All Saint's Day & All Soul's Day--A Time for Peace & Comfort

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

The annual arrival of All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day always sends me into a bit of melancholia about what was and what might have been. Then the wonder of my faith erupts and shakes off the fleeting dispiritedness morphing it into an inner peace and comfort. Faith is a beautiful thing and a most wonderful gift for sure. But, most importantly, what the great gift of Faith does is to inspire Hope within us, Hope for tomorrow…Hope for eternal salvation.

We have all experienced the death(s) of those close to us. All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day help us to understand and believe that those we loved are not "gone" but have just moved on to a better place. We comfort in the belief that one day we will once again join them in a joyous reunion.

Communion of Saints   usccb.org

My list of those I remember on these two days includes eight primary people. They are all immediate family and five of them, according to my Catholic faith, must be counted among the millions of unknown and unheralded saints that found their way to their eternal reward. Then there are two that have me fully embracing the Hope of their ultimate reward. (Did I mention "inner peace and comfort"?)

My first wife, Loretta, died fourteen years ago, taken by melanoma. Loretta had been ill for a long time. Before cancer struck she was in and out of hospitals with Chronic Pancreatitis, Cirrhosis, (she never drank) Lupus, Vasculitis, Angina, and Diabetes and had numerous surgeries. Through it all she always remained true to her faith, kept a smile on her face and, no matter how poorly she was feeling, always managed to make someone who had come to see her happy that they had. Loretta did receive the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick and Holy Viaticum before she died.

My mom died of leukemia when she had just turned 40. She also was a woman of great faith. She also received Last Rites (that is when it was called Extreme Unction) and Holy Viaticum in the hospital before she died. My memories of her are almost non-existent even though I was 15 years-old at the time. But, I do remember her receiving the sacraments.

Grandma, (maternal) lived with us. Tormented over her daughter's death she went into a strange place mentally, blaming our dad for killing her daughter. Her Faith had seemingly crumbled and she lost Hope.

It was a cold and rainy Saturday evening when Grandma had a massive stroke. Our parish priest, Father Philip Quirk, arrived and administered Extreme Unction to her. She was holding my hand so tightly I thought it might break. Grandma then lapsed into a coma and died shortly thereafter. Once again a faithful servant was awarded with God's loving mercy.

Dad died two years later. After mom died and Grandma began the "Big Hate" against him, he stayed away from home and spent time in the local pubs. He drank too much and had an acute attack of pancreatitis. The attack killed him in two days. The upside was that he, too, received the sacraments and the Lord's mercy before he died.

Loretta gave birth to our fourth child, Theresa Mary, when she was only six months pregnant. Bleeding profusely, she was rushed to the hospital. Theresa was born and died within moments.  I had called ahead to Holy Trinity Parish and Father Murray was there. He baptized Theresa and she is buried with my parents.

My brother Bobby passed away in 2007. He was 53 and, although seemingly in good health, had a heart attack and died. He did not receive Last Rites and was, if anything, a "lukewarm" Catholic.

My youngest brother, the 'baby of the family", died in 2015. His passing was self-inflicted. Johnny was 56. I have no explanation for his actions nor does anyone else. He was a caring, Christian man, who helped others and "loved his neighbor". He was not a practicing Catholic and had found solace in a Baptist church near his home.

Finally, my wife Martha ( I remarried four years after Loretta passed) developed cancer and then Alzheimer's disease. She passed on in  2017. A few days before she received her Anointing of the Sick and also an Apostolic Pardon. 

I began this essay stating that "the great gift of Faith inspires Hope within us, Hope for tomorrow, Hope for eternal salvation”. The Faith and Hope connection are inseparable yet subject to the free will of each of us. In the secular world “faith & reason” are opposites. If you cannot tangibly prove something it cannot be.

But God’s gift of Faith gives us the desire to Hope for what God has offered us. Therefore, I believe my Faith has allowed me to believe that six of my immediate family have attained their eternal reward. My Faith also allows me to consciously Hope that my other two family members will one day, if not already, also attain that reward.  Sooner or later I know I'll find out. 

I hope and pray that as we honor all the Saints and all the Soul's in Purgatory waiting to be saints, all Catholics can experience the peace and comfort about their departed loved ones the same way I do about mine. Believing without reservation that death is not the end of life but the beginning of a new one is truly a wonderful thing.    

