Homily for the Mass in Remembrance of the Deceased Students and Alumni of Portsmouth Abbey School: "Help the Vulnerable; Accept Others As They Are"
Rev. Dom Edmund Adams, O.S.B. '57
February 4, 2009
We honor today our deceased students and alumni, exactly two years from that Sunday morning when I was allowed by the police to enter Patrick Johnson's room in St. Aelred's to say prayers over Patrick, lying still and silent. He would now be in the Fifth Form with his friends - he is now with his friends who are Fifth Formers here. I think also of Doug Brennikmeyer and of Celia Coll, who died in car accidents; of John Federico and of Ali Sacco, taken by fatal illness; of Adam Towler, brutally murdered in the summer after his freshman year at college; of Bob Reilly, who lived with me in the Red and who died in Vietnam; and of many others who shared their lives with us.
I think also of one boy I never really knew - in the summer of 1956, I had written to Fr. Bede, full of my own self-satisfied criticisms of Portsmouth and of Catholic belief. Fr. Bede wrote a rather sad response, then added a brief, bare postscript asking prayers for Michael Parker, age 13, who had just - on August 3rd, after his Second Form year - taken his own life. Briefly, all too briefly, I was taken out of my cherished opinions and self-conceit. I pray also for Michael Parker.
Suddenly, a boy or girl is taken from family and companions, and we are left standing on the shore. We are rightly overcome by shock and grief, perhaps never to let go of us. Yet we have another response to make. I have quoted this before from Jewish wisdom: "I will build an altar from the broken fragments of my heart." We are driven to turn to and take care of each other. We do not do so as survivors on a battlefield clinging to a diminished fellowship. We are compelled to do something, to make something both for and with the one we love and have lost, as well as with each other. This was palpable in St. Aelred's two years ago.
The altar some of us tried to build then was a project to dedicate ourselves to stand by those who were vulnerable or suffering isolation. We have programs of leadership and programs of service here, but I felt a greater need for a program of companionship, in honor of friends like Patrick. It has not been sustained, but perhaps we don't need this to be a school project. Let me appeal instead to you to act on your own, individually and together, to help the vulnerable, befriend the alienated, encourage and strengthen each other. As St. Benedict put it: that no one be distressed in the household of God. Do this for and with Patrick, Adam, Ali, Celia, Michael Parker, for and with all our companions whom we will not abandon, for Christ, who will not leave us desolate.
The Gospel passage we read (*John 14:1-3, 15-20) is clearly appropriate: Christ will come to us, with the Father, in unity with all who share the bonds of love and faith. Until then, he has given us a Paraclete, a Counselor, the Holy Spirit to swell with us and in us. You may have wondered initially why we had that reading from Paul to the Ephesians. Let me recall here the last lines of that passage: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." Neither may we leave anyone among us desolate, and so I am asking you to keep the life of love alive by taking care of each other. We have all hurt and offended each other, thus the centrality of forgiveness to true living together. One of the best things Fr. Bede wrote is on the topic of forgiving as God forgives, which means forgiveness without limit.
These are his words:
"Without this forgiveness, there is resentment, indecision - or guilt. Instead of human fellowship, there are separate prisons, chains - not love of neighbor. FORGIVENESS - is a decision to love, to break the chains that bind the human self; it is not a feeling. If someone injures us, and we hold on to that hurt, we cannot love. We wall off that person, and to an extent, wall off others, too.
"When we injure someone, or do something that shames us, and we curl up in guilt - we turn inward - too proud to say, 'I'm sorry,' too paralyzed to move outward. FORGIVENESS is to choose to love, as God loves. Without conditions, arguments, etc., etc. God takes us as we are, in all our feebleness, and so gives us the power to change - to let people be as they are - to let people be 'different' - as we are. 'This is my commandment, that you love one another,' whatever the 'differences' may be."
Fr. Bede concludes with this quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Live together, in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship can survive. Don't insist on your rights; don't blame each other; don't judge, or condemn each other; don't find fault with each other; but take one another as you are, and forgive each other from the bottom of your hearts."
That is the altar we seek to rebuild in living remembrance of our deceased brothers and sisters. May God bring us all together when the day of Christ Jesus breaks upon us.
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