December 2016 – Page 2 – Journeying Into Mystery

Goofus McNut and Ghosts of Christmas Carols Past

When my son, Andy, was a baby, one of his Christmas presents was a blue head walrus hand puppet. Not quite 2 months old, his primary interests were those of most infants, nursing, sleeping, and filling his drawers. As a brand new music educator, I taught general/vocal music Kindergarten through 12th grade in a rural school, I was looking for something by which I could entertain the students in the younger grades, at the same time teaching them some music skills. I had always been a great fan of puppets. The puppeteer, Jim Henson, was a god to me. I was a huge fan of Henson and his Muppets, and watched the Muppet Show religiously. I thought I might be able to use Andy’s blue walrus hand puppet in my younger grade music classes to fulfill my purposes.

Buying a second hand infant’s sweatshirt, used Oshkoshbygosh infant bib overalls, and used red mittens, I sewed the head of the blue walrus hand puppet to the neck of the sweatshirt, the bib overalls to the sweat shirt and sewed the mittens onto the sweatshirt and Goofus McNut was born. Though I have not taught grade school music since 1988, many of my former students, many of whom are now in their 40’s and 50’s, still remember and inquire about Goofus McNut.

Goofus lived in the piano bench in my music classroom most of the year. He truly excelled at two key times during the school year, namely, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. On Valentine’s Day, he would write the name of the student mirror backward on the valentine, and then read the name of the student from right to left. Using my name for example, mirror backward my name would appear on the valentine as rengaW boB (being written mirror backwards they would appear correct if held up to a mirror). Then Goofus would read the name out loud as Rengaw Bob. The kids loved it, their teachers hated it. The minute the kids would get back to their classroom, they would request/pester their teacher to go to the restroom so they could hold up their valentine in the mirror and read it. Their teachers had a strong dislike for me at this time of the year.

At Christmas, Goofus would sing his favorite Christmas Carols and the kids would have to correct him when he sang the wrong words. Some of his favorites were “O Come All You Fishes,” “Away in the Freezer,” “Good King Applesauce,” and, “Hark I Hear Old Harold Singing”.

Hear are some of his favorite fractured Christmas Carol lyrics.

“O come all you fishes, joyful and delicious, O come ye O come ye to my tummy. All that I wishes is to eat a lot of fishes, O come to my table, O come to my table, O come to my table, so I can eat you.”

“Hark I hear old Harold singing, heartburn to me he is bringing. Gas and also indigestion, I am in need of medical attention. Here I lie beneath the tree, pain and discomfort, woe is me. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz do I hear, relief from pain will soon be here. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz do I hear, relief from pain will soon be here!” (Thank you Alka Seltzer for the conclusion of the lyric)

Away in the freezer the poor ice cream lay, without any cover all through the day. I love you dear ice cream in spring and in fall, and summer and winter you’re the best of them all.”

“Good King Applesauce looked out on his feets uneven (never quite got beyond this point in the carol).

I only got one complaint about Goofus, but it was more on the amusing side rather than severe. One parent noted that at an early Christmas Eve Mass, their child sang with quite amount of enthusiasm “O come all you fishes,” instead of “O come all ye faithful.” When they asked their child where he learned that carol, he told his parents that Goofus taught it to him.

Is Goofus still alive? Of course, he is. he is 41 years old, the same age as Andy. He’s been living in retirement for the last 20 years. He comes out now and again. He doesn’t come out much in the early spring because he still is paranoid as ever about “killer worms.” He believes that the worms that come up on the sidewalk following spring rain storms are “killer worms.” When you step on them they burrow through your shoes and attack your vital organs. He still is not very fond of “icks” (ticks) and “masqueezos” (mosquitos) because when you squish them they spurt blood all over you. He had a little reconstructive oral surgery to take care of a hole that developed in his mouth over the years. Maybe this year he will once more regale some people with his Christmas Carols.

CHRISTMAS MEMES

For all of us in the “church business”, it is important that we keep our sense of humor intact as the Solemnity of Christmas nears. The Christmas expectations that people bring with them to church on that Solemn Feast are as great as those portrayed in the comedy film, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Those expectations are generally dashed as badly as that of the Griswald’s in the same film. So it is vitally important for us in the business of the Spirit to keep our own spirits high as we prepare to serve those whose spirits are easily hurt or disappointed. These are some of the memes that have shown up on Facebook this year and the past. Enjoy!

