I’m not
normally one to join in processions or demonstrations of any kind; but a silent
procession, albeit with readings and proscribed singing, is the sort I can
allow for myself. A public witness of perhaps a couple of hundred people,
including many young parents bearing along and escorted by their many very young children. Led by a simple wooden cross and an escort of two cruisers with
officers of the St. Paul police, to keep intersections open for our passing.
Some members of the community mobilized a simple sound system for the readings
and the singing, and kept it efficiently in front of everyone, ready to go at
each stop. As I mentioned, the first stop was at the state capital, as
progressive a shrine in St. Paul as anywhere; here from Fr. Giussani’s
reflection we heard: “Salvation is a gift, it is not something we search for,
and there is nothing we can do to receive it. Salvation has a name: Christ.”
The Archbishop stood among us, listening and then singing. And here was read
from St. John’s gospel the account of the arrest of Jesus. “‘Whom are you
looking for?’ They answered him, ‘Jesus the Nazorean.’ He said to them ‘I AM.’”
The next station was Peter’s Denial, read outside of St. Louis King of France Church, with the light rail ding ding dinging nearby. “‘Didn’t I see you in the Garden with him?’ Again, Peter denied it.” From Fr. Giussani: “That is the pain of your cross: you came to walk with us and we leave you alone.” From there it was on to Rice Park with the bronze girl in the fountain, and the Peanuts characters with their round heads so absurdly cast in bronze, and the cultural institutions of the city all around; the blank steel and glass of the Ordway theater, the castle-like Landmark Center, and the neo classical James J. Hill Library. “Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” Said it to Jesus, to the truth itself; and tried, without effect, to release him. “God” Fr. Giussani notes, “who came among men goes to the scaffold: defeated, a failure; a moment, a day, three days of nothingness, in which everything is finished.”
The next station was Peter’s Denial, read outside of St. Louis King of France Church, with the light rail ding ding dinging nearby. “‘Didn’t I see you in the Garden with him?’ Again, Peter denied it.” From Fr. Giussani: “That is the pain of your cross: you came to walk with us and we leave you alone.” From there it was on to Rice Park with the bronze girl in the fountain, and the Peanuts characters with their round heads so absurdly cast in bronze, and the cultural institutions of the city all around; the blank steel and glass of the Ordway theater, the castle-like Landmark Center, and the neo classical James J. Hill Library. “Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” Said it to Jesus, to the truth itself; and tried, without effect, to release him. “God” Fr. Giussani notes, “who came among men goes to the scaffold: defeated, a failure; a moment, a day, three days of nothingness, in which everything is finished.”
The 4th
stop was the Church of the Assumption, the oldest existing church building in the state of Minnesota (1874, one year older than our own St. Michael’s in Stillwater). The
station was of Jesus dying on the cross. Peguy wrote in his poem: “
“O
culminating cry everlastingly valid
As if even
God had sinned like us.
Committing
the greatest sin.
Which is to
despair.
The sin of
despair.
Louder than
the two thieves hanging beside him;
And who
howled at death like famished dogs.
The thieves
howled but a human howl;
The thieves
howled but a cry of human death.
Also they
slavered but human slaver;
The Just
One alone uttered the everlasting cry.
But why?
What was the matter with him?
The thieves
uttered but a human cry;
For they
knew but human distress;
They had
experienced but human distress.
He alone
could utter the superhuman cry;
He alone
then knew that superhuman distress.
That is why
the thieves uttered only a cry that was
quenched in
the night.
And he
uttered a cry that will sound forever,
eternally
forever, the cry that will eternally
never be quenched.”
never be quenched.”
“After
this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might
be fulfilled, Jesus said ‘I thirst.’ There was a vessel filled with common
wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to
his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ And bowing
his head, he handed over the spirit.”
Turning from here, the beaux art granite and copper dome of the Cathedral rose above us under a pale, swept sky. We returned to the east facade of the Cathedral. There was a final song from the choir. Then we went inside for the evening
service of the Adoration of the Cross.
I recalled
serving as an altar boy, over fifty years ago. With one hand I held up one
cross arm of a large crucifix, and with the other a clean white cloth, with
which I wiped the corpus after the people kissed it. The sun came in through
the stained-glass windows and threw unexpected tints on everything; the pews,
the somber colored clothes of the worshippers, the wrinkled hands of the old.
One elderly woman approached, rather heavy and swaying a little from side to
side; she made a great effort to get down on one knee, a real struggle, and
some nearby extended their hands to help steady her. Once she got down, she kissed the feet of
the corpus. Then she struggled up again, and made her way back to her seat, like a
soldier who has just defeated his enemy, and it was just his job, just what he
was supposed to do. I wiped the red stain of her lipstick away, but I will
never forget her struggle to get down on one knee. It was the best homily I ever saw.
I thought
of that while we were in the Cathedral for the service, and for half a moment
thought how I would like to write about it all in an email to my mother,
because the whole afternoon was kind of a new experience, which you don't see so many of at my age, and she likes to hear about new things, and I am glad to have
something different to write to her about. But half a moment doesn’t last long,
and I remembered that she is gone, and I’m not sending her emails anymore.
A few pews
in front of us, one of those young families we accompanied in the procession prepared their pre school age children to walk up and approach the cross. And around them all the other hundreds, gathered together
under the vast dome, filing forward toward Golgotha.
[1] In the Catholic Church,
the term “Servant of God’ denotes a person being investigated by the Church for
canonization to sainthood.
[2] Fr. Luigi Giussani was
founder of the international group Communion and Liberation. He stressed that
for each person Christianity was essentially a relationship with Jesus, and
that the morals and theology of the Church all emerge from this relationship.
[3] Peguy (1873 – 1914) was a
French poet, essayist and editor. His thought was an unlikely blend of socialism
and Catholicism. He was killed on the western front in France at the beginning of the First Battle of the Marne in WWI.
All the scripture quotations are from the Gospel of
John.
This is really, beautiful, Peter! Thank you.
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