Month: September 2015

POTUS and the Pope!

Now Lord, let your servant go in peace;
Your word has been fulfilled.
My eyes have seen the salvation
You have prepared in the sight of every people,
A light to reveal you to the nations and the
glory of your people, Israel.
One of my favorite passages from the Compline (Night Prayer) is Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis (Luke: 2:29-32). The Pope’s visit to the U.S. brought new meaning to this prayer. The world watched a Black U.S. President greet an Argentine Jesuit Pope on the White House lawn! What can one say but “Now, Lord, let you servant go in peace!”

The historical context of my generation makes the picture above almost unthinkable. Five short decades ago shadows darkened the newswires: a Friday afternoon in November 1963; a Sunday morning, February 21, 1965, and two terrible Thursdays: the first one the evening of April 4, 1968 and the second one on June 5, 1968.

And yet, even while enjoying this moment, I hear another voice, that of Ta-Nehisi Coates. Is this yet another dream of “the people who believe themselves to be white?” While basking in the sunshine of this picture, shadows still abound.

Then I hear Francis. Pray for him. Pray for us. Pray for me. Pray.

Pope Francis visits the U.S.A.

Francis, in his writings and his talks, brings back an excitement lost to me since leaving the US in 1982. John Cassidy, in The New Yorker, captures some of this when he notes…

“Between the follower of Saint Francis of Assisi and the leadership of the G.O.P. lies a gulf that no politesse can disguise.”

My gut responds to that… and so many other of his quotes during his speech to the Congress. 

“Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and coöperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity…”

“A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology, or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom, and individual freedoms…”

“We know that, in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.”

And he spoke of Thomas Merton and Dorthy Day. It is interesting to reflect a bit, as I was introduced to both by my parents. It was mom who first told me of Catholic Worker and the Seven Storey Mountain. I read them off and on while young, but did I really embrace them? I spent time at St. Joseph’s, worked the occasional kitchen, but to what extent did either of their writings really penetrate my soul? 

I read Merton and Day, but why do I feel now, listening to this Pope, that I missed something. Without a set of habits to reflect on what I read, did their thoughts impact me? Change me?