MY SISTER, MARY RUTH, BENJAMIN BRITTEN, AND A “CEREMONY OF CAROLS”

This is an expanded version of the post I placed on Facebook, reminiscing about a choir concert in which my sister sang back in the early 1970’s.

My sister, Mary Ruth, during high school. She is holding her pet “Pekipoo”, Nicodemus.

Every time I listen to Benjamin Britten’s, “A Ceremony of Carols, “ I think of my sister, Mary Ruth. She sang alto in her choir at Our Lady of Peace High School. Our Lady of Peace High School was one of three high schools in St. Paul dedicated to the education of young women. The school was located on prestigious Summit Ave in St. Paul. Unlike the other two all female high schools which later merged with two all male high schools to survive, Our Lady of Peace remained an all female high school until it closed in the early 1970’s.

As is with all Christmas concerts in Minnesota, it was a cold, dark December night. And, as was with most high school concert halls of that era, the concert hall was a high school gymnasium with a stage situated on one end of the gymnasium. We, the audience, were seated on grey, metal, folding chairs. The choir processed on stage in their choir robes. Their accompanist, another high school student, extraordinarily gifted at performing on the piano, sat at the piano, and the Religious Sister who directed the choir came on stage and began this incredible choral music for treble choir (Soprano 1, Soprano 2, and Alto). This was my introduction to the music of the British composer, Benjamin Britten.

In 1942, while traveling by passenger ship from the United States to England, Britten set 11 Medieval English poems from a collection entitled, The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, to music. He scored it for an S.S.A. boys choir and harp. It was written for Christmas and is composed of 11 movements.

The majority of the text being in the English of the Middle Ages, made it difficult to understand what words the choir was singing. Having the text in the program was not particularly helpful, since the spelling and pronunciation of English from the Middle Ages is not close to our own (as you can see below). It didn’t help that the area in which my mom, dad, and I sat was darkened during the concert. Nevertheless, the performance of the choir was captivating and compelling.

The music began with the processional, “Hodie Christus natus est”, the Gregorian antiphon to the Canticle of Mary at Second Evening Prayer of Christmas in the Liturgy of the Hours. The Latin text is: Hodie Christus natus est,Hodie Salvator apparuit,Hodie intera canunt angeli,Laetantur archangeli, Hodie exsultant justi dicentes, Gloria in excelsis deo. Alleluia!

This is followed by “Wolcum Yole!” The Middle English text is: Wolcum be thou hevenè king, Wolcum Yole! Wolcum born in one morning, Wolcum for whom we shall sing! Wolcum be ye, Stevene and Jon, Wolcum, Innocentes every one, Wolcum, Thomas marter one, Wolcum be ye good newe yere, o good newe yere, Wolcum, twelfthe day both in fere, Wolcum, seintes lefe and dere, Wolcum yole, wolcum! Candelmesse, Quene of Bliss, Wolcum bothe to more and lesse. Wolcum be ye that are here, Wolcum alle and make good cheer! Wolcum alle another yere, Wolcum yole, Wolcum!

“There is no rose” is sung next. The text for the song is, There is no rose of such vertu, As is the rose that bare Jesu. (Alleluia) For in this rose conteinèd was Heaven and earth in litel space, (Res miranda) By that rose we may well see, There be one God in persons three, (Pares forma) The aungels sungen the shepherds to: Gloria in excelsis Deo! (Gaudeamus) Leave we all this werldly mirth, and follow we this joyful birth.Transeamus! Alleluia, Res miranda, Pares forma, Gaudeamus, Transeamus.

The fourth movement consists of two parts. “That yonge child”, That yongë child when it began weep With song she lulled him asleep: That was so sweet a melody It passèd alle minstrelsy. The nightingalë sang also: Her song is hoarse and nought thereto: Whoso attendeth to her song And leaveth the first then doth he wrong.; and, “Balulalow“, O my deare hert, young Jesu sweit, Prepare thy creddil in my spreit, And I sall rock thee to my hert, And never mair from thee depart. But I sall praise thee evermoir With sanges sweit unto thy gloir; The knees of my hert sall I bow, And sing that richt Balulalow!

