dead marshes that Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum cross getting to Mordor, Lord of the Rings), is the corruption, the crimes, the racism, and the crimes against humanity being perpetrated upon our nation and the world by donald trump and his administration. And, anyone with any brains and common sense knows that it is only going to get worse as we get closer to national election of 2020. I feel like taking out my old Cold War comedy records with Tom Lehrer singing his song, “So long, mom. I’m off to drop the bomb, so don’t wait up for me.” (Note: At the height of the Cuban Missile Crises, Lehrer believed that we wouldn’t have time to have a popular “war” song, as we had had for all the “other wars” because all the earth would be obliterated in one gigantic nuclear flash. So, he decided to create one.)
As I was praying morning prayer
today, I came upon this passage from the first reading for Mass.
As my lengthy introduction to this verse demonstrates, all that is on television is for the most part an “empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition.” It is amazing how easily we, as human beings, get sucked into the mindless world of television; the equally empty, mindless, empty, racist world of donald trump and those sucking up to him for political favors, and, theatrical works being past off as “art” on HBO. It all comes up empty, especially when we have to confront the horror of all the mass shootings in the United States, the human and physical devastation of global warming with Hurricane Dorian, and the plight of immigrants throughout the world fleeing the poverty and violence of their homelands.
Perhaps we flee into these worlds as a way of escaping the vapidness of our own existence. Perhaps, we seek to escape the horror of human violence around us. Is it any wonder that people seek escape in the myriad amount of drugs? While much of the blame for the current opiod epidemic is rightly placed on the criminal behavior on Big Pharma, it is very tempting to reach for a couple of 5 mg oxycodone tablets. However, the 60’s taught us that Timothy Leary’s axiom, “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” accomplishes only self-destruction. The drug and alcohol culture is just a vast seductive wasteland of empty human philosophy littered with human self-destruction.
You raise up your head And you ask, “Is this where it is?” And somebody points to you and says “It’s his” And you say, “What’s mine?” And somebody else says, “Where what is?” And you say, “Oh my God Am I here all alone?”
Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?
It was really driven home last night as Ruthie and I were watching HGTV’s “A Very Brady Renovation”, as a stable of HGTV’s favorite fixer-up celebrities, along with the original cast of the Brady Bunch television show, were trying to transform the home the show used for “outside” shots, into that which was built on the sound stage of the show over 40 years ago. I felt my brain cells leaking out of my ears as one of the “Brady kids”, now in his 50’s, tried to match paint to the original house color portrayed on the television show. Really??? Over and over, everyone kept on repeating it was “very important” to get the color correct, as if the balance of world order depended on whether it was the exact shade of pukey cream or not. It was at this point when I turned to Ruthie and said, “Who really gives a shit?” The television show was crappy and mindless in the 70’s and nothing has much changed since it was, thankfully, removed from television.
You have many contacts Among the lumberjacks To get you facts When someone attacks your imagination But nobody has any respect Anyway they already expect you To just give a check To tax-deductible charity organizations
You’ve been with the professors And they’ve all liked your looks With great lawyers you have Discussed lepers and crooks You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books You’re very well read It’s well known
Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?
While I am sure the world of Paul’s Colossian community was not as consumed by our current mindless activities, they had their own set of equally mindless, 1st century activities and empty human philosophies. Though they may not have had the news pundits and “authorities and experts” gathered in television cable news stations of our world today, the Greeks equally loved philosophical debates and discussions (Paul related how he got involved in these debates as he preached the Gospel). What is historically clear is humanity remains easily duped and captivated by the empty promises of “human tradition.” It speaks volumes when the late night comedians, like Steven Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers, point out the folly of much of what we see and hear on television. How sad that it is the comedians who speak truth, not those experts upon whom we rely for our news. As my son, Andy, once said to me, “If I really want to know what is truthfully going on, I will watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you And then he kneels He crosses himself And then he clicks his high heels And without further notice He asks you how it feels And he says, “Here is your throat back Thanks for the loan”
Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?
