RBWords - Volume 26 - Number 11: November 2013
Something to Think About
r.b.words – vol. 26 – no. 11 – November 2013
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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT –
The occurrence of the 50th anniversary of the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy has given me much to think about. It was one of those events that give rise to
the “remember where you were and what you were doing” types of thoughts. I was a first year law student at Tulane
University. I had already decided to
enter the Dominican order at the end of that academic year. The Vietnam War had not “heated up” and the
Vatican Council II had just started its second session, which would produce the
document on the liturgy that would radically change Catholic worship. Pope John XXIII had died earlier that year
and was replaced by Pope Paul VI! The
confusion and sorrow of the assassination was compounded by the assassination
in turn very soon of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of Kennedy.
When I reported to the novitiate in August 1964, the Bishop of Winona,
MN, where the novitiate was located, had already approved the use of English in
the Mass! The period of my initial
formation in the Dominican Order was marked by liturgical tumult and the
departure of many of my Dominican brothers and sisters from religious life and
ministry. If someone had quoted the line
to me about the “best of times and the worst of times,” I would not have agreed
to the “best” part of it, and I still feel that way! Later generations in initial formation, who
enjoy a much more “stable” situation, and who had Pope John Paul II for all his
long pontificate, find us “old fogies” being nostalgic – but we were marked by
all those events in a way that still shapes and filters the way we look at
life. Perhaps the 911 Terrorist Attack
will have the same influence on those younger folks. At 70 years of age, I don’t think I’ll be in
a position to reminisce with them 50 years from now. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
“I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always,
everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when the good
things do not happen, when our prayers seem to be lost, that God is most
present. We do not need the sheltering
wings when things go smoothly. We are
closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”
From TWO-PART INVENTION: THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE by Madeleine L’Engle