For at least fifteen hundred years before the attack on Pearl Harbor the date, December 7, was not associated with the phrase “a day that will live in infamy.”  I did not see it that way yesterday, and doubt that I may ever think of it entirely in that way in the future.

You are entitled to wonder why.  I will try to enlighten you.

It has to do with something about my Catholic faith.  You see, we Catholics live ( or ought to live) with our heads (and hearts?) in two worlds, or maybe three, and it is sometimes hard to give pride of place on some days to what the rest of the world may have decided is right and proper for the day’s place in our minds and lives.  For a common instance one need only observe what is happening to Christmas these days, or the difference between what the “world” feels about New Year’s Day and what Holy Church has to say about the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.

Well, on December 7, we are invited to celebrate the Feast of Saint Ambrose of Milan, a Bishop and Doctor (that is, a teacher) of the Church.  I am coming more and more to love the way that the “Ferial Calendar” presents for our attention throughout the year the lives of these men and women of grace and virtue, and encourages us to think of them, ponder their lives and pattern them, with the help of God, after their examples.  Not only that, we are enthusiastically encouraged to  enlist their aid in continuing to intercede for us  before God and to support us on our way to Him.  This is, to be sure, anachronistic if not mad behavior to many on the part of a diminishing number of people.

Be that as it may.  It is, I think, something which should be more common in our lives.  The men and women who are looked to today as patterns for the most part combine in their example a dismal mixture of pride, shallowness of character and willingness to compromise truth for immediate personal gain.  Think for a second of any politician, any “world leader”, any popular athlete, celebrity or such-like and try to argue against the point.

Ambrose, I believe, is the kind of man who would know, almost to the point of sadness, what I am speaking about.  The son of a Roman official, he was appointed to govern a Roman Province with his headquarters in Milan. When the bishop of the place, an Arian heretic and much disliked by the orthodox believers died a disagreement broke out in the cathedral among those gathered to choose a new bishop.  Ambrose as governor came to the place and spoke to the crowd words of reconciliation.  At the time he was a “catechumen”, someone on his way to full membership in the Catholic church, a process which could take years…then.

Someone shouted, “Ambrose for bishop!”  The cry was taken up by everyone who saw in him someone who was both popular and able.  He fled, and only allowed himself to be installed when the Emperor sided with everyone else.  But, he had to be baptized first.

Upon assuming his office, he disposed of all his wealth and possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor.  As regards that, he once said that the rich had an obligation to share their wealth with the poor, since the poor had as much right to it as they.  It wasn’t charity.  It was paying a debt owed them.

Like a much later fellow, Thomas a’Becket, who was a government official before he became a bishop, Ambrose had his difficulties with civil powers making demands.  Though he didn’t suffer martyrdom, he was quite ready to do so.  On one occasion, the army of the emperor surrounded his cathedral and demanded that he and all within it come out.  He refused, and instead had the congregation begin to sing hymns, alternating stanzas between one side of the church and another.  Soon the soldiers outside joined them, and all ended peacefully.

This is said by some to be the beginning of  liturgical singing in Catholic churches.

On another occasion, the emperor Theodosius the Great was brought to his knees by Ambrose.  Theodosius had massacred 7,000 people after an uprising of some sort.  Ambrose refused to allow him inside a church, refused him the sacraments, until he performed public penance for several months.  He excommunicated the man quite publicly.  Imagine!

Ambrose orders the Emperor Theodosius out of town

The painting to the right hangs in the Chicago Art Institute and tells the story well of the kind of fellow Ambrose was.  Theodosius, after all, had done him a big favor, ordering the Empire to become orthodox and forget about Arianism.  Still, Ambrose was adamant.  Even his friends, even the most powerful man in his world, weren’t above being publicly humiliated and made to do penance.  Ambrose wasn’t concerned a bit, one thinks, about power.  His primary goal was the soul of the man and saving it for God.  And, Theodosius listened.  Maybe that’s a good part of the reason why he’s called to this day Theodosius the Great.

I’m no art critic, but when I saw this painting a few weeks ago I knew I was in the presence of a great and good man, one who it would be wise to stay on the good side of.  Even the Emperor pleads, as seems evident to me in this work.  Incidentally, the story has a happy ending.  Theodosius did as he was told (like King David) and the two of them became friends;  to the point that Ambrose delivered a panegyric for his friend the dead Emperor , “De Obitu Theodosii”, in which he says, “I loved him and am confident that the Lord will hearken to the prayer I send up for his pious soul.”

