My Literature of Accompaniment

On September 23, 2015, I scrawled in my journal: 

Books completed so far since moving: 

1. H is for Hawk 

2. This Year in Jerusalem 

3. After Many Days

And since then, I have not stopped counting. I know people who read far more than I do, and others who read far less. But as the pandemic has given me more time to do one of the things I love most - disappear into a good story - I realized I was near a whole number and set myself a goal: 60 books by the end of August, my Philadelphia residency anniversary. Sixty books in five years would average a book a month, which, in my humble opinion, is awfully respectable. Seven books and over 28,000 cases of COVID-19 later, I reached my goal a month early. 

Catholic Complicity

As we stood in the midst of a memorial listing every name of every enslaved child who died at Whitney Plantation, I was awestruck. “How do we know their names?” someone asked our guide. “Baptismal records,” she answered. In Catholic Louisiana, every enslaved child had to be baptized, and so every child had a documented name. Beyond that, not much more information was known, just life and death. My mind was racing. How could the church have recognized humanity enough to save a soul, but not enough to save the body? How could they let this happen? The complicity of Catholicism in the institution and perpetuation of slavery had never occurred to me. I was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion, anger, and bitter disappointment. 

Owning Whiteness and Ousting Racism

Philadelphia has been rioting for four consecutive days in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a black man pinned down by a white police officer in Minnesota. The streets are full of protesters, looters, shattered glass, boiling anger, and fragile hope. The sound of sirens and helicopters has become our lullaby. People are tired, frightened, nervous, righteous, fed up, grieving, and demanding justice. Black Lives Matter. 

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church just celebrated the feast of Pentecost on Sunday: the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, the birthday of the church. Pope Francis articulated in his homily that the apostles “were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit.” What if we applied this to our country? We are all different; what unites us? How do we use our differences for good? How do we treat those differences as good, not as a basis for injustice?

A Socially Distant Lent

Closed on Sunday.

Yes, the title of a song on Kanye's latest album Jesus is King, but also the condition of every church here in Philadelphia and beyond. Despite many churches like my own already being pros at social distancing, with several pews between us at all times and only a wave at the sign of peace, their doors are closed and barred, for where ten or more are gathered, there coronavirus is with them. For the last four and a half weeks, Catholics have been in the season of Lent. How can we go on with our fasting, prayer, and almsgiving when the world is falling apart and we have no church to support us? Jesus did say, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast" (Matthew 9:15).  Well, here we are, our bridegroom - Christ in the Eucharist - has been taken away from us. While we should mourn, we should also recognize this opportunity to dive deeper into Lent; to reconcile exactly what it means to be without, so that we can truly rejoice when we are with Him, and each other, again.