St. Gertrude Catholic Parish

Dear St. Gertrude,

I want to tell you about my mail. I wish I was a faithful correspondent but I’m not. However, I get very interesting mail from very interesting people (well, at least some of them are interesting).

• Take for instance, Jeff Behrens. He is the monk who lived here for about six or eight weeks a year ago. He was on leave from a Trappist monastery in South Carolina. He stayed here and was a great companion. He had wonderful stories about the monks: Shorty, PeeWee, Basil the Abbot, and Basil not-the-Abbot. In the stories they would be like people from a small town who had their problems, learned to cope, swore like truck drivers, found ways to get around the rules, loved the country living, learned to love God and each other and found themselves together praying for a world full of Jackson’s and Pat Robertson’s and everything in between. Jeff Behrens wrote to tell me about the monks watching the Super Bowl and the chicken flue. He also wrote:

  There’s a full moon — it’s really beautiful. I walked down here right after vespers. There were four deer in the field, grazing. They looked up at me, stared for a few seconds, then bolted into the woods at the edge of the field. They are such graceful animals. We have a lot of them on the property. Their young will be arriving in a month or so.

• The Cardinal wrote to warn the pastors about a report that will be coming out on Feb. 27^th. It is from John Jay School of law and will give the numbers of priest predators, cash payouts and allegations over the last 50 years. The hierarchy is very concerned about what these numbers will do to the faith of the Catholic people. I suppose it will be over a billion dollars and thousands of predators.

  I do know that this makes us all sick at heart. I also know that the deep dark secrets about sex and the hidden actions of people who are supposed to be above reproach and the arrogance of people who think that they can get away with things by covering it over — all of this is what feeds our appetite for scandal and for news about the seamy side of our psyches. So I guess we need to pray - especially for the victims of predatory sex who benefit not one whit from all of this.

• Mary Ann Smith, the alderman of the 48^th ward (she says “”alderman”" just like Emma Thompson calls herself an “”actor”") writes to say that while she is very interested in affordable housing, she is against an ordinance requiring “”set-asides”". Our local community organization, O.N.E., is for that ordinance. I hope you have been following the discussion on this one. It is complicated, but very important.
• The 8^th Day Center for Justice is sponsoring a Way of the Cross walk on Good Friday, downtown. We usually co-sponsor the walk to show our admiration of a non-violent approach to solving the world’s problems.
• The St. Patrick Fathers have a dance and raffle on April 18^th. They assure me that I’ll win $10,000 in the raffle.
• And I received some wonderful letters about the pro-life issue. People think so deeply and sensitively about the tragic occurrence of abortion and how we are to respond to all who are implicated. Peter Mulcrone spent a sleepless Sunday night putting some thoughts together. He closed his letter:

  Perhaps then, if we love, we can open our hearts, minds, our ears and our lives — and then the dialogue and the healing might begin.

  Joe Donnelly quoted Dorothy Day: If we all carry a little of the burden, it will be lightened.”"

  Gail Smith recalls an article about the anniversary of Roe v. Wade which was accompanied by: “”It was two pictures, side by side, each showing a woman at some rally; one woman pro-choice, the other woman pro-life. They both looked the same — very angry face, wide open mouth and screaming.”" Suzanne Stryczek, Ann P. White and some unsigned letters delicately responded to the issue.

Thank you, all.

WK

Filed under: Dear Saint Gertrude