I find that I must take Paul’s words to heart to receive, walk, root myself and build upon the faith I have received in Christ Jesus. For it is only in Christ in which I will experience the fullness I need in my life. If I don’t, I will be no better off than the clueless, self-important “Mr Jones” of Dylan’s “Ballad Of A Thin Man.”
Now you see this one-eyed midget Shouting the word “NOW” And you say, “For what reason?” And he says, “How?” And you say, “What does this mean?” And he screams back, “You’re a cow Give me some milk Or else go home”
Because something is happening here But you don’t know what it is Do you, Mister Jones?
On days in which I find myself emotionally down, I seek out hope. I seek out joy. As many who have listened to the music of Beethoven, I fell in love with the music of this most irascible genius, this tortured soul, who found himself living in a musician’s living hell, the world of complete deafness. If this man could draw from within himself the joy to compose the great Ninth Symphony, I can draw from his music the joy and the hope to persevere even in the darkest of days.
FREUDE: AN ODE TO BEETHOVEN’S NINTH SYMPHONY
AN AWAKENING
An awakening, seventh grade science, a Bell Lab film, “Our Mr. Sun” a closeup of the Sun, a rolling, bright ball of gases, yellow, orange, reddish colors exploding, bursting, solar flares erupting like a fountain of molten lava into the darkness of the surrounding universe.
My class was transfixed upon the images of beautiful violence and explosions, magnetically drawn into the yellowish orange and red gases. But it was not the image that captivated me. It was the music.
Orchestra, chorus, rising in a tidal wave of sound as brilliant as the image on the screen, its harmonic rhythm modulating, rolling, changing, a harmonic solar flare that grasped my heart in such a way that, long after the film wrapped itself around its receiving reel and the projector shut off, the music continued to sound in my inner ear. Its aural presence I carry with me through the remaining classes of the day, wondering, “What is it? Who composed it?”
Was it by accident? A fluke chanced listening to an unknown classical music album? Who knows? But that music, that orchestral choral music which I carried with me for six years, I, suddenly, encountered again. I know her name, and I greet her with the kind of embrace reserved only for the most intimate of lovers.
No longer a mystery, this stranger in my memory, I had to know every turn and shade and characteristic of her, like an infatuated lover who maps into tactile memory the contour of his lover’s body, the softness and scent that arises from the surface of the skin he gently caresses and kisses. Finally, after six years, I know the name of the one, about whom I have dreamt, whose voice is etched into my memory, to be the most beautiful of all created music.
Beethoven’s handwritten musical score from the Ninth Symphony.
2. BORN OF BONN
Ludwig Von Beethoven, Bonn, Germany born, son of a drunken, shit of a father who projected upon his son the hope and celebrity of another musical child prodigy. Forced to practice piano for many hours, late into the night, beaten bloody for every wrong note, every wrong rhythm, is it any wonder you developed such a strong distaste for authority?
Fleeing from a hellish Bonn, you studied with the musical minds of your time, establishing yourself, a virtuoso pianist, composer of the future, with some wanting to thrust upon you the mantle of the fallen Mozart. Unlike Haydn, and many other composers, you disdained and refused to be indentured and mastered by church or nobility, no servant’s entrance for you who walked through the same door of the nobility, a move that had doomed Mozart to an impoverished death to be buried among unknown paupers.
Scorned nobility recognized the genius you possessed, supporting your musical revolution in a class enslaved world. Napoleon’s revolution spreading like an infection across nobility populated Europe, your “Eroica” symphony initially dedicated to him until the truth was revealed, his name violently scratched out in the score, when you discovered the old world order very much alive and well under a different guise.
Conflicted, fractured family relationships, Fur Elise, nobility born, stripped out of your arms, her duty to family more important than the love you shared. Irascible and impatient, demanding and insulting, the growing specter of silence, the nightmare of all musicians, spreads over your life, an aural blanket snuffing out all sound, abruptly ending your life as a performer. That which would defeat many did not end your life, you turning away from that outside you, turning instead, inward, your inner ear hearing the pitches, the rhythms, the orchestration which you scratch with quill and ink onto pieces of manuscript, hearing that which your physical ears deny you.
