HOMECOMING

Oct 4, 2009 | Latest

                                                      HOMECOMING

I have been going through some of Mom’s things and came across a letter I had written home eleven years ago.  I don’t have a good memory for details, so I found much of what I had to say in that letter news again.  The letter covered something important and I think of interest, so I was going to reprint some of it here.  Then yesterday, my brother Jim came by and brought our week’s worth of mail from the mailbox, and there was a package from Joe Angsten (’89)  It contained a great present which none of you could really appreciate unless you are particularly fond of replica gold-plated opened sardine cans.  With this extraordinary gift was a letter that put a stop to the presses that were printing mine.  It is a letter, unlike the sardine can, that I think you will all enjoy.  I do not think I have ever laughed harder at any letter.  It’s about Seton sports.  A sports entry is due here since the Rockies have made the playoffs after a terrible start, and since I received a phone call from Blaise Dufrain (’08) who was in Colorado Springs with the Dallas University soccer team having played a team from Milwaukee and Colorado College.  I really appreciated the call.  So I went from hearing of Blaise’s college exploits, to reading about Joe’s coaching debut.  The two experiences combined lead me to say, “God bless Dan Vander Woude; God bless all Seton coaches; God bless Seton parents and players and spectators and may God give success to the Torres’ efforts to acquire fields for Seton.    Here’s the letter.

   As you know, my eldest son is now a seventh grader at Seton, and we are so happy to be back in the fold.  I am now coaching the Jr. High Soccer Team, and so far we are off to a good start (a little better than the Seton football team of the 1970’s).  I will admit I was a little concerned how our re-introduction to Seton would go, until I received the call from Dan about our first game.

   The setting:  1^st Jr. High soccer game scheduled to be a home game at Nokesville Park.

  The day of the Game I receive a call from Dan.

   Dan:  Joe, there has been a slight change in plans.  It’s up to you if you want to reschedule.

   Joe:  Let’s play the game – whatever it is we can handle it.

   Dan:  We cannot use Nokesville Park.  But the County said we could use fields at Chinn Aquatic Center (in Woodbridge).

   Joe: Ohh, that’s a big change…but that’s fine.  Let’s play!  (I say with enthusiasm.)

   Dan:  Great.  Thanks Joe.  Now you will just need to get the nets and the corner flags from the storage room.

   Joe:  No problem, where’s the storage room?  (My concern slowly disappearing as this is starting to sound more like the Seton I knew.)

   Meanwhile back at the school, unbeknownst to the new coach, the varsity team takes the nets.  Joe dutifully arrives at Seton to pick up nets and flags.  No nets, hhmmmmmmm…..no flags….Seton mother Mrs. Cooper introduces herself to confused new coach. (Confused but getting happier as the search goes on.)  She has Dan on the phone.

   Dan:  Joe, sorry the nets are gone.  Just get the sticks.  They don’t have to have flags, just get what you can and go.  I will try to have someone bring you the nets. 

   Joe:  Don’t worry about the nets.  We’ll make do.  (Enthusiasm growing; concern dissipating.)

   I run out to the car to open the bin of jerseys Dan gave me for the team.  I gather the boys around to distribute the jerseys, and to my utter glee they don’t match!  Some say “Seton” and some say “Addidas”.  But the best part is #31.  You guessed it:  the “1” is DUCT TAPE!  (Concern GONE, enthusiasm overwhelming.)

   As the game gets underway my parents (you may remember them from such roles as Most School Spirited 1989) inform me that my sister Laura called and is waiting for the game to start at Nokesville Park.  I knew I had forgotten to tell someone.

   At halftime, I am informed by a Seton Mom that the three corner poles (yes, there are four corners to a soccer field) are needed for the volleyball team.  As it turns out, those are no ordinary poles the new coach grabbed – they are volleyball antennas.  So we finish the game with no poles, no nets and duct taped jerseys.  The “Volleyball Mom” was so apologetic, but I told her don’t worry about it.  She had no idea of the internal happiness I was feeling that those poles needed to be taken back to Seton.  The new coach couldn’t be happier.  Who cares that we won 3-2, this was a homecoming!

