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Viewpoint Tradition a saving grace for parish associate
By RENÉE M.
LaREAU
I work in a suburban parish of about
2,500 families. On Sept. 11 I arrived at my office after lunch, dazed by the
news of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. I spent most of that
afternoon, as many of us did, in front of the television.
As the afternoon proceeded, the phone started to ring. Are
we having anything tonight? What are we going to do?
parishioners asked. A portion of our staff met and decided we needed to have
some sort of prayer service, maybe a Mass. We tossed out a couple of ideas.
There was an ecumenical prayer service at 6:30 that our parish had been invited
to, but we knew that the church hosting the service was too small to hold all
of our people. We scheduled a Mass for 8 p.m. Then out came the Sacramentary,
out came the Book of Blessings. We struggled to choose appropriate music. We
found servers, a lector, people to distribute Communion.
At eight, people filled the church, some with kids struggling to
stay awake, some with their spouses, some from our catechumenate. Ive
never heard singing like I heard that night. I was so thankful we had a ritual,
a rubric to follow, something to fall back on when we couldnt think
clearly. I was so appreciative of the words of the prophet Micah: They
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks
I was, on that night, grateful to work for the church.
Ordinarily Im not a very pious person. I shy away from
traditional displays of religiosity. They dont impress me. Usually. But
this has not been an ordinary couple of weeks. Since the events of Sept. 11,
displays of piety and religiosity, once expendable, are now comforting. I
consider them displays of faith unearthed, signs of hope. I relish the sight of
a wooden sign I see on my way to work, spray-painted in blue, plain and simple,
the word, pray. A couple of weekends ago, I drove along Interstate
70 on a Sunday evening, listening to the memorial Mass at St. Patricks
Cathedral, singing and saying the responses along with the people as I listened
to the National Public Radio broadcast, feeling intimately connected, blinking
back tears so I could keep my eyes on the road. I thought to myself, thank God
for our traditions.
I felt the same thanksgiving for tradition when we planned the
evening Mass at our parish on Sept. 11. Thank God there is a special Mass in
the Sacramentary for times of war and civil disturbance, a prayer in the Book
of Blessings for victims of crime and violence. Thank God for some of the songs
Ive sung since grade school: Be Not Afraid, Make Me a
Channel of Your Peace. Thank God for traditions. Though I felt solace in
praying with my faith community on the night of Sept. 11, the feelings of fear
and helplessness have been overwhelming. Why do they hate us so much? Is my
family in danger? Are my friends in New York City safe? What on earth am I
supposed to do with myself now? Where have I heard of Osama bin Laden
before?
My introduction to Osama bin Laden came almost two years ago when
I toured the Middle East during graduate school. Our massive tour group visited
Galilee, Jerusalem, and Judea, at the height of the pre-millennium tension and
during the U.S.-sponsored negotiations between Israel and Syria for the land in
the Golan Heights region. One evening I watched BBC on my hotel television and
saw the protests and slayings. Osama bin Laden was named as a suspect. This was
the first time I heard of him. The news cameras shifted to then-Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright, warning Americans not to travel to the Middle East
unless absolutely necessary. She also encouraged Americans to
stay away from large groups. I tensed up and thought of our two
blimpy white tour buses, guided by a Palestinian bus driver and a
Jewish-American tour guide. I almost wished I hadnt seen the newscast.
But this fear was fleeting, and our tour guide assured us that No
American Christian tourist has ever been harmed in the Holy Land.
This short fretful stint spent in front of my hotel television was
the first time I had ever been conscious of my identity as an American. Before
traveling abroad I had thought of myself on other terms: graduate student,
Michigan native, Catholic, runner. I rarely had been aware of my own national
identity. I had never realized, until that brief moment in front of the
television, that my safety was in jeopardy because of my nation of origin.
The Persian Gulf War was another point of contact between America
and the Middle East, but the event sounded little cause for alarm on my teenage
radar screen. Perhaps I was too young to understand. I was a sophomore in high
school during the days of Scud missiles and Stormin Norman Schwartzkopf.
I remember watching the explosions flash on TV as they stood out in sharp
relief against the night sky. I recall a brief moment of sympathy for my mom
because the attacks had begun the on her birthday. I never felt that my safety
was in jeopardy.
I realize now that my brief interactions with the Middle East took
place during different days -- the days when battles took place over
there. Those were days when the United States, in the words of New
Yorker correspondent Denis Johnson, [was] seen, by some people, as
keeping the destruction rolling without getting too much in the way of
it.
And now we wait for our nations response to the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. Weve heard talk from our president of using
every necessary weapon of war. Weve heard of those who are
wanted dead or alive. Everywhere there is talk of bombing
Afghanistan. Questions rise to the surface of my mind, three in particular: How
are bombs an appropriate or effective response to awful carnage brought about
with rental cars, credit cards, box cutters and passenger planes? Do we really
want all of the terrorists dead or do we want to regain our security and
safety? What does the tradition of the gospel hint to us that we should do in
response?
The attacks leveled against the United States have exposed an
apparent level of hatred rarely seen before. Especially unfathomable is that
human beings could, in a moment of religious fervor, completely subjugate their
own will to live. One wonders if any level of military spending would affect
that apparent rage.
All around me I hear talk of revenge and retaliation. Perhaps,
though, what we want as a nation is not to cause more death and destruction but
to rid ourselves of this newfound fear and helplessness. We have the desire to
punish because we want to live in a world that is safe and secure, not
necessarily because we desire death for others. Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his
book Living a Life that Matters, points out that the World Council of
Churches condemns revenge as an attempt to extend suffering rather than
transcend it, to make someone hurt as we have been hurt.
Scripture offers a somewhat mixed bag in terms of what our
response should be. There is, of course, Christs message to turn the
other cheek, the many exhortations to forgive. Forgive and forget? First of
all, we will never, ever forget this incident. And it is too soon to speak of
forgiveness.
For me, it will be a long time before I look at those scriptural
passages on forgiveness. For now, I have found great comfort in the psalms, the
great hymns to God that convey the anger, hopelessness and violation that we
all feel. I received an e-mail the other day encouraging us to pray Psalm 5,
and its words reverberate in my mind: For you are not a God who delights in
wickedness
there is no truth in my enemies mouths, their hearts
are destruction
make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by
their own counsels
you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with
favor as with a shield.
Renée M. LaReau is a pastoral associate at St. Charles
Borromeo Parish in Kettering, Ohio.
National Catholic Reporter, October 12,
2001
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