The choir then launched into “As Dew in Aprille“, I sing of a maiden That is makèles: King of all kings To her son she ches. He came also stille There his moder was, As dew in Aprille That falleth on the grass. He came also stille To his moder’s bour, As dew in Aprille, That falleth on the flour. He came also stille There his moder lay, As dew in Aprille That falleth on the spray. Moder and mayden was never none but she: Well may such a lady Goddes moder be.

“This Little Babe” follows. This little Babe so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, Though he himself for cold do shake; For in his weak unarmèd wise The gates of hell he will surprise. With tears he fights and wins the field, His naked breast stands for a shield; His battering shot are babish cries, His arrows looks of weeping eyes, His martial ensigns Cold and Need, and feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed. His camp is pitchèd in a stall, His bulwark but a broken wall;The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes; Of shepherds he his muster makes; And thus, as sure his foe to wound, The angels’ trumps alarum sound. My soul, with Christ join thou in fight; Sticks to the tents that he hath pight. Within his crib is surest ward; This little Babe will be thy guard. If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy!

The seventh movement is a harp interlude. At the performance I attended, this was played on the piano.

The choir then sang “In Freezing Winter Night”. Behold, a silly tender babe, in freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies Alas, a piteous sight! The inns are full; no man will yield This little pilgrim bed. But forced he is with silly beasts In crib to shroud his head. This stable is a Prince’s court, This crib his chair of Stat e; The beasts are parcel of his pomp, The wooden dish his plate. The persons in that poor attire His royal liveries wear; The Prince himself is come from heav’n; This pomp is prizèd there. With joy approach, O Christian wight, Do homage to thy King, And highly praise his humble pomp,Wich he from Heav’n doth bring.

This was followed by the “Spring Carol”. Pleasure it is to hear iwis, The Birdès sing, The deer in the dale, The sheep in the vale, The corn springing God’s purvayance For sustenance. It is for man. Then we always to him give praise, And thank him than.

The tenth movement, the choir sang a rousing “Deo Gratias”. Deo Gracias! Adam lay ibounden, bounden in a bond; Four thousand winter thought he not to long. Deo Gracias!And all was for an appil, an appil that he took, As clerkès finden written in their book. Deo Gracias! Ne had the appil takè ben, Ne haddè never our lady A ben hevenè quene. Blessèd be the time That appil takè was. Therefore we moun singen. Deo Gracias!

The eleventh movement, the “Recession”, ends the music as it had began with the Latin chant, Hodie Christus natus est, Hodie Salvator apparuit, Hodie intera canunt angeli, Laetantur archangeli, Hodie exsultant justi dicentes, Gloria in excelsis deo. Alleluia!

As a young music major in college, I was like a sponge soaking up all musical influences I could. When the concert concluded, I was drilling my sister for all the information she had on this music of Benjamin Britten. It has to be understood that this was long before the personal computer and the internet. Heck, we were lucky to have a Royal manual typewriter at home. Owning an electric typewriter was a bit of a dream for many of us.

A very old picture of the students at Our Lady of Peace High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though by the time my sister attended Our Lady of Peace High School, the habits of the nuns had been greatly modified from what is pictured here, my sister’s uniform did not change. She wore the identical uniform worn by the young women in this photograph.

This beautiful set of Middle English poems set to music for SSA choir and harp by Benjamin Britten is a very special treat for me each and every Christmas. Many years have passed since that cold, December night in St. Paul. The doors of Our Lady of Peace High School have been closed for many years (the William Mitchell School of Law now occupies the buildings of the high school) . My sister has been dead now for close to 19 1/2 years. Yet, with every listening I am whisked back to the concert hall/gymnasium of Our Lady of Peace High School and watching my beloved sister dressed in choir robes singing this beautiful music with her choir.

CHRISTMAS 1973, SINGING WITH THE CHORALE OF THE COLLEGE OF ST. CATHERINE

Dr. Maurice A Jones, in his classic stance, directing a rehearsal of the Chorale of the College of St. Catherine, circa 1973.