Would that Henry II had paid as much attention to his bishop, or for that matter, Patrick Kennedy and others today.  They might have learned, and might yet learn the lesson of true love.

Ambrose will certainly understand when I say that we live in days of infamy, now.  He knew much the same thing, but did his best to change them.  May his memory inspire us to the same kind of love and devotion to Truth as he had, and his prayers for us all bear fruit.  For this alone he is a man for this season, our time.

Get ready:

“We believe in law and the rule of law. We recognize an obligation to comply with laws, whether we like them or not. That obligation is defeasible, however. Gravely unjust laws, and especially laws that seek to compel people to do things that are unjust, do not bind in conscience. Certainly, one must never perform a gravely unjust act, even when “following orders” or compelled by law. Christians believe — and they are far from alone in this — that one must be prepared to pay a price, sometimes a very high price indeed, for refusing to do what one’s conscience tells one is wrong. Socrates, as presented by his disciple Plato, stunned his interlocutors by saying that if one is faced with the options of doing a wrong or suffering one, it is better to suffer a wrong. That’s the teaching of Christianity, too. So if legislation is enacted that compels obstetricians and gynecologists to participate in abortions or refer for them, Christians and other pro-life men and women who practice in those fields of medicine will find themselves faced with the options of doing what they judge in conscience to be gravely unjust or abandoning their careers. Their obligation will be to abandon their careers. By the same token, if legislation is enacted to compel Catholic hospitals and clinics, for example, to provide abortion services or refer for abortions, those institutions could face the options of doing what the Church teaches is profoundly wrong or going out of business. Their obligation will be to go out of business. Of course, this would be a tragedy, especially since these institutions do such wonderful work in providing health care to the poor. But the legal imposition will leave them no choice”

Here’s the thing.  The guy who said that also helped to write something called The Manhattan Declaration.  His name is Robert George and he’s a professor of law and something called jurisprudence, I think, at Princeton University.  Another guy named Peter Singer is also a professor down there at Princeton.  He teaches young people that killing human beings is not only good, but necessary for them and us on some occasions, even if all they are doing is living…or trying to…especially if they are trying to start living or just continue living.

Tenure.  Go figure.

Not too long ago we called such folks Nazis, or Stalinists, or Maoists.  Now we call them utilitarians.  Peter Singer is a utilitarian philosopher.  That’s someone who figures that what works, works, and what doesn’t work, or probably won’t,  isn’t worth keeping; things, people, what have you.  Get rid of it and them, whether or not”them” wants to be gotten rid of.  Some utilitarians are also ethicists.  An ethicist is a new thing, really.  They started to come around when we got rid of the Natural Law, any sense of right or wrong and morals.

Now we have ethicists to tell us that it’s really OK to do whatever we want; as long as we do it in the right way.  So, it’s ethical to marry your neighbor’s turtle, or George if your name is Henry, and it’s ethical to kill your kids if you decide they won’t have a happy life, and it’s ethical to do the same thing to Mommy when all of her stuff stops working…and she can’t work either.  Not only is that ethical, it’s utilitarian, as in Professor Singer type utilitarian.

But, it’s not ethical to tell someone that some stuff they think is right or fun to do is wrong or nasty.  And, it’s very not ethical to go, “EEEEEWWWW, that’s disgusting!”  That could make someone feel sad when everyone is supposed to feel happy about being ethical and fulfilled.

Peter Singer, incidentally, did not follow his own advice when his Mommy got old and feeble, and most of her parts stopped working.  He didn’t think she would be better off after the Kool Aid, and so, Mom got to live.  Sometimes, utilitarians like Professor Singer, display remarkably human-like sentiments.  One might be fooled into thinking they had souls.  Which, of course, they do.  But don’t tell that to a “Utili”.  That might not be ethical.

I digress.  But, I like digressions.  It’s not ethical.  Nor, is it tolerant.

Back to the quote and the Manhattan Declaration.  You should read it, and maybe sign the thing.  It’s worth reading, and certainly worth signing.  You’d have company, you know.  About 200,000 folks have done so already, and the number is growing.  They are folks who think three things.

First, they think that human life is a big deal, something to be protected and honored and, not to put too fine a point on it, something that is sacred.  That means that the rest of us don’t have the right either to tell anyone they can’t keep on living, or won’t get to live, nor to do anything to prevent someone from living…certain Congressmen/women and Senators notwithstanding.

