Column Catholic world was full of magic too
By JEANNETTE BATZ
So
er
when does the
movie come out?
I was trying to sound diffident. Fortys an age at which one
reads brittle novels about European decadence, and not J.K. Rowlings
Harry Potter stories. Id read all four of the Harry Potters though,
immersing myself so thoroughly that I sometimes dreamed I was whizzing around
on a broom making Quidditch goals.
Youve got months yet, my friend assured me,
seeing right through my nonchalance. Then youll have to get past
the demonstrators.
For a minute I thought he was talking about the Dementors, evil
creatures in book three who conjure up your darkest fear. Surely he didnt
believe -- The who?
The demonstrators, he repeated, irritated by my
naiveté. Every born-again Christians gonna be picketing that
movie as godless satanic witchcraft. Dont you read the
newspaper?
Id been reading Harry Potter instead. We said goodbye, and
later I did remember hearing a bit of flap about protests. That had been long
before I discovered the books for myself and assumed, like anyone who falls in
love, that they must be brand-new to everyone. Falls in love is a
bit strong, but I was certainly charmed by those books. Enchanted. Pulled
headlong into Harrys world and glad of it.
What Id never tell the picketers is that part of the pull
was the uncanny resemblance between Hogwarts, the academy for young witches and
wizards, and my own Catholic high school.
We wore dark blue jumpers with dropped-waist pleats; they wear
regulation-issue dark robes. We faced the crisp Irish tongue of Sr. Reparata;
they face the crisp Scottish tongue of Prof. McGonagall (to be played by Maggie
Smith). We lingered near the convent cloister, fascinated by the mysteries of
our dedicated teachers private devotions and ablutions; Harry wanders
near his headmasters office in much the same mood. We watched bitterness
grow in the heart of a nun whod chosen the wrong vocation; he marks the
festering envy of discontented Snapes, their potions teacher. We gathered round
the rebellious young physical education teacher who took the rules too
casually; they befriend earnest bumbling Hagrid the uncredentialed
gamekeeper.
And just as Harry and his friends must mutter secret passwords to
move freely through their castlelike academy, we learned the phrases that would
grant us absolution -- Praise be to the Incarnate Word. Good morning, Sr.
Reparata; or, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Laced with
prayer and ritual, our world felt every bit as magical as Hogwarts. Virtue was
our wand, Catholicism the secret knowledge that let us proceed unimpeded
through a frightening world. There were ways to seek what you wanted, signs to
watch for, acts to perform in a certain order at a certain time with certain
symbolic objects. There was a liturgical calendar full of mysterious feasts and
celebrations, and our days unfolded to its rhythm, took on its colors and
significances.
How I pitied the mundane secular world of the public school kids;
it seemed so flat, devoid of mystery or specialness. Harry calls people who
live in the mundane world muggles, and the clumsiness of the word
reminds me how superior I, too, felt our world to be. We knew there was a
higher purpose, a glorious story behind the world, a deep meaning to each of
our lives. Our faith gave us magical powers indeed: to redeem sin; to triumph
over suffering; to free ourselves and move beyond the immediate physical
reality that constrains our bodies. We could communicate with souls and
spirits, and God Himself. We could survive death itself.
Such analogies would no doubt infuriate the protesters, who fear
their children will be tempted toward Satan by ungodly charms and potions. But
compared to what we learned from our nuns, Harrys powers of
transformation seem tame indeed.
Maybe the world is just hungry for magic again.
Jeannette Batz is a staff writer for The Riverfront
Times, an alternative newspaper in St. Louis. Her e-mail address is
Jeannette.batz@rfstl.com
National Catholic Reporter, September 7,
2001
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