Well I remember my first Christmas Concert singing with the Chorale of the College of St. Catherine.

Having abandoned all pretense of being a band director by the end of the first semester of my sophomore year in the music department at the College of St. Thomas, I began to intensely focus my musical studies on piano (my major instrument) and voice (my minor instrument). At the beginning of my second semester of my sophomore year, I auditioned and made it into the Chorale of the College of St. Catherine, a mixed SATB choir comprised of women from the College of St. Catherine and men from the College of St. Thomas. I also fell under the influence of Dr. Maurice A Jones, the director of the Chorale. He was the finest professor I have ever had and greatly influenced me as a musician. After I graduated he, became my mentor and friend.

Maurie introduced to me the choral music of some of the greatest composers of the 20^th century. Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Gabriel Faure, and Francis Poulenc. He demanded much from his choir and we, in turn, were willing to do anything for him.

Our Lady of Victory Chapel on the campus of the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minnesota

My first Christmas Concert singing with the Chorale was held in Our Lady of Victory Chapel on the campus of the College of St. Catherine. Women in black concert dress, men dressed in black tuxedos, we processed from the entrance of the chapel to the sanctuary, women processing on one side of the chapel, men processing on the opposite side. As we processed, we sang an Medieval Latin Trope “Alle Psallite Cum Luya” in a 3 part round. The sound danced about the chapel, the music reverberating off the smooth stone surfaces of the chapel.

All the music of the concert that evening was a cappella, which means unaccompanied by instruments. Within each section of the choir was a person with a pitch pipe from which we would receive our opening pitch. The concert was no more than 45 minutes. Maurie Jones, knowing the limits of an audience, would rather have an audience complain about a concert being too short in duration rather than a concert being too long in duration. “We want to keep them wanting more,” was a favorite saying that Maurie preached to us in choral conducting class.

Among the carols we sang that night, were some common carols, for instance, “Angels We Have Heard On High”. Our breath control was tested to the limit, for Maurie demanded that we sing the “Gloria in excelsis Deo” of the refrain in one breath (try it and see if you can make it to the end without gasping for air). From the Oxford Book of Carols, we sang “Pat-a-Pan”, and “Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella”. We sang an arrangement of “Masters In This Hall”, with its resounding refrain “Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel sing we clear! Holpen are all folk on earth, Born is God’s own Son so dear! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel sing we loud! God today hath poor folk raise and cast a-down the proud!”

The centerpiece of the concert was Francois Poulenc’s “4 Motets pour le temps de Noel” (Four Christmas Motets). We sang three of the four motets: “O magnum mysterium,” “Videntes stellam,” and “Hodie Christus natus est.”

Of those three motets, it was in the first motet, “O magnum mysterium,” that the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus first impacted my life most profoundly. “O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum ut animalia viderent Dominum natum jacentem in praesepio. Beata Virgo cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. O great mystery and wonderful sacrament that even the animals saw the new-born Lord lying in a manger. Blessed Virgin, whose womb
was worthy to bear our Lord Christ.”

The harmonies evoke within the singer and the listener the mystery of the Incarnation. How Poulenc was able to capture that mystery in music and human voice is wondrous. I feel a chill pass within me upon every hearing of this motet.

We ended the concert as we began. We processed out from the sanctuary to the entry of the chapel singing the Latin chant for Christmas, “Divinum Mysterium”.

Of all my Christmas memories, this perhaps is my favorite music memory. That cold December night in the beautiful chapel of Our Lady of Victory, I encountered the mystery of Jesus in song. My dad recorded that concert on what was a state of the art 3M cassette recorder. Through the hiss on the tape, I can still make out the “Alle Psallite Cum Luya” reverberating through the chapel, and the oh, so mysterious pianissimo opening of “O magnum mysterium” evokes the mystery of which it sings.

My Family Christmas Card for 2016

Christmas Art 1991. Artist: Beth Wagner 6 years old.

PEACE!

BORN INTO HUMAN DARKNESS

Into the depths of human darkness

the Word of God was born.

He, through whom all was created,

was enfleshed in human form.

