A FB Post by my dear, equally in charity, sentiment and spirit – Augustinian, Benedictine, Franciscan and Dominican – and quite brilliant friend, Pete “Buck” Sheridan, reminded me that in my once upon a Catholic life, today is the Feast of All Saints. I’m quite certain he has already remembered me in his prayers at, I’m guessing now, Saint Margaret Mary Church in Pearl River.
I love talking with Pete on the phone. Despite the Faustian depths of debauchery we may discuss during our conversations (after all, we are lawyers – the muggle world’s answer to Vampires), Pete ends all of our conversations with the benediction, “God bless!”
Pete has volunteered to remain my secret life-line to Mother Church, should I decide on a death bed leap into Admiral Pete’s Catholic life boat across the River Stix. I’ve been practicing Father Damien Karras, SJ,’s bottom of the stairs three finger Morse code just in case.
I always felt that this Holy Day’s compelled celebration through a mandated, school-wide, command performance morning mass back at St. Maggie’s in Riverdale was that glorious institution’s way of recapturing the children from their collective heathen excesses from the Halloween commemorations the night before. Get them back on their knees before God before the candy hangover dissipates. Really quite brilliant if you ask me.
As with other such Holy Days of Obligation, the boys in my class always fought to sit next to MB, whose conniption fits during mass were as regular and dependable as the swallows of Capistrano, which guaranteed the devotional two sitting in the pew immediately on either side, and MB himself, an early exit from the mass and a chance to stop for a quick cigarette on our way back to the school for the three amigos.
But my devout Bronx Irish Catholic (“BIC”) family in the generations above me took this Holy Day of Obligation very seriously, and all of them made it to their own masses before my knees ever touched a kneeler that day.
https://www.learnreligions.com/all-saints-day-holy-day-obligation-542408
As a creature of ritual, I can appreciate the desire and need of devout commemoration. My intention candles are the direct descendants of the racks of votive candles I regularly lit (after a mandatory monetary contribution for the poor) along the back-side walls and along the far sides of most communion rails throughout my youth.
And I really am glad that those rituals continue today. Because, despite my very lapsed membership, I really believe that my religious upbringing gave me a solid foundation in life. It made me, and my family, feel connected to something greater than ourselves. We were McCaffrey, then Irish, then Catholic.
So, I believe in churches, and temples, and mosques, that provide communities to allow individuals to not feel alone in a very cold world. They offer us structure, some rules and a belief system that we can hang onto during the difficult times. To get us through all the shit this world can hurl at us on a daily basis. To me, they function as training wheels until we learn to peddle that moral bicycle on our own.
But, as we can see around us today, in the wrong hands, those same institutions and foundations can be corrupted and used to pit us against one another. What works for one does not mean it works for all. Once you accept the “mine is better than yours” mentality, the shit starts. When it gets to “mine is the only way” mentality, all is lost.
Despite all the turmoil, I do continue to believe in an all loving creator, and my energy’s continued existence beyond this mortal coil. But I also believe we are not alone in this Galaxy. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
My omnipotent progenitor is far too complex, ungendered and perfect for the completely imperfect me to fully understand beyond the idea that the love I receive is resolutely unconditional, unjudgmental, and free of anger for my many and repeated failures. After all, as the wise fictional character Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire once counseled, “You can’t put in what God left out.”
And my view of the world has all forms of magic in it.
But, I also believe that throughout history this world has hosted many saintly people who practiced such selflessness and charity and raised their respective application of the Golden Rule and Samaritan practices to such an intense level that they deserve to be recognized and commemorated.
We should give them this day.
But more than that, we should try to emulate them in our own little corners the of the world. A kind word, a hug, a bit of charity, can still go a long way.
Practice what we preach.
But enough preaching, I need to get my imperfect day started.
First, some kitty cuddles and my rounds.
You fine, five readers get your skates on and attack the hump. It’s always fun on the far side of the hill.
Wave to Friday at its peak.
Whatever else we do, let us make today a great one.
And if you are lucky enough to get an opportunity to reach out and help another,
in even the smallest way, then your God will appreciate it.
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“Our” St. Margaret in Pearl River is St. Margaret of Antioch, but Margaret Mary works fine, too! This Halloween/All Saints/All Souls “tri-liday” is our annual reminder that we are earth-based – but not earthbound. We are inextricably bound to the old “communion of saints” and the “blessed union of souls” by the grace of God – and it is so good to be mindful of that – diabetic candy-comas notwithstanding!
And now you know why I keep Brother Peter on retainer. Just in case I can’t figure out how to live forever, or maybe just repeatedly in upgraded bodies, I will need Petey to slip the appropriate indulgences to the right people in the Catholic hierarchy to get my BIC Union card retroactively stamped.