It is in this darkness of silence your created much of your greatest music, creating that which you could never conduct, that which you would never hear. In this world of isolating silence, in which was created this musical beauty who captivated me, for whom I longed, for whom I sought, it has been written that at that first performance, deaf to the sound of chorus and orchestra, unaware that the music had ended, your contralto soloist gently turned you to face the standing audience, applauding and shouting your acclaim. At the age of fifty-six years, you set aside your ear trumpets, set down your pen and conversation books, and entered into that eternal conversation with God, who loved you into creation.
“Freude” (Joy!) from the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony
3. FREUDE
“Freude” (Joy) leaps from the page of Schiller’s poem, “Ode to Joy”, cuts through the concert hall. The bass soloist singing “Freunde!” (Friends), set aside the words of hate and violence, put on “Fruede” (joy)! Is is our common oneship in the family of God that must unite us as people of Freude. Variations on the Ode to Joy theme, not that sorry excuse of a hymn, an abomination that kills joy, rather than instill joy. No! but in glorious layers of melody, tone colors, the words of Schiller’s poem leaps off the orchestral score, inviting, invoking, compelling the listener to gaze beyond the human self, gaze beyond the horizon, to peer beyond the stars, to reach out with human hands, touching, then kissing the face of God.
The language of your music provided the translation of Schiller’s German poem, long before I read its translation. On the dark, dismal days of my Sophomore year, I would sit by the phonograph and listen, getting new strength, new resolve to continue, to persevere in my study of music. I sat, on the steps of the packed symphonic hall at which I ushered, my arms wrapped around my knees, my eyes closed, listening to the Freude of your symphony. And, for days following, be on a musical high, more powerful than the trip of any narcotic, or acid induced magical mystery tour.
Today, one of those dark days of later life, facing grim days, I sit, my ears encased with sound cancelling headphones, and put on your Ninth Symphony. The soloist bass’s voice rings, the German “Freunde” (Friend) resounds as it is sung, my hope restored. My spirit soars as I am drawn back to the seventh grade science class, the Bell Lab film and the music. I reintroduce myself to that beautiful music beauty that captured my heart and in whom I have found hope, and, yes, Freude.
from Gustave Dore’s illustration for the Paradiso of Dante’s Divine Comedy
My heart is filled with sorrow. Another mass shooting, albeit mobile, in Texas which has chosen by its horrific gun laws to be the center of gun violence in our nation. More lives terribly changed by the insane lack of gun control in Texas, Second Amendment be damned for ever. More empty homes, more lives changed by the wounds that have ripped flesh and psyche, emotional wounds that will never scab over. The selfishness of the gun lobby and gun enthusiasts attack the very soul our nation for nothing more than money, for profit. Our nation has lost its soul and I don’t know if it will ever be regained from the forces of evil that have it in their grasp.
The song below was composed the night following the insane shooting death of Philando Castille, a man of peace gunned down by a police officer in St Paul for merely being a man of color. I expect that kind of behavior from the police of the deep South. I never expected that kind of behavior from what I once considered a more civilized place, or so I thought, like Minnesota. Of course, I have been proven wrong time and time again in the ensuing years.
The music is not pleasant. The beginning is harshly dissonant, an aural description of bullets ripping human flesh and the horror that is perpetuated not only on the victim but on the victim’s family. The middle section is a hymn for the those who have died so violently by gunfire. There is a section of what composers would describe as development, in which the melody of the hymn is assaulted by the dissonant melody of the first theme, only to have hymn overcome the dissonance. However, the music ends ominously with the cluster chord that began the song.
Here is my prayer for the victims of another catastrophic weekend in current American history.
For the Victims of Gun Violence in the USA, Psalm Offering 1 Opus 7, (c) 2016, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
This poem is the result of my ruminating upon my senior high English class at St Bernard’s High School in St Paul. St Bernard’s closed its doors about 10 to 12 years ago. Mr Kolbinger, my English teacher, had us study the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy: The Inferno. It was a Renaissance nightmare of hellish proportions from whose imagery many heavy metal and death metal groups stole during the 80’s, and, from which horror movie creators continue to borrow.