Child of the homeless,

a barn as his home,

born into poverty,

a refugee from tyranny

to foreign lands did roam.

As prophets foretold, the Beloved of God,

Servant to the broken and forlorn,

clothed with compassion,

armed only with love,

brought healing to those weary and torn.

Oh, Word of God, come into our world,

cast deep in human violence and despair.

Enlighten its black shadows,

reveal its dark secrets,

our broken souls plead for repair.

In silence we stand

with great expectation

Your arrival at the city gate.

Where, once more with Your broken,

Your poor and Your homeless,

You will be born into our human state.

Christmas 2016

Once more, Christmas rolls around. A new liturgical year begins and another calendar year concludes. As with all of life, changes continue. I seem to mark the passage of time by the surgical scars I accumulate. This year, there is a nice long scar over the right knee indicating where a new knee has been implanted. As old body joints depart and new ones arrive, so it is true with the newness that comes with the passage of another year. Andy, a skilled artisan much in demand, has started up his own wood floor installation business. Judging by the lack of time his work truck is at home, his clients are keeping him very busy. Olivia, his beautiful bride, remains much in demand for her skills as a professional photographer. For my birthday this year, she gifted me with 4 beautiful portraits of Ruthie. Their boys are busy growing in age and in wisdom. Owen began high school this year. I am presently having the pleasure of teaching both Owen and Aidan piano. Ollie, just beginning 1^st grade is far too busy to think about piano lessons presently. Our youngest daughter, Beth, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Psychology this past October. She is busy doing her internship and working at Hennepin County Medical Center. Luke remains busy at Coborns, and when he is not working out at SNAP Fitness, he is busy being a dad to his 4 year old Boxerdore, Belle E Button. Meg, recently moved to Anoka which means we don’t see her, Alyssa and Sydney as often as when she lived at home. Meg continues to work at the Minnesota State Veterans Home as she pursues her degree to become a Registered Nurse. Meg has her sight set on eventually becoming a nurse practioner. Alyssa, a freshman in high school, too, and Sydney are both busy in school. Ruthie, agelessly beautiful, continues to work full time nights as a Registered Nurse at the Minnesota State Veterans Home. While she would love to be able to retire this coming year, with the political situation for the next 4 years, and the political party in power determined to cut or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, it seems unlikely that Ruth, or I for that matter, will know what it means to retire. I remain in church ministry in the New Prague Area Catholic Community. With an anticipated drastic shortage of priests and deacons, I think I will probably continue ministry for quite a while yet. As we look to the next 4 years, it is hard for us to utter, “Merry!” or “Joy,” this Christmas. However, we place our hope that as in all things, God will see us through these dark times as God has done for us in the past. In spite of our flawed humanity, Jesus remains Lord of Heaven and of Earth and humanity’s only hope for peace. So this Christmas, we bid you, “Peace!”

During this Holy Season in which we

celebrate God’s union and solidarity with

the entirety of the human family, we wish

you God’s peace!

A Dream Come True – homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent

The Dream of St. Joseph. Artist Anton Raphael Mengs

In 1997, my little sister, Mary Ruth, died. She was 42 years old. About 3 or 4 months following my sister’s death, my mother had a very vivid dream in which my sister visited her. Mom explained to me that this dream was not like most ordinary dreams. It was very real with all her bodily senses engaged: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. In her dream, mom said she went to visit my sister, Mary. She knocked at the door of this building, and a beautiful woman with long, brown hair answered the door and invited my mother in. My mother told the woman that she was looking to visit with my sister. The woman smiled and told my mother that my sister was busy at the moment and asked her to take a seat in the waiting room. My mother settled down in a chair. After a little while, the beautiful woman invited mom to go with her. They went down a hallway and entered a room. On one end of the room was a window that allowed people to observe activity in another room. The beautiful woman told mom, “Come, look at your daughter.” My mother gazed through this window at my sister, Mary, sitting on the floor and playing with some little children. My sister’s appearance was transformed from the way she looked when she died. Gone was the gauntness and the pain that used to be etched into her face. Her face was vibrant, her eyes sparkled and she laughed as she played with the children. Her body was no longer bent over and painfully thin from her illness, but was now healed and healthy, my sister moving about with great ease. Alongside my sister was a young, bearded man. The beautiful woman then led my mother back to the waiting room. After waiting just a short while, my sister came into the room accompanied by the beautiful woman and the young, bearded man. My sister went up to my mother, kissed her and hugged her and told her, “Don’t worry about me, mom. I am very, very happy.” At that point, my mother awakened from her dream, the heaviness and grief my mom had carried since the death of my sister, was gone.