                            ©Copyright Larry Peterson 2016 All Rights Reserved

Meet "The Doorkeeper", Solanus Casey, The Man with No Ego

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

Venerable Solanus Casey, "The Doorkeeper"

The 2016 election (more than a year away) has already worn me down. The pundits include the greatest thinkers of our time. I know this because virtually all of the TV and radio commentators, campaign officials, editorial writers, government officials, TV talk show hosts, comedians and, of course the candidates are always saying , “I THINK…this" or I THINK …that.” Those folks sure do a lot of thinking. And I know it must be important thinking because the ones doing all the thinking are doing it on TV, radio, in print  or somewhere in cyber-land. It MUST be important, right? Wrong!

They are all experts in everything you can think of and, filled with their own sense of grandiosity, vilify, name call, and besmirch those with an opposing viewpoint or philosophy.They even attack their opponent's families. Then you hear the great Machiavellian disclaimer of, "Hey, that's politics". You know what, I have my own phrase for all of it, rude, obnoxious, self-gratified Egomania. I’m so over it.

I decided to begin a search for someone sans EGO. I was sure it would be almost next to impossible. But guess what, it was not.  We Catholics celebrate the great feast of All Saint’s Day on November 1. The saints are members of the Catholic Hall of Fame (I call it that). They are the best of the best, the crème de le crème, the most selfless of the unselfish. These are the people who loved God unconditionally and, in some cases, failed many times before they got it right. But they all invariably emptied themselves for others before they died, many times giving their lives in doing so.

Let me tell you about one of them who was a quiet, uncomplicated  man who never aspired to be anything more than a simple priest. His name was Bernard Francis Casey and his family and friends called him Barney. There are many guys and gals like Barney in our Catholic Hall of Fame and they, like Barney, were ‘ego-less’. This was not a birth defect. Their secret simply was knowing how to love God with all their mind, heart and soul. That led them to love others more than themselves. It was NEVER about them.

Barney was born in Oak Grove, Wisconsin back in 1870. He was the sixth of 16 kids of Irish immigrants. When Barney was a boy he contracted diptheria and it left him with a permanently raspy sounding voice. (Barney would never have qualified for American Idol). Barney felt the call to the priesthood but, at the age of 16, he hit a detour. He had to go to work to help the family and worked at jobs in Minnesota and Wisconsin as a lumberjack, a prison guard, a streetcar operator and a hospital orderly. 

Barney Casey always did whatever job he had to the best of his ability wanting to serve his God in all things. Five years later he was able to enter St. Francis High School seminary in Milwaukee. He spent five years there before being able to move on and join the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Upon his acceptance he took the name of Solanus after St. Francis Solanus, a 17th century missionary.

Solanus Casey was finally ordained a priest at the age of 33. He had to study extremely hard to reach that goal and when he was finally ordained he was given the title "Sacerdos Simplex" which means "simple priest". This meant he was not permitted to preach or to hear confessions. He never complained and took joy in just being a "simple priest".

Father Solanus Casey's lived in Detroit and his main job at the monastery was that of "doorkeeper". Father Casey, wanting to the absolute best at whatever God chose for him, became the finest doorkeeper that ever lived. He did this for well over 20 years and also became known for his service to the sick and the advice and consultations he would have with visitors. People began attributing cures and other blessings to his interaction with them or others.

Father Solanus Casey, a man who opened and closed doors for people. A man who had no ego and was happy to serve God in the simplest of ways. A man who, because miracles have been attributed to his intercession, was declared "Venerable" by Pope John Paul II in 1995. This is the first step toward canonization as a saint. Father Solanus Casey died in 1957.

Father Casey is the first man born in the USA to be on the road to full sainthood. And all he did was humbly and happily open doors for people and talk to them if they wanted. A Catholic Hall of Famer for sure and quite the contrast to the gaggle of egotists that bombard us daily with their "I think" wisdom. Solanus (Barney) Casey has re-charged me. It might be nice if all of today’s bloviating pundits could hear or read his story.

                                      ©Larry Peterson 2015 All Rights Reserved

All Saint's Day: Never Forget that Our Christian Roots are Embedded in Judaism

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

My father has been dead for many years but he is still teaching me how to be  Catholic. He is doing this by living in my mind via memories of his personal Christianity in action.  The Feast of All Saint's Day flips a switch that turns on one of these memories. That is also when I began to embrace the fact that the vast majority of the first Catholics were born and raised Jewish .