I must confess that I was watching President Trump speak the other day and I was reminded of a line from the XXI Canto in which a demon bends over and makes a trumpet of his ass (the exact English translation of Dante’s Italian). When we read this passage in class, the whole class erupted in laughter with a sound, which I believed, resembled in volume and tonality, the sound that issued from the ass of the demon. I started to free associate the word, trump, with that of trumpet, and wondered if the root word the President’s surname resembled that of the Italian “tromba” or “trombettista” (trumpet or trumpeter). While I can never know exactly the sound of the fart that Dante described, I hazard a guess that it was as pleasant sounding as what I was hearing on the television.
This poem is not a free association of demon farts and President Trump. I will leave that to you. However, it is a reflection on what I read back in my senior year of high school and how we should heed the words of 14 century Dante in our own 21st century.
A HIGH
SCHOOL JOURNEY TO DANTE’S INFERNO
In a high school classroom, now long vacated, disused, insects stirring collected dust its only activity, we sat, long ago, opening our copies of Dante’s Inferno. At Mr Kolbinger’s direction, we turn the pages of Dante’s poetic description of Hell, a downward journey into Dante’s vision, painted with the theologies, the imagery, and colors, of Renaissance Florence, his Florentine enemies strategically placed and scattered amidst the nine circles.
We journey alongside Dante and Virgil, passing under the sign warning us to abandon all hope should we enter, from which return is impossible, pass the circle of the unbaptized, and, the virtuous non-believers, then those consumed by lust (among whom many adolescent boys saw our own selves), stepping carefully through the putrefying recycling waste of the gluttons, (are second helpings sinful?) into the circle of greed, a screaming horde of hoarders and squanderers, bankers and bishops, misers and the self-indulgent, addicted eternally to the acquisition and spending of untold wealth.
We pause on our journey, allowing our imaginations to rest and breathe, before picking up the staves of our text books and continuing our guided tour by Dante and Virgil. Then, once more we descend, Circle Five, a foul smelling waterway of the river Styx, ferried over the souls of the damned, actively and passively, consumed by hate, into the lower depths ruled by Pluto, the Underworld’s dark Lord, pass the flaming tombs of the heretics, the war makers and all profiteers of violence, those shattered by suicide, and those violators of human nature. We discover no end to this Dylanesque Dystopic nightmare of “Desolation Row”, and must rest again.
We climb upon the Reptilian back of Geryon, the winged monster of fraud, with his human face, and scorpion’s tail, flying steeply, spirally, down, down, down into the depths of panderers, seducers, flatterers, Renaissance marketeers selling Divine Indulgences and Grace to buying consumers fearing for their own eternal souls. Then to the circle of grafters, politicians, then as now, auctioning their souls and office, boiling in the tar of their own greed. We pass those bent over by the leaden cloaks of their own hypocrisy, the bodies of the damned, torn and bitten by the snakes and lizards of their thievery; the flamed engulfed promoters of fraud, the demonically hacked and mutilated bodies of those who sowed discord; torn eternally by demons with the same relish as those lives of family, religions, and society they hacked apart in life.
We take a much needed respite from the horror of our journey, reflecting upon the similarity of Dante’s Hellish Renaissance with that of our own Hell.
We then rise upon our literary journey descending down past the liars and the perjurers, the grifters, and scam artists, to the vast, frozen lake of the treacherous damned into an eternity, encased in ice, up to their necks. Among their number, the betrayers and murderers of family, friends, and nations; and, there in their midst, the greatest traitor of all, the former angel of light, betrayer of God all powerful, with three heads. Lucifer, consumed by his own hatred, gnawing vigorously, viciously, eagerly in his three mouths, the heads and bodies, of Brutus, Cassisus, and Judas Iscariot.
