It was ten years ago today, September 5, 1997, that we learned of the death of Mother Teresa. We all know the bare bones of her biography: she was born in 1910 in Albania, became a nun in 1931, and started her own order the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1948. She and her community were committed to working with the “poorest of the poor” and her success at this led her to win the Nobel Prize in 1979.

What we are finding now, though, is that her interior life was much more complex than her exterior life. In a book that was published yesterday, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light and excerpted in Time magazine we’ve learned that much of her life was a desert experience where she could not find God.

One of the first things I learned in reading the Time article is the thing that causes me the most concern: Much of this book is taken from correspondence between Mother Teresa and her superiors or confessors. She had asked that these correspondence be destroyed after her death but they weren’t. A large part of me is uncomfortable with the fact that she never intended us to be reading this; correspondence between penitent and confessor is not protected by the seal of confession but still it should not be released for anyone to read. Particularly when the confessor suggests or recommends that the penitent write out their troubles (as was the case in 1955), it seems to me that these writings should be protected. While I read the article and plan to read the book I still feel a little strange reading what she never intended me to see.

That said, I also find myself refreshed by what I’ve read so far. In reading about the lives of the saints (even though she has not yet been proclaimed a saint) I find it easy to believe that they were “more than human.” She certainly did a ministry that I could never do and appeared to do it with a grace and humor I could never muster: there is the story of her giving a bath to someone with horrible sores all over his body. A priest who witnessed this said: “You know, I wouldn’t do this for a million dollars.” Mother Teresa smiled and said: “Neither would I.” I say this as a way of saying that many of us thought she found this easy. I always thought that she had some communication line with God that allowed her to do this ministry with a confidence and self assuredness that the rest of us could only hope for.

Now we find that for most of her life with the Missionaries of Charity she didn’t experience this at all. Instead she experienced a dryness and emptiness that at times called her to wonder if God even existed. It called on her to reach deep inside of herself and pull out the courage, wisdom, and perseverance that it took to wake up every morning and greet the poorest of the poor and look for the face of Jesus.

It called for faith. It called for her to ignore the evidence and other voices and keep on doing what she was doing. This has been a good reminder that what makes a person a saint is not only what they do but also what they overcome. It’s also a good reminder that we are all called to overcome what tries to stop us from doing what we know to be right.

The Vatican has not yet determined that she is a saint, but the more I read about this, the more I’m convinced that God has.

Nancy and I are currently in New York City. I haven’t been here since 1997 when I told the Paulist Fathers that I was leaving the priesthood to get married. It’s been a good few days (and we still have tomorrow) and I’ve noticed the things that are the same and the things that are different. It’s the same city in the sense that there’s still the same energy: New York is a city with lots and lots of people and I like getting caught up in the frenzy. Nancy, not so much. It’s also nice seeing some of the same landmarks. Last night we had dinner with my friend Tina who I hadn’t seen since 1997. We walked by St. Paul’s Church where I was ordained on May 14, 1994. Earlier in the day we spent the morning and afternoon at the Bronx Zoo: it’s a terrific zoo and I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t been there before.

Today we walked down to Greenwich Village and Washington Square Park. I always liked that part of town and we enjoyed walking around there. I dreaded this part, but we felt we needed to go down to where the World Trade Centers used to be. I haven’t been back since 9/11 and dreaded this but knew I had to go. The funny thing was that the Twin Towers were so much a part of lower Manhattan that it was hard to get a sense of that part of town without the Towers. I brought my camera but didn’t take any pictures because there simply weren’t any places that were good shots. I was, in a sense, relieved that there wasn’t a “Kodak place” there because no picture could get a sense of the horror of that day. I spent most of my time not looking at the place where they were (it’s now a construction site where they are rebuilding). Most of my energy was spent on the buildings in the immediate area. In the last (almost) six years I’ve spent countless hours thinking about what it must have been like to have been in one of the towers or one of the planes; today I wondered what it must have been like to be in one of the buildings nearby. To have seen those towers collapse and be enveloped in the dust. To have known what it all meant. To have to return to work in that area and have to look at the cloud of dust and debris for weeks and months. To have knows how close it all was and to wonder when all the screaming was going to be over.

On one hand it was nice to see New York working so well but it was hard not to be caught up in how it was then.

OK, it’s cheap but worth a try. Today is Bastille Day and commemorates the day in 1789 when ordinary citizens of France stormed the Bastille (a prison that held symbolic meaning about the absolute power of King Louis XVI). It began the French Revolution and an end to the monarchy in France. I’m of French ancestry but most of my ancestors were already in Canada (called Acadia at the time but is now Nova Scotia). Unfortunately the French Revolution was not good for genealogists like myself as many church records in France were destroyed during the Revolution. In any case, raise a glass of wine for this French independence day.

Last night several of us gathered to celebrate the birthday of Nancy’s brother Greg (whose birthday was actually Friday the 6th). We also commemorated the fact that yesterday was the 7th anniversary of the death of Nancy’s mother, Marion Graff. July 4th is also a reminder to me and my family of some of the tragic consequences of holiday celebration. My father’s brother Andrew (who was always called “Tonto”) drowned on July 4, 1964 after falling into a lake. My cousing Greg died July 4, 1977 in a single car accident coming home from a July 4th party. To this day I’m not a big fan of fireworks because I remember hearing the fireworks after getting the news of Greg’s death.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday, and if you have a chance take a look at the Declaration of Independence. It’s really a remarkable document for a few reasons. The first of these is the simple boldness of a group of colonists who declared that they could declare this. Political philosophers of the time were beginning to talk about how rights of men (and women we can say now) came not from the king, but from God, and that these rights are “self evident.” That’s fine to write about in the abstract, but the group in Philadelphia that summer were putting their lives on the line for this. The second is that the grievances against George III are listed. In light of President Bush it would be good to review a few of these:

• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

Enough said.

In May when I was in Gardner for Aunt Aldea’s funeral I spent part of a day at the old cemetery photographing family tombstones for my genealogy research. Several of Nancy’s ancestors are buried in Los Angeles and yesterday I wandered around Calvary Cemetery. I was able to find the graves of her paternal grandparents as well as an aunt, an uncle, a great uncle and aunt. Alas I was not able to find the grave of her great grandfather who died in 1920. He is in the records but there was no stone; I assume it was either destroyed or never there. The one stone I did find that I didn’t expect was the grave of her uncle Joseph Graner who died in 1923 at the age of 3 months.

If John Kennedy were still alive he’d be celebrating his 90th birthday today (It’s also the birthday of my friend Pat but she’s not as famous). President Kennedy was killed in Dallas when he was 46 and our memories of him are always going to be when he was a young man. If there are any advantages of martyrdom it’s that he did not have the burden of aging. Of the Kennedy brothers, we’ve only seen Ted (b.1932) age. Joe Jr. (1915-1944) and Bobby (1925-1968) also died before their time.

In addition to Aunt Aldea, there has been another death in the family. Nancy’s father Al lives with us and his cousin Bob Graner died on Sunday, May 13th. Bob lived in Los Angeles (practically under the flight path of the airport). Last week we received a call from Bob’s son Steven who said that Bob was on hospice care and wasn’t expected to live long. Though Bob and Al were cousins, they grew up next door to each other and really thought of themselves as brothers. The day before he died we went up to visit him and it was a good visit; he and Al were able to talk about the old times and remember people and events that they shared 70 years ago. I talked with Rob, one of Bob’s sons, who said that Al was likely the one person Bob was waiting to see. That’s probably true because Bob died 14 hours later. His Mass of Resurrection is this Friday.

Bob was not a young man: he was 88 and had been a widower for a little over 7 years. He was certainly ready to go and reunite with his wife. I wonder about all the stories that are lost with his his death. We all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and I like to think we have heard much of what Bob had to say. But he had memories of people we never met. I was thinking about that when I was wandering the cemetary after Aunt Aldea’s death. Because of my genealogy research I knew the names of many of the family members buried there, but I never knew them. They are really just names and dates for me and I’m afraid every death makes them more and more remote.

So on Friday let us raise a glass or a prayer for Bob and all the people he is reuniting with in Heaven.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the 1st game Jackie Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. I can’t imagine there’s anyone who doesn’t know this but he was the first black player in the modern era. Taking nothing away from the heroism of Mr. Robinson, credit must also be given to the Dodger’s owner Branch Rickey. The seeds of this action were sewn in 1904 when Mr. Rickey was coaching baseball at Ohio Wesleyan University: the catcher, Charles Thomas, was black and was denied a room in the hotel where the team was staying. When he had to tell the player he couldn’t stay at the hotel the player was rubbing his skin and said “If only I could make it white.” It took 43 years to make this right but he never forgot. God bless both Jackie and Branch