Second, they think that marriage is something that only one man and one woman can undertake, not various arrangements currently in vogue, or anticipated, between/among members of the same sex, or different species.  Again, certain Congressmen/women and Senators notwithstanding.

Third, they think that every one of us has the right..and the duty…to be guided by a well formed conscience in matters which will affect someone’s living well and happily, getting to live that way, or continuing to live that way.  So that, if you work in a place that decides it’s just fine to “put down” Aunt Sarah, and wants you to help hold the pillow over her face, you don’t have to if you don’t think that’s “ethical” or “tolerant”; if you’re conscientiously opposed to “offing” old ladies.

The other side of this coin is the kick back.  Because, you know, there will be one.  Folks who have been getting away with murder, literally, don’t like other folks pointing this out to them, is what’s behind Dr. George’s little statement above.  Folks who, deep down, know in their guts that what they are saying is just fine and dandy is in fact terribly wrong, and what they are doing is what everyone should be allowed to do is inteinsically evil, don’t take kindly to other folks saying, “No, thank you, Dave.  I think you and Marris the Cat aren’t ever going to make good adoptive parents.  It’s not only wrong, it’s damnably wrong.”

They’re going to, well, throw a fit.  Dare I call it a hissy fit?  And they’re going to want to get even, and more than even.  For instance number one: Look at what’s happening in California, especially San Francisco after the folks there voted down same sex marriage in passing Proposition 8.  The Mormons got trashed and now, in San Francisco, the city wants to ding the Catholic Church for about $16 million in a phony real estate transfer tax scam.

In St. Louis, there will be demonstrations every Sunday outside the Carhedral by “Gay marriage” groups who object to thearch diocese contributing $10,000.00 to the campaign to defeat a gay marriage law in Maine.

Over here, in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, alla the Democratic candidates for the seat vacated by The Lion of the Senate’s untimely death (Wonder what Dr. Singer would have to say about that.) are playing “Can You Top This”  in their rush to condemn the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, RI, for telling Congressman Patrick Kennedy he is quite simply wrong and ought to learn what being a Catholic means.

It’ll get worse, you know.  But time has come, I think, to get into the ring, to as the saying goes, “Cowboy up.”

Other folks put it more stylishly two hundred and some years ago as I mention in the title of this piece.

A useful paraphrase might be…  It is time pledge your eternal life, your soul and your sacred faith.  Can I get a witness?

Try googling “The Manhattan Declaration” and becoming one.

DANCING IN THE AFTERNOON

Is it in Haiti or in the Darfur
where the living most envy the dead;
While somewhere north of Nowhere
they gather and connect,
Prime Ministers and Presidents,
actors and actresses,
To consider whether or not it is wise
based on the evidence of our best scientists
to allow us to continue, lest this become very soon
a place one would wish it had not;
And what shall be done,
now that we are certain,
at all about that?

Is it in the greenest valley or on
snow swept highest peak
where these wanderers and these seekers
may most profitably seek;
While still on the broad avenues of commerce,
or within the tapestry and portrait hung halls
The mighty and the merry begin dancing in the afternoon?

Outside the sun sets red in the dying West
As chandeliers of a thousand candles are inside lit.
The guests, Presidents and Princesses,
Madonnas and their cameras, smiling stand
For one last photograph before the conductor’s hand,
Raised since time long ago began,
For the introductory chord descends.
_____________________________

Then may they all… the waterless and the well fed…
Hand in hand with the well rested happy dead
In time and time and time around the room
Complete their dancing in the afternoon.

 

Now the sun is finally up,
Night’s comfort lifted
Dawn’s gentleness, too, is gone
Pastels and prettiness flown
Away with a song bird’s chorus.

As if in the wings awaiting
An overture’s expectant end
Day hesitates in stillness
While the moment is hung
And soundless gone

Then bold light blows across dreams
Like wind across slow streams
Moving urgency and life.
Morning opens like the Great Gate of Kiev
Inviting all to wake, walk, love and live!

peg 11/26/09

This mad man Schumann has me by the throat
And he doesn’t seem to want to let me go.

I know as much about music as a horse
knows about mathematics, probably less
since some horses count, others dance
like the one I saw on “Your Show of Shows”
one Sunday night fifty or more years ago.

But, I feel Schumann’s thumb on my carotid pulse,
His long fingers meeting at the back of my neck;
Long enough to span two octaves they said.
This is no simple caress!

He whispers, “Play this!”
And presses a shivering chord down my neck.
But, I can only listen.
“Listen then,” he says, “And I will be neither
Mad nor dead.”