Dreams are important to human life. Dreams are the one thing in which all human beings have a share. Many ancient societies and cultures believed that it was through dreams that the gods communicated to human beings. We find the prominence of dreams in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was one of the ways by which God interacted in human life. Jacob had a dream in which he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching to the Heavens. God repeatedly blessed Jacob in this dream. Jacob interpreted the ladder to represent the number of exiles the Jewish people would suffer before the Messiah would come, and the number of angels, the number of years passed before the Messiah would come. In a dream, Jacob wrestled with an angel from God. Following that dream, Jacob was renamed, Israel, meaning “I wrestled with an angel from God and survived.”

Joseph, the son of Jacob, was well known as an interpreter of dreams. The prophet, Daniel, interpreted the dreams of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Dreams figure greatly in the gospel of Matthew. In today’s gospel we hear of Joseph being very troubled by the news that Mary, the woman to whom he is engaged to be married, is pregnant. He tosses and turns not wanting to expose her to shame and suffer the consequences of his society imposed upon women who got pregnant outside of marriage. He finally decides to quietly break off their engagement to be married. It was then in a dream that Joseph encountered the Divine. An angel from God reassures Joseph that Mary’s pregnancy did not result from some wrongdoing. Rather, the child with whom she was pregnant was the culmination of the dreams of the Jewish people going back to the time of Adam and Eve. Within Mary’s womb was the Son of God, the Messiah, who will fulfill the hope and the dream of countless generations of Jewish people. Joseph, reassured by the angel, takes Mary as his beloved wife, and agrees to raise her child, the Messiah, as his own son.

When something for which someone hopes happens in that person’s life, we generally say that that person’s “dream has come true.” Jesus, the Emmanuel, God with us, is humanity’s dream come true. The dream of Jacob came true with the birth of Jesus. The fulfillment of the Jewish people’s dream came true with the birth of Jesus. Everything told Joseph by the angel in his dream came true. The “dream” did not end when Joseph awakened. The dream, Emmanuel, God with us, did not end when Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. The dream of Emmanuel, God with us, continues to be fulfilled in our lives today.

It seems that it is often in our darkest hours that the realization of Emmanuel is the most profound. Jesus did not abandon my sister as she suffered those long 26 years of chronic illness. Jesus did not abandon my mother and father as they watched their daughter suffer and waste away from her illness and then die. They had a profound experience of Emmanuel during those years. It was the knowledge and experience of God being with them that sustained them during the hardships of those years.

The dream of Emmanuel, God with us, comes true. The dream has come true for my sister, Mary, who is now healthier and happier than she ever was when she walked this earth. The dream has come true for my mother, who saw her sick daughter returned to full health and at peace with God.

When I asked my mom, what she thought about her dream, she said, “Mary is finally healthy and happy again. And you know what?” “What?” I replied. “I think that beautiful woman is Mary the Mother of Jesus. And, that young man with the beard is Jesus.” I said, “I believe you are right, mom.”

This dream with the happy ending never ends. This dream comes true time and time again. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, now and forever.

The Incarnation of Jesus and the Human Ghetto

Icon of a dark skinned Jesus. Artist unknown.

I have lived in the White Ghetto all of my life. Only briefly, for the first two years of my life, did I live in a multi-racial/cultural neighborhood in Chicago. Aside from the pictures that my parents took of me during that time, I remember little to nothing of that time (Ironically, my first and only memory of that time is that of coming home from the hospital as an infant and being passed among the neighbors in the apartment building in which my family lived. I was less than receptive to all the attention given me, especially that of Harold Burress who smelled of tobacco and beer.) Whether it be the suburbs of Chicago, the white neighborhoods of St. Paul, the rural communities of southwestern Minnesota, or the Czechoslovakian town of New Prague, I have lived in the White Ghetto all my life. I do not know the intentions of my parents as they chose homes when we moved from place to place during the years I was growing up. However, it has not been by design that Ruthie and I have lived and raised our family in the White Ghetto. It has been primarily driven by where we found our employment.