We carefully navigate the frozen lake, avoiding the heads of the damned, unable to free themselves from the treachery that has buried them in the ice, and climb down the hairy back of Lucifer, grasping with great handfuls the hair to prevent our own falling into the abyss. Down becomes up, and up we climb, upward to a distant light, a light shining from the classroom, vacant, empty, a room emptied of knowledge, the only thing gathering there, insects moving through the dust, settled in piles scattered here and there.
Dante’s warning to his Renaissance world is projected seven hundred years to our twenty-first century; the same sins, just a different century and location, different players, politicians, clerics, financers, sinners. Are our minds as empty and vacant as this former classroom, filled only with crawling insects disturbing mounds of dust? Our ears deafened to the voice of this Florentine poet of the 14th century? Are we able to lift ourselves from the rubble of humanity’s past, to his vision of Paradiso? Or, will we find ourselves only increasing the population of Florentines’ damned so long ago?
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All right reserved.
REFLECTION FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME,
YEAR C
I remember playing a funeral many years ago. The deceased
was a man, a member of motorcycle “club” of some notoriety, who had been
murdered. As the time of the funeral neared, the thunder of many motorcycles
led the procession of the hearse to the church. The choir and I were in the
choir loft of the church, having a bird’s eye view of everything. As the
procession entered into the church, I remarked that I never had seen so many
black leather jackets, with denim vests, assembled ever in the nave of the
church.
The members of this club had a reputation of living a
lifestyle totally in contrast to the moral principles of the Catholic Church.
The pastor at the time, was a priest who didn’t mince words, and I wondered
whether his critique of the deceased’s lifestyle and manner of death would be
less than pastoral if not altogether harsh. I was also wondering how the choir
and I could safely vacate the church in the event that our guests reacted with
great displeasure to the words of the pastor.
To my surprise, the pastor was incredibly pastoral and yet
still honest. He began his homily with the observation at whom God admits to
heaven and who God turns away from heaven. He said, “When we get to heaven we
may be surprised at who those are in heaven, whom we thought might never be
there. And equally surprised at those who are not in heaven, and we assumed
would be there.” He concluded that no living human being knows the state of
another human being’s soul at the time of death, and that the mercy of God is
far greater than what we may believe. Hence, the point of the Gospel today.
Jesus addresses those who believe that only a select group of
people will be admitted to heaven, and all others damned forever. To his
audience, Jesus is making it very clear that though the Jewish people of their
time consider themselves the “Chosen People”, that, in itself, was not enough
to gain entry into everlasting life with God. I think that this is very
applicable to all of us today. We see many Christian traditions, Roman Catholic
included, among many other world religions, who believe that they, and only
they, will be admitted to heaven. Baptism alone, or those saying that they have
chosen Jesus as their Lord and Savior, will not necessarily guarantee them a place
at the Lord’s table in heaven.
There
are people who like to put on a show of piety, much like the Pharisees of Jesus’
time. I question whether the piety of those who visibly put on a show when
coming to church is authentic or not. Piety has very little to do whether one
is wearing a chapel veil, or dropping to one’s knees to receive holy communion
on the tongue. I maintain that if you draw attention to yourself, whether it be
by dress, gesture, or posture, it is more about you than it is about God. A case
in point is when I was a kid, raised in the Tridentine Rite of the Catholic Church,
we use to argue whether it was holier to cross our thumbs or not as we folded
our hands in prayer. We knew it was
downright unpleasing to God to interlock our fingers instead of folding our
hands. How utterly ridiculous that was.
Whether
one fold one’s hands in prayer, stands, kneels, sits, is immaterial to God, who
is not fooled by false human piety. As the psalmist says in Psalm 51, “For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it; a
burnt offering you would not accept. My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.” (Psalm 51: 18-19. NAB)
In Isaiah, God is more brutal in response to false human piety. “Trample my
courts no more! To bring offerings is useless; incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath, calling assemblies—festive convocations with wickedness—these
I cannot bear. Your new moons and
festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out
your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not
listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your
misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice
your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. (Isaiah
1:13-17, NAB)
Isaiah addresses precisely what Jesus is teaching us today. The “religiosity”
or “religious show” of a person or a religious institution liturgically is not
enough to enter the heaven. Words are cheap, and religious gestures empty in
God’s eyes. Do our actions match our religious gestures? Are we hearing the
orphan’s plea, and defending the widow? I remember hearing on the news, a story
about Pope Francis I. A child, whose atheist father died, was upset that his
father might not go to heaven. The Pope responded to the child to not worry.