I remember that Friday night long ago. We lived in the south Bronx in a five story walk-up on Sherman Ave. There were eight of us in a four room apartment and we never even considered that it was small and cramped. The neighborhood was the same for all families except for those living up on the upscale Grand Concourse. That's where the "money" people lived in buildings with courtyards and sometimes the courtyards even had fish ponds in the middle.

It was still September and  summer had not yet left. Back then no-one had air-conditioning and everyone kept their windows open praying for a breeze. The screaming started a little past midnight. It filled the back alleyway and floated unmercifully upward and into the open windows. Our apartment was directly above the window from where the screams were coming and on this night they seemed exceptionally close and  blood-curdling. Pop got up and my brother, Danny, whispered from his bed, "I think he's going down there."

We watched as Pop left our apartment and headed down the stairs. We followed and quietly sat on the upper landing stretching our necks so our heads would make a right-angle turn to see down and around the landing below. We watched our father, who without hesitation, walked over to the apartment door and began banging on it with his fist. This was the apartment of Leo and Sophie Rabinowitz. Leo was the landlord and he owned the building. No one dared complain to the landlord about noise coming from his apartment even if it was about midnight screams that curled the hairs on your neck. But Pop was not going down to complain. He was going to see if he could help. He had this way about him and sometimes he was uncommonly instinctive.

The door opened and Leo poked his head out. Pop started talking to him and, incredibly, Leo just stood there listening. The man was short, maybe 5'2", he had a droopy mustache that needed tending and his sagging shoulders said he was obviously worn out. He held a pipe off to the side of his head and his face seemed to be saying, "Please help me." Pop continued talking for a minute or so and suddenly Leo Rabinowitz, the "feared" Jewish landlord, buried his head in my father's chest and began crying unashamedly. Danny and I were stunned. Then Pop, his arm around Leo's shoulder, disappeared into Leo's apartment.

We both went back into our apartment and lay there conjecturing away at all the possibilities that may have caused this unexpected union between a landlord and tenant, a Jewish man and a Catholic man, between two people who were neighbors but were not really except for location and who had nothing in common. Within fifteen minutes Bobby, Johnny and Carolyn had joined Danny and myself in the conversation and by the time our  five imaginations extrapolated each other's ideas, we "knew"  that Leo Rabinowitz was a communist spy and he had somehow killed our father and disposed of his dismembered body in the coal furnace down in the basement.

As we plotted our course of action Pop came back into our apartment. It had been a few hours, or at least it seemed that way. Pop just walked through our bedroom and headed to the back room moving ever so slowly. When he paused by his workbench he sat on the stool, lowered his head into his upraised fingers, took in a deep breath and sighed. Then, ever so quietly, he pulled his beads from his pocket and started praying the  rosary. None of us interrupted and I think we all just fell asleep.

We found out about those screams the next morning. Sophie was having nightmares all right, nightmares of her two boys, ages 12 and 9, being clubbed to death with rifle butts by the Nazis, who also  insisted that the boy's mom and dad watch as they killed their sons. To this day I cannot imagine what those moments in their lives were like. They were loving parents and were rendered helpless as godless people murdered their children, enjoying inflicting their heinous butchery on innocents. The ultimate torture distributed by the Nazis was allowing Leo and Sophie to watch. Sophie's screams told that story night after night, year after year after year. How ghastly and cruel those memories had to be.

All Saint's Day is celebrated on November 1. The gospel reading for the day is from Matthew 5:1-12, The Beatitudes. When the priest reads them the switch will flip and I will go back to that Friday once again. It always happens. I hear #2,  "Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted"; then #5, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy"; and #7, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."

Pop lived all three of those Beatitudes that Friday night long ago. He mourned with his Jewish neighbors, he was merciful to them and he brought a sense of peace into their lives. My gift was being able to remember how a Catholic man reached out to his Jewish neighbors and how they became friends. I also remember that because of that friendship Leo and Sophie Rabinowitz became friends with other folks in the building and in the neighborhood.

My final lesson in all of this was when Pop told me to get out my missal and read the Roman Canon. I did and began reading., silently. "Out loud", he said. I paused for a moment and looked at him. He said, "Just do it."

I did until I got to the part that read, "whose memory we venerate, especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary---,and blessed Joseph, her spouse---", etc. "Okay, stop," he said. "Tell me about all those people."

"What about them?" I don't understand."

"Never ever forget that most all of them were Jewish, including Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Our roots are deeply embedded in Judaism. We Catholic/Christians and Jews are joined at the spiritual hip "in perpetuity. Leo and Sophie Rabinowitz are our brother and sister too. Never forget that."

I never forgot.