When immigrants first came to our country, many ended up living in ghettos. While there were some ghettos to which society assigned them, many of these were self-created. Being in a strange land with customs and language different from where they had come, people lived together in order to preserve the comfort of a common language, culture and traditions, and for reasons of protection from the prejudices and violence they encountered in this new land. Within St. Paul itself are neighborhoods labeled “Frog Town” where the French community settled, “Swede Hollow” along West 7th Street, where, obviously, those of Swedish descent lived. Rice Street and Maryland Ave was where the German immigrants settled. West St. Paul was where the Latino immigrants congregated and so on.

Many Catholic parishes were built to address the needs of these nationalistic ghettos, hence the Irish went to the Irish church, the Italians to the Italian church, the Germans and the Polish to the their specific national churches, and so on. God forbid that an Irish family worship in a German Catholic church! Intermarriage between Catholics of different nationalities was frowned upon. And a Catholic to marrying a non-Catholic was downright scandalous. In such cases, the only place allowed in which a Catholic and non-Catholic could be married was in the rectory.

Overtime, these nationalistic barriers were softened and eliminated altogether as second and third generations of the original immigrants intermarried with people from other cultures and languages and settled into the melting pot that is the United States. While this is a generalization, in Minnesota, we have new ghettos, formed with those of white European descent clustered together in areas of our cities, suburbs and rural communites, and ghettos within our cities, suburbs, and rural areas in which people of color are clustered. While American society has progressed in which people of all races and cultures are intermarrying producing children of multi-racial ancestry, there has been in the last 20 years a reestablishment of hardened racial divide in our nation.

During the last election cycle, this racism, especially among the white community, has shown to us that the racial and religious prejudice that has scarred American history is just as alive and as horrendous as it had been in the past. The enabling of racial bigotry through the inflammatory rhetoric of Trump and a great number of the hardcore, right-wing political conservative segment of our population has brought to the light of day the deep, dark underbelly of racial bigotry present within what we thought were trusted businesses, municipalities, law enforcement and other areas of our society.

The danger of living in ghettos self-imposed and imposed upon a group is that one begins to believe that the cultural values, religion, and customs of the ghetto are superior to those outside the ghetto. Without the interaction and intermingling of race, culture and customs, whereupon a person discovers and values the many blessings that each race, each culture and each religion brings to the human family, the person is prone to be fearful of anything that is different from his/her own race, culture, and customs. We have heard the Social Darwinism of alt-right bigots claiming that with the ascent of Trump to the presidency, White culture reassumes its rightful place in society, where it should dominate all the “sub-races, sub-cultures, and sub-religions.” This is a grave sin against humanity and a grave sin against the Incarnation of Jesus!

Jesus, the Logos, the Word of God through whom all humanity was created, was born into the human race as a person of color, a brown-skinned, Palestinian Jew. His parents were brown-skinned Palestinian Jews. The “master race” that dominated politically all of Europe at the time of his birth were Romans. Yet, God chose the Palestinian Jews of Judea, a conquered race enslaved to Imperial Rome as the race into which Jesus was to be born. Were we to leave the Incarnation of Jesus here, limited to his ancestral, racial, and religious heritage, we would be guilty of Social Darwinism, too.

The Incarnation of Jesus must impress upon us that it was not just to the Jewish race that the Word of God was chosen to be born. Rather, the Incarnation of Jesus shows us dramatically that in the birth of Jesus was a uniting of the divinity of God to all of humanity. The Incarnation is an action by God by which all of humanity shares in the divinity of God. No one race nor one culture is superior to the other. All races, all cultures are divine. At the creation of the world, all of humanity bears the likeness of our God, who created us. In the Incarnation of Jesus, God putting on the flesh of humanity, this likeness extends to all of humanity a share in the divinity of God. The Incarnation of Jesus shatters the artificial ghettos that the races of humanity have constructed about ourselves. The Incarnation of Jesus rips apart the falsehoods the races of humanity have raised about their own superiority over other races and cultures. The Incarnation of Jesus tears from the heart of humanity the sin of prejudice that defiles the human soul and blinds us from seeing and honoring the divinity of God present in all peoples, cultures, and races!

