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| From our Church Bulletin, April 2003 |
It is rare, even in my retirement, that I spend a whole day at home. But it has not been without some activity. I began to rummage for more stories of dad's buried, albeit neatly, at the bottom of my library shelves. Re-read some of his stories, to be placed on this blog soon, written circa 1948, when he attended New York University, on the G.I. Bill. One is quite moving, a battle scene during the war. That's the one I almost posted today. But then I found some memorabilia from the days my father was received into the Catholic Church, April 2003, when he was 85 years old.
I'd like to say that Dad's conversion story mirrored that of St. Paul. That would have made some of my older, more Charismatic movement friends, to kvell (I love that Yiddish word, which means to feel happy and proud). My now memory impaired elderly church friend Veronica used to take my father's hand with serious, compassionate intention and tell us how she was praying for him to join the Catholic Church. She was convinced of God's action in this direction. My prediction through the years was that there wasn't a chance in the world for my father to make a formal dive into Catholicism, or even back to his religion of origin, our close cousins the Greek Orthodox.
That's not to say Dad wasn't always respectful of the faith. And from an intellectual perspective, he knew about Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, Judaism, and for that matter, so that he could argue over what he perceived to be faulty translations of the Greek and Arabic with his youngest brother who was a member, the Jehovah's Witnesses. He was well known at my parish, St. Victor, for he often came to see me lector at the 12:15 (he had this odd idea that someone would discover my great voice talents in that venue), and, sharing a half Greek lineage with my then Pastor, George Parnassus, whose own father began in the Greek Orthodox Church, was rather adopted by my pastor as an older brother. He even called him "Tino", something that only Dad's father had done in years long past. And, after all, when my mother, a nominal Catholic herself, insisted that I be raised in the faith, he had not quibbled.
Dad was a part of St. Victor, but I always assumed that he would remain uncommitted on the periphery. My father was rarely impressed with even the most (in my view) stunning homily. I once angrily, and rather irreverently, said to dad that if Our Lord appeared right behind Monsignor during a homily, my father would remain skeptical. I mean, even St. Thomas didn't do that! And there had been others seeking my dad's conversion, way back, during my childhood. After all, did not our dear Mother Alphonsus, my fourth grade teacher, a dainty religious from British Guyana I seem to remember, send me home with rafts of Catholic newspapers for Dad to read?
In 1989, when he was set to have triple (which turned into quadruple) by-pass surgery, I noted with some dismay that Dad had identified himself as not having any religion on his hospital paperwork. I shared my distress with Fr. Parnassus, who told me to "leave him alone."
Thereafter, I left him alone, always with a twinge of irritation when he'd pronounce as he did about pretty much everything the need for a certainty in religion that simply could never be provided to him--or as I could not help but point out--to anyone--hence the nature of faith informed by reason.
He had been to many a dinner given by Monsignor Parnassus at the rectory--always ready with a challenge. I was always surprised with the kindness Monsignor responded to these challenges, because they were tinged with a "you can never convince me" tone. Monsignor would ordinarily take umbrage with people who challenged his authority, never mind the Magisterium and 2000 year history of the Church. But never with Dad.
And then one late night, Dad called me. I could tell he had been imbibing as he did with dinner.
He announced, "I'm thinking of becoming a Catholic." One could inquire until the cows came home over the genesis of any statement or decision of Dad's, but the best I could get was "I've been thinking about it for a long time. It'll make it easier for you."
Now, he never explained that latter statement, but knowing Dad, I also knew that his possible "conversion" was based in more practical concerns and, to be frank, though I was already well into middle age by then, parental ones. He was old and he wanted to make sure that when he "went" I would be able to bury him through the ministrations of my faith, a Catholic funeral and burial.
I promise you I am not being cynical. I am being realistic. But that does not divert from the "miracle" of the whole thing. It wasn't a burning bush. It wasn't getting cast off a horse by the Hand of God on the road to Damascus. But he got there. It's taken me a long time to realize that is miracle enough.
Dad had a proviso to the project. "I will only be instructed by Father Parnassus. If he doesn't agree, I won't do it." What was that about? Dad never liked group instruction and he wanted an intellectual experience, with someone whose educational credentials he had seen manifested in personal interactions. He also always liked Fr. Parnassus because he saw the human cracks in the priestly presentation. One imperfect human instructing another in the ideals of the faith. By this time, though, Fr. Parnassus was the retired pastor, succumbing slowly but surely to physical ailments.
So, I gave each man the other's number and my father dutifully took the bus for one on one instruction from my pastor. And then I was told by Monsignor, that after a first confession, he would be received at the Easter Vigil on April 19, 2003. I drove Dad to the rectory the afternoon of that Saturday reception, and waited outside for quite a long long time while Dad confessed the sins of his life.
The Easter Vigil Mass, and Dad's reception with a firm hug from Monsignor--these were two men for whom public affection was difficult, even shameful--was videoed by Len Speaks, who had known Dad since my college days. Thereafter, Dad joined me in a ministry. He became an usher at the 12:15. Very occasionally, I'd suggest he might want to attend some of the parish's devotions, but he demurred with the observation that he was probably as good a Catholic as anyone else by going to weekly Mass. He wasn't going to push it, and I wasn't going to make him. I wouldn't have known Dad without the concomitant cynicism or distrust of becoming too involved in that rather treacly thing called religion.
He always had a rather humble sense of himself in regard to his becoming Catholic. I think he thought he wasn't worthy of being Catholic. I tried to tell him that we are a Church of sinners and the whole thing is that none of us is worthy. The tenets of our faith are balm for our illness, the sickness unto death that began in the Garden of Eden, when we believed that we could grasp at being God ourselves, without Him.
But of course, we never really discussed it. Even inside the Church Dad was, as I once blurted out to him in frustration over his commentary on the "human race" as if he weren't one of us, acting like the "Stage Manager" from Our Town. We were at the airport coming back from the installation of Bishop George Niederauer as Bishop of Utah, and this invitation came to Dad BEFORE he became Catholic. I remember a nun chuckling over her book when I said this. Dad liked the idea that he was a little outside the world of the rest of us. That was his contradiction. Always he was unsure of himself, and feeling he wasn't good enough for anything. And yet always he seemed to stand outside, looking in, disdainfully longing to be part of it all.
It all happened, I think these days, as God intended. And it happened; there's a miracle in that, for my money. Dad died a Catholic. I believe that now, having pierced the Cloud of Unknowing, he is a part of a foursome I look to as my ordinary intercessors, who have seen the Face of God. Dad, my mother, Fr. Parnassus and Bill. Only one of them was sure of God's Benevolence, and even he, the priest, I imagine had his doubts. But now everyone is certain. I hope to experience that same certainty. I have faith, at least today, that I will. I know that I am grateful my mother and my father decided I would carry the Faith for them until they could embrace its fruits themselves, which surely they have.
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