Waiting to be Buried

It is a strange morning for winter, the temperature has reached 60 degrees. Although it is approaching noon the sky is dark. Winds are powerful and the rain is tropical. It is my job to make a delivery. The majestic church stands as a mighty reminder of a past. The thousands are gone. Their school is closed. Their convent is empty of nuns. A rectory built for many priests has but one. Crumbled sidewalks betray a maintenance abandoned. Surviving trees mix with their long dead brothers. Rain drips from rotten gutters. I have breached the barbed wire fence through the hidden entrance and made my delivery. A gentle soul has quieted the old dog long exhausted from his guardian duties. The task is done. I wonder where did all my people go. In suburbs perhaps where they harvest wonderful memories of another time...reciting creative names of celebrity nuns long buried? Memories...crowds of worshippers bustling home for a Sunday breakfast...altar boys extinguishing candles...ushers closing doors. Sunshine always paints memories. But today is not such a day. I know I am really looking at many Catholic churches in many American cities. The tribe has moved, and left behind their monuments. Their new churches are pitiful imitations of a majestic disciplined past. Perhaps they reflect the depth of their new century faith. I hope not. But now, here in the city it is raining. This wondrous church stands alone looking down on the collapsing houses of its ghostly congregation. Across the street a new African American Baptist church glares with the arrogance of victory. My church stares back waiting to be buried.

Anglicans Coming Home?

After almost 600 years the Anglicans are on the verge of a massive return to the Church of Rome. In the 16th century King Henry VIII declared himself head of the church in England. Some of his official acts included granting himself a divorce, confiscating all church wealth and closing the monasteries. Suddenly, he was the richest man in England. Church lands were given to his supporters. Church bells were melted down into cannons and church lead roofs were melted into bullets. Those who supported him were rewarded. Those who defied him were killed. Their number included Thomas More who was later declared a saint by the Roman Church. All priests and bishops were ordered to renounce their allegiance to the Pope, and slowly began the evolution of a schismatic faith, the Anglican church. But Catholicism was hard to destroy, and now the church of Rome has officially welcomed them back. Allowing them to keep their married priests, create new married priests, and retain their Anglican traditions and rituals. Many are said to wish a return since the Anglican church is increasingly ordaining women , practicing homosexuals and flirting with the concept of homosexual marriages. These are historic times for both the Roman and Anglican churches. Rome numbers 1 billion souls, the Anglicans 77 million. The numbers returning should be interesting. If it is a flood it could be common to see married priests in the church of Rome who are Anglican. Where is Henry VIII and what must he be thinking?

St. Michael the Archangel be Our Protector...

Today, September 29, is the Roman Catholic day to honor Saint Michael the Archangel. He is portrayed as a warrior saint slaying Lucifer shown in the form of a deadly dragon. Lucifer whose beauty was once so stunning that he challenged God, and was thus caste into Hell by Michael whose name is really a question he shouted across the heavens as he prepared to slay the dragon, "Who is like God?" . As Lucifer and his angels fell into their kingdom of fire they transformed from beauty to ugliness, thus beginning the strange bait of evil which often appears so beautiful but becomes so ugly. Defeated by God and His angels, Lucifer then set his target on God's wonderful creation, man.

With this as a background it is interesting to see the church on the coast of France (see picture) dedicated to Saint Michael who was proclaimed by the church as the protector of Europe. The 21st century finds Europe spiritually adrift after a brutal century of warfare. Its churches are empty. Some are turning into mosques. In Glasgow, Scotland there are now 33,000 Muslims. This week the Pope visited the Czech Republic the first atheist majority nation in Europe. The last century was a tough one for Europe: imperialism, fascism, Communism, materialism have taken their toll on its soul. Saint Michael the Archangel still stands on the coast of France, and the church, freed from its oppressors and pedophiles, begins the task of again converting Europe. We will not live to see the results, but I believe Michael will again prevail over evil.

Christ in Christmas

Well its the last days of summer and the bees are still visiting tired flowers. Nevertheless, today's mail produced another supply of Christmas cards from competing Catholic religious orders eager to beat the other for your money. Sometimes it seems the orders should just be done with it and just change their names to Sisters of Hallmark or Gibson Brothers of the Holy Post. What started as a unique oddity has mushroomed into a card industry: Christmas, Easter, birthday, death, and illness keep a steady flow of cards to our homes. Sometimes they include medals, rosaries, and holy cards. Some even send coins and postage to stir your conscious. Today's mail came from the Maryknoll Order, once the great American missionaries of China now reduced to a trickle of vocations after truly embracing a liberal approach to Catholicism. It contained the usual manger scene cards. The envelope said, "Keep Christ in Christmas". Surely a nifty reminder in the hustle and bustle of summer Cristmas season. How many shopping days to Christmas, Father ? Perhaps we can begin to keep Our Lord in Christmas by having His Church get out of the card business and stop competing with malls decorating for His birth in September in the hope to make the most bucks. Fathers, Sisters and Brothers consider remembering what Chaucer said in the Canterbury Tales, "If the gold rusts what will the iron do"?

Chesepeake Bay in Late Summer

...a morning I recently captured at the harbor of Saint Michael's Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.

Hibernation

Time for our brother bears to sleep for the winter. Is it necessary to say "Do Not Disturb"?

Moon at Dusk

I discovered the beauty and calm of the desert while in Arizona last year, and captured the early moon from the driveway of Frank Loyd Wright's home, Tailsman. Religions speak of spiritual encounters with God, angels, Satan and demons in the desert. The peaceful void, lack of distractions, and absence of man's presence there makes it possible to hear and perhaps even see the spiritual world about us which is so clouded by noise and visual pollutions of the mind. In the desert we discover ourselves.