If we are truly to celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus this Christmas, we must call upon the Christ Child to free us from the Ghettos into which we have placed ourselves, and compel us to mingle with, honor, respect, and rejoice in the divinity of God present in all peoples, cultures, and races.

On flags and symbols …

In recent days, Trump has suggested that people who desecrate the United States flag should be stripped of their U.S. citizenship. Of course, as in many areas of government, he is ignorant of the Supreme Court ruling that states that the Constitution protects such an action under the 1st amendment’s freedom of speech. As always, the rancor that has arisen over the issue is great. I am sure that it was not the intent of the government that the United States flag be used as a bikini top enhancing the bosom of some buxom young woman, and yet, one sees the flag displayed in this way, often on female models at car racing events and on beaches down South. Somehow a scantily clad woman in a Stars and Stripes bikini doesn’t offend people. The bottom line is that a flag is a symbol.

A symbol points to a reality or a deeper truth that lies beyond them. Hence, with a religious Icon, it is not the painting of the Christ that one stops to admire. Most Icons are very two dimensional and for the most part as art are not the most attractive in terms of composition and color. The purpose of the Icon is NOT the painting. The Icon is to draw the person looking at it to the deeper truth, the deeper reality of God’s mystery that lay beyond it. In Catholic liturgy we use many symbols within the liturgical space (altar, ambo, gospel book, vestments, and painted images throughout the church), but we differentiate the symbols from the Signs, e.g. the Word of God spoken, the consecrated bread and wine that is the Body and Blood of Christ. A Sign becomes the end itself, hence we reverence the Word spoken from scripture as that of God’s, and the bread and wine consecrated as the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Flags in whatever configuration or color they may be are just symbols of the reality that lay behind them. The United States flag points to the deeper reality of the Constitution, as the author of the Meme is trying to point out. If someone in battle dies for the flag and not for the Constitution of the United States it is suppose to symbolize, then their perspective of what the United States is and what the Founding Fathers meant the United States to be is askew. I do not advocate destroying a flag just as I do not advocate the destroying of a religious Icon or symbol. However, the mere destruction of the symbol does not destroy the reality or the mystery that symbol is meant to represent. While I will honor our war dead on Memorial Day, our Independence on July 4th, and our laborers on Labor Day by flying the United States flag, I generally fly the Earth Flag outside my home most other days of the year.

The Earth Flag, designed by John McConnell, is actually a picture of Earth taken by NASA and placed upon deep dark blue field. This flag, meant by its creator, is to be a symbol of protecting Earth’s environment. For me, it is a symbol of a deeper mystery of who the humanity and all creation truly are, universally created by God. The curse of the Tower of Babel has inflicted upon our Earth the notion that only a particular culture, a particular language, a particular way of life is the ONLY one that is important. It has been the cause of war, and of genocide. For me the Earth Flag is a symbol of whom we must become in order to fully be that which God intended us to be. We need to see one another equally as children of God, regardless of our national origin, the color of our skin, the religion we practice of lack thereof, and the language we may speak. We need to evolve in becoming, for lack of a better term, Universalists.

We have encountered Universalists in our lifetime. Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, the Dhali Llama, Mahatma Ghandi, Mary Jo Copland, Pope Francis 1, Cathy Heying, my own wife, Ruth, are people I consider Universalists. They transcend their own country of origin, their own language, their own religion and see all people equally as one. Ruth works with a multi-national, multi-cultural staff as a nurse at the State Veterans Home in South Minneapolis. As one of the Ethiopians on staff pointed out to her, “you are color blind.” He went on to explain that Ruth sees and treats all people equally with respect and dignity. Ruth is a Universalist. I believe that all of my children are fully on the way of becoming Universalists. If only all of humanity would aspire to become the same, then symbols like national flags would be obsolete and the curse of war and genocide that has gutted humanity for ages would finally cease.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: