Laetitia

Tom Crean (1877-1938) was an Irish explorer with the Royal Navy who went on three expeditions to Antarctica.  He saw service in World War I and then retired in 1920. He went back home to Kerry, where he married and opened a small but famous pub “The South Pole Inn”.

I have a Franciscan priest friend who is a scholar and professor of theology and particularly interested in the 19th century priest and theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman.  I emailed him that he should leave behind the idea of a gentleman and bring out the inner punk. He will not understand what I mean by punk and you do not either, do you? 

Punk rock started in the 1970s in the UK and US, that though anti-establishment they wanted to react against the sentimentality of the 1960s flower-power movement. They rejected the idea of dropping out of society and favored a more aggressive and confrontational reaction. Much of the punk rock movement can be summed up as minimalist, concerned with speed, and anti-establishment. However the term punk was a deliberate choice of terms as they realized that “punk” was what the cops on the cop shows called the young kid who got into trouble.  

I bet you want to know how punk rock really my friend is. The truth is not at all, especially since he is especially faithful to all the teachings of the Magisterium and fiercely loyal to the writings of the Councils including the Second Vatican Council. Though tall, he sits very compactly crossing one leg gently over the other. He talks earnestly about John Henry Cardinal Newman inspiring sincere seekers of truth, one hand strategically held in mid-air for a touch of drama when appropriate.  Though in the States, I picture him sipping tea while sitting in an English garden somewhere in Oxford, where an ivy covered tower peeks out into the distance. He muses over Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Duns Scotus’Oxford”, smiles gently, and ponders how he will use it in the next homily he will write after his daily constitutional along a favorite meandering path he has found.   

How far from punk can you get? And yet, he is my favorite punk. It would be perhaps too easy to dig no further than the superficial, as my Oxford picture does, but that would miss how his work is a force to be reckoned with. He breathes Newman, but he is more concerned with applying Newman’s thought for the modern Church. Applying any work is much more difficult than remaining wrapped up within the work itself, because to apply means making that work relevant and useful for others. My friend would have it no other way. But this only proves that he is an excellent scholar and teacher. How is he punk? 

He teaches Newman and sometimes he has young seminarians in his class. He encountered a particularly difficult young seminarian interested in neo-scholasticism. More concerned with remaining within neo-scholasticism, he commented to my friend that he had no interest whatsoever in seeing how Newman speaks to the world today. The sense I got was that this seminarian had neither an interest in the world we live in nor the church as we have it. This was evident when my friend told me that these seminarians were eager to say the Latin Mass. While both he and I would never criticize anyone of sincere faith who participates in a Latin Mass, I think the concern here are those who have other more worrisome motivations for wanting to “bring back” the Latin Mass. My friend tells me with arms crossed and a twinkle in his eye he said to them, “I have no interest whatsoever in ever saying a Latin Mass.” And to put a fine point on this, he not only can speak Slovak, Italian and German fluently, he is able to say Mass in any number of other languages. This comment of his was pure punk. 

He is reacting to motivations that are a far cry from pastoral: the preference for theatre, smoke and mirrors, than the actual sacrament itself; the stance that wishes to create an insular, “pure” church, to the exclusion of anyone who does not neatly fit; the re-creation of God who is bent low in love into a Gnostic alternative; the privileging of the power and glory of Institution and Hierarchy over love, mercy and justice for all persons. Let me be clear: those who prefer the Latin Mass do not necessarily subscribe to any of these attitudes. But it seems my friend was reacting to these anti-pastoral sentiments when he said he would not say a Latin Mass.  And by being minimal with his words and concerned with bringing down that kind of an idea of hierarchy, he was punk all over. In a single brief comment, he kicked over the motivations dripping with the trappings of authority and power so that others could participate in the Eucharist with love in order to to re-build and repair the world.  I imagine in my mind that when my friend said what he did, John Henry Newman and Francis of Assisi gave each other a high five saying, “Now that was punk!”

I went to a Catholic grammar school growing up in Syracuse. One of my very clearest first memories of religious instruction was an activity my class did in kindergarten.  We were each given a sheet a paper (or was it that we had to tear the perforated sheet from a book?) that had a very large heart shape ready for us to color.  Indeed others may have wanted to color it purple or green or orange, but I stuck to red being a complete and utter color purist. After we were finished coloring our paper hearts, we instructed to take a glue stick and apply it to our newly colored hearts. Then, we were given table salt to apply it the heart. We were learning what Jesus had said in Matthew, “You are the salt of the earth.”

Salt is actually an important ingredient. Salt was considered a mark of civilization for its ability to preserve food and diminish the dependency on seasonal produce. So valuable was salt that Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt for their wages. In Matthew, Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” What can we infer?

Salt is unique in its ability to season and preserve — it never loses its flavor. So what did Jesus mean by salt losing its flavor? In the time of Jesus, they did not refine salt as we do today and instead went to the shores of the Dead Sea or the Salt Sea to comb the salt from the sand. However, it was difficult to differentiate between the sand and salt and thus most salt was a mixture of both. If the salt had more sand than salt, it was said to have lost its flavor.

It is in this sense that we can take a glimpse of Jesus’ meaning. If we are salt, then we have the ability to enhance and sustain the world. As human beings made in the image and likeness of God, we cannot lose our flavor. However, when we choose anything other than God’s love, we begin to add sand to our salt and gradually we begin to lose our flavor. In other words, we lose our ability to be present in the world as participants in the Christ mystery. And so, if dilute and delude ourselves with more and more sand, we become dangerously close to being of no use other than to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

This is in part, too, about appearances and underlying realities. We may appear to be like salt but actually be full of sand, betraying ourselves and others. Our selfishness gains us abundant sand, but the good of what we could do is so diminished that it could easily be trampled underfoot. And with a world full of so much brokeness around every corner, we certainly need more salt and less sand. We must become the salt of the earth for the sake of the humble love of God so we can transform the world into love out of the hate.

Because I am from Syracuse, NY,  I am sharing a receipe very unique to Syracuse: salt potatoes. Salt mining has a long history in Syracuse and the Irish immigrants in Syracuse developed this combination in the 19th century. This appeals to my Irish roots, my Irish ancestors having come over in the early 19th century. 

Salt Potatoes
1 1/4 pounds kosher or rock salt
2 quarts water
2 pounds small fingerling, or small red potatoes, cleaned
4 tablespoons butter
 

In a large pot, combine the salt, water, and potatoes and bring to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, approximately 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from the pot to a cooling rack and let stand for 5 to 7 minutes. Serve with drawn butter.