(For Kathy)

The arms of oak are bare at last
Their subtle leaves fallen to the ground
Atop lawn’s late brilliant green.  Brown
They lie.  Still.  Brutal, Autumn rain blasts
Through the bare dark woods, black
Trunks, blacker shadows down
Where leaves no longer move,
But rest, and resting, wait for what?
There will be no resurrection for these.
Futile are the prayers of trees.

Could they not have plead
The season and the time,
As time with lack of feeling fled,
To stay, please, some little while
And allow, with all the grace of years
Since gone, some moments more
Upon their separate limbs to display
The muted baritones and bass
Of this season’s beauty’s symphony?

But no, they fell, and skies are swept
And bare trees sway as storms weep
The closing movement of the year
While one lone maple stands there
Nearly naked in the afternoon
And one old man sits in its fallen blood.

Before The Dance Begins

It is the day after the last day in October.
All but few oak leaves from height have fallen.
Scattered. Gathered in groups and companies;
As children may among gardens and lawns.
I will sit and sift among my memories
While wind’s twist whips dead leaves into blur.

But that October’s thirty one days are gone

I cannot think why I should begin.

I close my eyes to prevent the outside’s
Presence, its insinuous intrusion,
Should dancing leaves seduce with windy
Intricacies and cause me to hide
From some shuddering memory.

Is this the reason for rising from my bed?
To sort my mind’s blue moments dressed
Already, rounded, wrapped in haze like hills
Passed yesterday, seen again with regret?
The reason, yes, to have risen-
And moved into another room?

To find the door unopened was no surprise.
To know if it was the way in or out
I could not say with certainty.

A cold breeze, a brief rain breaks
Across meadow and woods beyond
Besieging day and bringing doubt.

Where do the secrets lay among
The blue heaps of memory
All of them laid about
And all of them mine?

I see the saint’s and sinner’s eye within
Reflected, clear as virtue cold as sin,
Regarding me regarding them more or less
And all is I.  The things that I have done,
The people whom I have done with pass
In truth, seen reluctantly or full of joy
While rain beats incessantly outside.

Still, the naked trees weep leaves no more.
Their bright tears litter lawns and woodland’s floor.
I sigh in recollection now and clearly see
The high sun awake and full inside me.

The sun, original of my early days
No storm could darken long,
Spreading light like syrup
Over old blue hills now leafed in gold
Has returned, is strong.

I wished some to stay and so thought I’d choose
Which were worth affection and which respect
Which to keep within and which to cut loose.
I found something different. Now think no less
Of one than of them all, nor more of all
Than one.  They are each forever mine
Who in light’s bright truth knows he should not try
To keep particular quantities of time
In reverence aside for pleasant recall
But own what is my own
And love what love has shown.

This is a day then of recognition
Not of regret nor any part of it.
I will get up from my recollection
And join the throng who sing,
Whose voices in truth eternally ring
Before the throne where both love and truth sit,
Praising Him from whom all mercy flows:
“Gaudeamus omnes in Domino!”

I looked up at the sky as I walked out to the car.  Cloud islands were underlit by the just risen sun. Shades of rose and gold colored them and I imagined myself actually looking down on a strange landscape from a great height, another place; looking down on the hills and plains of these islands slowly moving by surrounded by a powder blue sea.  Away in the distance a fanfare of coppery golden light announced the sun’s actual arrival.  As Mariellen and I got into the car and drove off to meet the young student we take to school each morning I thought it would be the same kind of day it was ten years ago; the same kind of peaceful warm day.

The previous night Mariellen, whose presence in my life is such a blessing, had mentioned that the next day would be the tenth anniversary of Sheila’s “graduation”.  I thought then how much the two of them are alike.  If it had been the other way round, the same reminder would have been made, the same charity shown, the same care taken.

I remember that day.  I awoke from a brief sleep on the floor beside the couch where Sheila had spent almost all of her time the previous three months.  She still slept so I gathered the cushions I had been sleeping on and returned them to the couch in the living room, ran upstairs and took a shower, dressed and came down to find her awake.

Would she eat something, I wondered?  Tea was all she wanted.  I brought her tea and some toast, a piece of an apple.

She sipped the tea.  For possibly the hundredth time she accepted a small bit of toast, a bite of the apple and weakly waved away the rest of the meager meal, smiling that she would try again later, but I should leave the tea.  It was as it had been for years rich, black, strong Irish tea.  It would grow cold waiting for her next sip.

