EXCERPT:
Bob Lindsay’s death brought an abrupt end to a long, sometimes removed, always intimate friendship.
Born in Dorchester, Bob left the year I was born to join the Society of Jesus. In more than 50 years as a Jesuit, he served in more than two dozen locations, but I first knew him my freshman year at Holy Cross. He was head chaplain, and while students lampooned him as “the toy priest” for his small stature, his liturgical presence alone made him a dominant figure on campus.
Those were the days of post-Vatican II euphoria, when Sunday Masses were jammed and even weeknight Mass (11:00 PM in the lower chapel) regularly drew 100 students. In a day when the buzzword among Catholic collegians was “relevance,” Bob’s earthy but eloquent preaching never failed to hit a timely note. And his presiding gave the Mass a dignified but intimate grandeur that drew us back again and again - -and also drew us together.
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Bob’s charisma was not limited to preaching and presiding. He was a spiritual director by trade, and guided the personal paths of who knows how many people over the years in many roles as retreat director, sabbatical director, director of the Center for Religious Development in Cambridge, staff of the Jesuit Urban Center in Boston--and a dozen other places. His longest tenure was his last, at the Jesuit residence in Weston (Mass.) where he became a counselor and friend to fellow Jesuits and staff alike.
But he could also be the life of the party, especially when playing and singing his beloved Cole Porter. His last years he turned also to painting and his vibrant impressionist colors typified the bursting-with-life tenor of his presence to others.
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Few people who ever met him, heard him preach, worshipped with him or received counsel from him could escape his influence unchanged. He was one of those people Reader’s Digest used to call “most unforgettable characters.” ...
Three dramatically different lives, yet all three men are revered as they pass away. Why? What did they have in common? Three things, I think.
First, they were gifted people (but aren’t we all?). Second, each tapped into those gifts with a persevering dedication, and used their years on earth fully. Third, that dedication always aimed at the good of others--all three were among that band of what the Jesuits call “men and women for others.”
Such men show us what a good life means--and their reverence for such life made them revered by all the others they lived for.
I say, old chap, it's been a while. I can't confess to being a regular reader of your epistles but a dear friend whose business it is pay to more attention to such things occasionally sends me a link. I must say that it is a bit like tuning into a radio station one hasn't listened to in months, only to find the same tune playing each time.
ReplyDeleteSince I may well have tried your limited patience in the past I shall resolve to be brief this time. There were numerous comments I thought to make, but the single common thread seemed to be: you've become a "traditionalist"! That's right, a "Spirit-of-the-Council Traditionalist"! While Holy Mother Church slowly reforms Herself a loose gathering of V2 trads has coalesced; nostalgic and reactionary, bewailing the impending loss of their venerable patrimony of almost five decades. , nursing grudges over percerived persecutions, but still taking nearly carnal delight in their retrograde liturgies (when done with style and grace!).
A few years ago these thoughts might have constituted the theme of a clever bit of parody, but we seem to be in the post-satircal age ecclesially as well as culturally. Truth truly is stranger than fiction, the wonder is how quickly it has all gone to ruin.
I suspect that isn't the point you wished to convey in your eulogies for the three mensches, but I really don't think anyone seeking to deepen their Catholic Faith will be much edified by meditating upon the elegance of Apple's technology or by attendance at liturgies whose "relevance" is dependent upon the charisma of the "presider". I am sorry for your losses, but I think what you are really mourning is the inevitable death of the Spirit of the Council. Hence your nostalgia.
Pax et bonum, old bean.