Old Roman Catholic Church in North America -- New Perspectives, Issue 1

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And now, from the Most Reverend Raphael J. Adams,

The Last Word

From the Most Reverend Raphael J. Adams, M.S.

It's wickedly cold in the cemetery. A steady wind is blowing in from Lake Michigan, just a few hundred yards away. Occasional gusts suck the air from my lungs and slide icy fingers between the layers of my clothing as I walk toward the lone figure keeping vigil at the graveside. He dug the grave this morning, in a dry sandy spot in a clearing. But it had been hard going, breaking the soil more that digging it. There are other mourners, twenty or so relatives and friends, huddled in their warm cars, awaiting the signal. People come from their cars. We exchange hugs, handshakes, caring words, and gather in a circle around the open grave and the moral clay of our friend and brother. He went home to God a monthago, and we said the Requiem for him. God, I am sure, and we said the Requiem for him. God, I am sure, received his soul; but the hard, frozen earth was not ready to receive his body. I opened the book and begin the service. I am the resurrection and the life, says the lord, whoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

The book from which I am reading the Church's prayers has been to many more funerals and interments than I have (and weddings, and baptisms, and confirmations and ordinations and anointings, as well). Its leather cover is cracked and flaking. Its gilded edges are dull gray-gold. I received the book twenty odd years ago from Andrew (of happy memory). He had inherited it from Robert (may he rest in peace). Who but God knows from whose hands Robert received it those many years ago, long before I was even born, or into whose hands it will pass when I have left this world. The book is therefore not my possession. It is common property, merely available to me now for my use, entrusted temporarily to my care. Behind my name written on the face page, are the letters AUS-asusum simplicem, "for the simple use of". I have chosen to maintain this old custom in relation to "my" books. In reality, nothing I "own" is really mine. I have only the use of things. Either rust or moth will consume them, or I will die and leave them. So ownership is really a misperception; possessiveness a misdirection. St. Francis knew this full well. Whatever material thing we are attached to enslaves us. It owns us no less than we own it.

Perhaps whoever inherits this book will preserve it only as a museum piece; but I hope not. After all, it contains the "old" rites. But I have become quite adept at running translation, substituting "You" for "Thou", "ask" for "beseech", and so on. But these linguistic gymnastics are not necessary today. I'm using the old rite. These were the prayers of my friend's youth, and most of his life. He loved them in all their flowery, Elizabethan prose.

I know that those who had the book's use before me must have loved and cherished it as I do now. I believe they must have had the same type of relationship with it-experienced the same intimacy with it that I do. It is so much more than a book, so much more than a mere sacramental. It is charged with the energy of countless emotional encounters. It is vibrant with meaning and significance. Whenever I take it into my hands, is very must leather evokes memories of particular churches and chapels, of hospitals and sick rooms, of baptismal fonts and bedsides. The crinkly, almost brittle onion-skin thin pages make little whisper sounds as I turn them. They speak the names of dear friends. Every time I feel the weight of it in my hands I am reminded of someone. I see someone's face, feel someone's touch. So much of the Church's sacramental liturgy involves touch-signing with the cross, the laying on of hands, the kiss of peace. The turning pages always remind me. They always say, "Remember." I read words from the book, and I see the faces of those whom those words have been spoken. "I baptize you." "Do you take this man to be your husband?" "
Go forth, Christian soul, in the name of God the Father..." So many faces, so many memories. Such wonderful, beautiful, precious people. With this the most sacred and transcendent moments of their lives. And those moments have been the most sacred and transcendent moments of my own life.

Man that is born of woman is short time and full of sorrow. He groweth up like the flower and is cut down. I look up from the book at the faces of those gathered before me. Behind them stands the dark silhouette of the pinewood. Inside that wood is a small cluster of buildings. One of the buildings, in a small clearing at the end of the road, just beyond the chapel, is a tiny old log cabin. The friend whose remains we are burying today once lived in that cabin., He came to this place thirty years ago. He was the one who build the guesthouse and planted the pear trees in the clearing. He was nearly as old then as I am now. He lived in the cabin until his failing physical health necessitated his going into a nursing home. Now I live in the cabin. For how long? Three other people have lived in the cabin since its construction nearly sizty years ago. Their bodies are buried just a step or two away7 from where I'm standing. Will my body, too, someday rest here? Or does God still have other plans for me? Is my sojourning done? When I was elected to share the burden of episcopacy, and arrangements were being made for the solemnities, I was asked about the insignia for my coat of arms, and what my personal motto would be. I settled on "In Caritate perpetua": "In love everlasting." The phrase is taken from the book of Jeremiah. "With an everlasting love have I loved you, and have drawn you to myself in mercy." As dear to me as those words are, there was another motto that preferred before it (and preferred to it), but my confreres thought it might discomfit some people, so I deferred to them. It was this: "Ego peregrinus sum": "I am a wanderer." The psalmist exclaimed, "I am but a pilgrim in Your presence, a wayfarer like all my fathers." To a great extent that had been the story (and lesson) of my life. Today I am aware of the truth of both of these, my mottoes. I am a wanderer in this life. We all are. My predecessors in this place were. Only two of them were born anywhere near here. Only God knows where He will lead us, and when He will lay us down to rest, or where. But this is our certainty: in all our wandering we are led by Love, and led tenderly.

...We spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away... So teach us to number are days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. This was the reading that our friend had wanted from the Psalter, from Psalm 90. Not because of his longevity (at fourscore years, he had beaten the psalmist's odds), but because of his love of wisdom. He admitted readily enough that she had often eluded him-a lesson learned only though retrospection. But this knowledge only intensified his longing for her. He had his own theory about where, when and how she is to be found. He had confided to me that for the last decade or so of his life, there was one prayer that he said over and over like the pilgrim in the The way of the Pilgrim. But his prayer was not the Pilgrim's "Jesus" prayer. It was devout (in his own way), but consistent with his own quest and his own personality: "Lord don't let me die stupid." We had talked about this biblical wisdom. She is found not by looking for her, but by looking at her-by just looking about with divine purpose, and finding divine meaning in the ups and downs, ins and outs of living, of good days and bad, Wisdom is to be found in reflection on all the providential events of life. Wisdom is gained through love, constancy, fidelity, and perseverance in the bad times (trusting the providence of God); and gratefully and graciously appreciating the good. Wisdom is found in believing that God has a purpose for us, that our lives have meaning. Wisdom is expressed in acting from that belief. Wisdom is found in loving the people God makes lovable to us, and in doing those things that are done for love. Wisdom is contingent to each consciously lived and appreciated moment.

I look about me and I see tombstones of various shapes and sizes; and I remember especially those whose years fell far short of the psalmist's projection. One was diagnosed with liver cancer at 47, and passed away a month later. Another, a wife and mother of two, died from heart failure in her thirties. One man dropped like a stone at age 60, while mowing his lawn on a bright summer Saturday morning. Another, at 50 suffered an aneurysm on Christmas Eve. The book in my hands reminds me again to remember Robert and Andrew- Robert, who was nearly 90; Drew, who was about the age that I am now. Lord, teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. And, Lord, don't let me die stupid.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.

So teach us to number our days,

That we may apply our hearts unto wis-

dom.

Return, O Lord, how long?

and let it repent thee concerning thy

servants.

O satisfly us early with thy mercy; that

we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad according to the days

wherein thou hast afflicted us,

and the years wherein we have seen

evil.

Let thy work appear unto thy servants,

and thy glory unto thy children.

And let the beauty of the Lord our God

be upon us; and establish thou the

work of our hands upon us;

yea, the work of our hands establish

thou it. (Psalm 90:12-17)

And that is the last word.