The Pope told the child that many atheists will enter heaven before many
Christians. God’s mercy is unlimited.
Abraham Lincoln once reproved a man who stated that the
Confederacy would fail because God was on the side of the Union. Lincoln told
the man, “It is not a question as to whether God is on our side or not. The
question is, are we on God’s side?”
Did the murdered biker, whose funeral I played, go to heaven? I don’t know. And it is not for me to know, or for that matter, judge. However, I hope he is in heaven. For I am as in much need of God’s mercy as the man who died. As Jesus made abundantly clear at the conclusion of the Gospel today, “And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
A familiar photo of my Uncle Ed, on the hobby horse, and my dad.
Today is my dad’s 104th birthday. He died on November 13th, 2004. When he was diagnosed in January 2004 with another faulty heart valve, he opted not to have surgery. He had had a heart valve replacement done when he was 80 years old. The heart surgeon told him that in having another heart valve replacement at 89 years would not guarantee more years, nor would his life be made all that easier. Dad, being a mechanical engineer, knew well how parts wear out. He told the surgeon, “What the hell! I am 89 years old. I won’t live for ever.” Rather than suffer the discomfort of another long recovery from heart valve replacement surgery, he rather more quality of life instead. He died of congestive heart failure 11 months later.
Of all the men I could admire, my father was the one I admire the most. He is my greatest hero. He was a man of great integrity and compassion, something demonstrated when he was very young, when he would go and help his mother scrub the floors of the bars in Turtle Creek, Pa so that she could get home earlier. He was a man of great wisdom upon whom the greater family and friends sought counsel. I remember sitting by his bedside right after he died while mom was calling the funeral director and thinking, “Oh my God! The wisdom figure of the family has died. Now, I am the wisdom figure of the family. Boy! everyone is so SOL.”
A picture of dad walking me in the middle of the night. Because mom was unable to nurse, us kids were bottle fed. Dad often opted to get up with us in the middle of the night so that mom could sleep.
Because in the Church calendar, August 21 is the feast of Pius X, a man who was really quite the asshole (a lot of money had to pass hands to make him a saint), I generally never celebrate that feast. I instead celebrate the life of someone I consider a true saint, my father who is twice the saint Pius X ever was. Here is a poem I wrote for my dad on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
FOR MY
DAD ON HIS ONE HUNDRETH BIRTHDAY
I feel you hovering around me, your presence, your spirit, a feeling, like fingertips lightly grazing the skin. Ten years have passed since you shook off the coils of this world. Your presence is not some ethereal spirit condemned to haunt a place of past transgression, but more that of a father, connected forever to the ones that he loves.
I feel you the strongest when complexities clutter my life, my mind seeking communion with yours, calling out to you as a frightened child cries out for comfort in the predawn hours following a nightmare. Staring into the bathroom mirror I search for your face, in the creases on my forehead the crows feet around my eyes, longing to hear your voice praying a blessing over me as you did for me for so many years before I would go to bed.
Formed and shaped by your DNA, yet, as each snowflake is created distinctly different and beautiful by our loving Creator I realize that I am like you and so unlike you, similar yet never quite the same. Gratitude born long before my birth, I rejoice in having walked alongside you for fifty-two years, a man of great faith, dressed to the “T’s in integrity and dignity.
Many look upon your image and call you “iron man”, one who has been tested and proven worthy, one able to bear life’s great and heavy burdens. For me, you will always be “my dad”, devoted to God and to his family. One who loved me into existence. Happy Birthday, Dad.