Outside the day got on.  It seemed as if summer had returned, bright and sweet as a morning should be.  It would be a fine day.  I opened windows to let in the sounds of birds flying by on their morning rounds, the odd dog barking at the kids off to school.  I had my own cup of tea in the chair nearby in the little room where we both had lived while we waited for Sheila to die.

Ten days before she’d come home from the hospital where she almost had died and then, miraculously I had thought, rallied.  For about a week she had returned to me with all her wit and spirit intact.  In spite of all the other evidence in front of me this gave me reason to hope.  I didn’t dare hope for the great miracle of a complete cure.  Even thinking about that made me fear presumption’s sin.  Could God do that for me?  I didn’t dare to wonder, or plead.  But I did wonder and hope that God would let her see Christmas and the new year, the new century; let us see it together.

The other hopes, of trips back to Ireland, visits and vacations together, simple days growing old, these things I’d put away with less and less regret as their time came to be let go of.  I remembered the day in the office of Dr. Baker, she so very sick from and tired of her latest chemotherapy.  “Can I just stop,” she had asked me.  I had wondered about that question for a few weeks, and what would be my reaction to it.  “I want to stop.  I am tired of this,” she continued.

We hear so much about “fighting” the disease, and about maintaining a positive attitude.  How grim I think, now.  Sheila’s attitude had always been to ignore the fact until she had a symptom; to live in the meantime as if there were no such thing as cancer.  Now she would die that way.

“I don’t have cancer,” I answered, “and I can’t tell you what to do.  I know what I would like.  If you stop and wait I’ll wait too.”  We went home to begin waiting.  And that simply meant continuing to live quietly together as she went about the business of getting me ready for her death.  That was in July.

She took me around the house that first week and showed me how everything operated, the stove and oven, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer; instructing me to put the colored wash in first so as not to get bleach stains on them.  She showed me when and how ro do the bills, and sat with me as I took care of all those things she had been taking care of for the past thirty or so years.  As usual, she was living for me, and making sure that I would live as well when she wasn’t there to help.

Each night I said good night, kissing her as she lay on the couch in the family room watching some old movie, and going up to our bedroom.  The couch was the only place where she was comfortable.  I’d become very good at arranging pillows and cushions for her so she was at her ease; so there was no pain from the tumors on her spine.

I slept alone, with an intercom on so she could call me when she needed me in the night.  A lot of the time I lay awake listening to her labored breathing remembering how we’d both listened to the children years ago breathing in the night.

In the beginning, up until mid-August she was still able to take care of herself for the most part.  But it soon became evident that she could not be left alone.  When I was not in the room, she became anxious.  I moved in, and our life became that room, mostly her sleeping and me watching; a long vigil.

Once a dy at about three in the afternoon, I would make her a martini and wheel her to the front door so she could sit and look outside while she darnk her drink and smoked a cigarette.  Occasionally we’d joke about the dangers of drinking and smoking in her very delicate condition.

There were no visitors.  Sheila was a very private person who once said, “I have enough friends.  If one of them dies I’ll think about getting another one.”  In keeping with her desire I told everyone that she was aware of and thankful for their concern and prayers, but she was, well, busy with dying and hoped they understood.

She did come out once in September for our grand children’s September birthdays.  She enjoyed the time spent and the children’s company.  I worried how much time the effort took away from the small amount she had left.  The doctor had said possibly three months back in July.  Two of them had almost gone by then.

Then her rally and my brief hopes after an overnight stay in the hospital because she could not breathe.  We had our last great time together “breathing the same air” as she liked to say, actually doing little else than being in each other’s presence.

Ten days after that stay she died.  The children, Jeanne and Andrew, were there as we sat with her for the last hours, she and I together on the couch which had been her “home”.  As the hours wore on I felt her grow increasingly more cold, her breathing more labored.  The hospice nurse told us she would die that day.  Her cold arms and legs were a sign, her labored breathing.  “Try to make her as comfortable as possible.  Help her to breathe.”

So I sat her up and put my arm behind her head.  And we stayed together for six hours, quietly.  I moistened her lips from time to time and wet her mouth with a sponge.

Finally her breathing grew easier, it seemed, slighter, softer, calmer.  It stopped.  I waited for the space of a breath or two and then asked Jeanne to tell me what time it was.  She looked at the clock in the kitchen and said it was 10:47pm.  I laid Sheila down on the couch and stood looking around me at the room wondering how close she was to us, how far she might have gone, saying goodbye and wishing her safe journey home.

Then I gathered the children in my arms and said a prayer telling them that the best part of the family had gone.

It had been thirty four years, three months, eleven days, eleven hours and forty-seven minutes since we had promised to love one another.  Ten years on so much has changed, and nothing much has changed at all.

I will sit in the morning sunshine
And drink hot black tea.
I will sit and read translations
Of German poetry;
All the great prophets of Romance
Goethe, Schiller, Heine.
I have heard them set to music,
Listened now for years and have seen
“The moon lying on the clouds
Stretched on the harsh gray sea.”

“Shall we go out and pray?”
A gentle question is put softly to me
Gentle as a mist rising from the warming sea.

We sit in choir on a little height.
We sit on mere planks, more descending
To the pebbled sand, quiet water,
Spread below receiving day’s first light,
Open books and begin.

A Mantle of Brilliance on the Surface of the Sea

“O, Lord, open my lips,”
From the line between earth and heaven
“And my mouth will declare your praise.”
To the salt sprayed sand below
“As it was before,”
Light has thrown a mantle of brilliance
“So now,”
On the surface of the sea
“And evermore.”
Flashing like snow on Mount Zalmon.
“Glory to the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
This living light washes over me.

We obey the cadence of the day
Continue with each strophe, each song,
Followed by a breath, break, sigh,
Selah at once assent and good bye.
Just so long we linger, living in between
The beautiful music continuing
While the mantle off the mountain lifts,
And snow melts on the surface of the sea,
And the moon when it appears
Is a thing of glory, not of tears.

Father Richard Kelley,our pastor, left September 26th for Ars in France, the little town where St. Jean-Marie Vianney, more popularly know as the Cure d’Ars, had his church and worked his work among the good people who came from all around to see and hear him.  I have read The Diary of A Country Priest, the novel by Bernanos about a good French priest, of which some say the main character is based in part on the life of St. Jean Vianney.  I don’t know about that at all, and wouldn’t venture a guess.  Nonetheless, reading that book is well worth the effort!   Deliberately learning about this saint’s life seems to me even more worth while.

Certainly, learning about Vianney’s family life — his childhood, the role his mother and father played in forming him, introducing him to the faith, and encouraging his growth in the knowledge of God, our Mother Mary –  the life of simple love that he led while in their care is, in the best sense of the words, edifying and educational.  (That’s a big sentence, and I hope all the effort I put into building it will bear fruit.  It will, I guess, if a few of you who read it are prompted to do as the saint’s parents did!)

I remember my own growing up with not a little tender affection for my parents who were, at least in my early years, concerned to show me a living faith.  Even so, learning how the Vianney family lived, and the kind of attention and affection he received from his parents made me wish my own childhood could have been more like that.  More to the point, it made me wish I could have been the kind of parent his parents were.

Despite what St. Jean-Marie learned so easily and naturally from the loving example of his parents, anyone who knows anything about the man chosen to be the patron saint of all priests knows that he was thought to be a bit of a slow learner, possibly below average in intelligence.  That’s the common perception.  And it is very true that he was on the edge scholastically during his seminary years  Many believed that he wouldn’t make it.

The facts of his life after ordination may somewhat belie that opinion, since the Cure d’Ars was sought out by people from all walks of life as a confessor and spiritual director.  One biographer explains it all by saying that Jean Vianney was so advanced in wisdom that it was hard for him to “study” those things he knew almost by nature, and harder still to bend a mind and heart so attuned to what he already so thoroughly knew, to the dryness of academics.  Whatever the explanation, his slowness in the classroom frustrated the folks who had to teach him there things they thought necessary.

And, I suspect, his academic slowness must have frustrated the saint himself whose mind and soul were already well advanced in the knowledge of things that are vital to a lively and fruitful relation with God.  These would be things which are, somehow, learned before anyone begins to think a child is ready for teaching; while a child is judged to have too simple a mind for “real learning”.  Love and trust come to mind when I think what that kind of learning this might be, subjects which, it is said, cannot be taught.  (I wonder.)

Wonder makes me think of a few other “simple” saints, Ven. Solanus Casey being one of them.  St. Pio is another who comes to mind.  Nor should I forget such others as St. Francis of Assissi, Therese of Lisieux and Catherine of Siena (the latter two having been proclaimed Doctors (teachers) of the Church).

It makes me think finally of Jesus, who never took a class in anything that I know of, except what was taught him by His mother and St. Joseph.