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It is easy to tell from this that Joe is being re-introduced to Seton.  Calling Mrs. Cooper “a Seton Mom” is like calling Mrs. Carroll “a Seton Teacher”.   This letter brings back happy memories – like the day I turned over the AD duties to Mr. Hines.  And the time the girls volleyball team was playing in a tournament at SVCA.  Mrs. Carroll was sitting in the stands near some SVCA parents who were commenting on our team:  “Couldn’t they all at least have white shorts.”  “To play sharp, you have to look sharp.”  We lost our first game – neither playing nor looking sharp, but came back through the losers’ bracket, still not looking that sharp but playing much better, to the championship games against SVCA.  We had to beat the sharp looking team twice since it was double-elimination, and the team in various colored sweat pants and shorts beat the team with the matching uniforms.  It also brings back visions of Mr. Vander Woude that first basketball season back in ’81 using masking tape to transform our illegal numbered jerseys into legal ones.  (There was a lot to learn those first years.)  Then there was some  basketball game, I think it was junior high girls, when I looked out on the court at the five girls playing and realized that not one jersey was a match to any other.

   So, #31 you wear that jersey with pride the whole year ****Addidas wearers – never forget that you are a Conquistador no matter what the jersey says****Laura, we all hope you have gotten to see your nephew play a full game****Joe, volleyball antennas are very expensive – leave them in the gym****Volleyball Mom, Did the antennas make it back from Woodbridge for the start of the game?****Seton sports fans:  You can go to  Virginia Independent Schools Sports and see state rankings and results of volleyball games.  Last poll had Seton Soccer #8 and Volleyball #4**** To anyone who began reading hoping to hear about the locust prediction:  They were right!  I’ll tell you the details later.

   Joe and my mom would have gotten along great.  Whenever there was some problem, foul up, trouble or whatever, Mom would say, “It all just adds to the fun.”  Mom and Joe are probably among the few who would have found all the difficulties of that first game so enjoyable.  Thanks for the letter – hope the rest of the season was as much fun and successful as the beginning.

Jezu, ufam Tobie

My only desire is to love You

Oct 2, 2009 | Latest

The following is the funeral homily that Father Hudgins gave at Mrs. Jones’ funeral Mass, September 25, 2008.

   Thanks first to Steve and to Carol’s family.  It is indeed an honor for me to be able to preside at Carol’s funeral.  Thanks also to the Seton Choir.  I had a chance to talk to Carol in the weeks before she died about the music that she would like and when I suggested the Seton Choir, she lit up.  I’m so happy the Seton Choir could be here to sing because she loved you so much.

   I knew Carol for the last five years of her life.  She came to me for spiritual direction, so I do believe, then, that I knew her soul.   One day she came in for direction, and she was all beaming, all joyful.  She said, “I’ve got to share this prayer with you.  I just have to share it.  I just love it.”  She had written down this prayer, and I have kept it with me ever since. 

   I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.  I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You  than live without loving You.  I love You, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally.  My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath. [St. John Vianney]

   I had the chance to talk to Carol more than anyone lse I’ve ever talked to before death, for months and months.  One night while she was at Walter Reed Hospital, she gave me a call.  She sounded upset, and she told me, “I want to talk.”  So I drove to Walter Reed – the diagnosis had been for the worst.  It was now clear that the chemo treatment was not going to work, that the cancer was very aggressive, and that the end would come soon.

   I talked that night to Carol about many things.   I asked, “You never know when that hour of death is going to come.  If it came before you were prepared to say goodbye, is there anything you would want me to say to everyone at your funeral?”  She said, “Yes, three things.”  Before I tell you those three things, I would like to say that every time we gather at a funeral there are three things we need to say.  The first are words of comfort and consolation to those who are left behind.  They’re the ones who are bearing the cross now.  The second thing we need to do is to remind ourselves of the shortness of life.  Every time we gather for a funeral we are reminded that this life is very brief.  None of us knows when the end will come, and we must be ready.  We’ve got to live our lives with our faith right here, and be prepared to stand face to face with Jesus.  The third  is that we need to pray for those who have died.  As St. Ambrose said so long ago, “Those whom we have loved in this life we must not abandon in death, until by the help of our prayers, we have led them safely into the kingdom of heaven.”

   It turns out that those are the same three points that Carol wanted me to talk about.  She had three messages for her three “families”:  her family at home, her family at Seton and her larger family, the Church.

   First, for her family at home, for Steve, Jeff, Lauren, Elena, Melanie and her Mom,  this is what she said.  “I want you to take all the love you had for me, and I want you to give that now to your children.  Make them strong.  Teach them their faith.  Make them grow up strong in their faith, just like I tried to do with you.”  That’s what she said.

   She knew that the greatest consolation we have is in the Person of Jesus Christ.  He is the One who died and rose.  He is the One who showed us that death is not the end.  He showed us that death does not have the last word; that everything given to Him can never be lost; that nothing given to Him can ever be destroyed.  Just as He told us Himself, “If you live in Me and My words live in you, you will bear much fruit.  You will bear fruit that will last.”  “Anyone who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.  The one who believes in Me will never die.” 

   I remember one other night I went to see Carol at Walter Reed, and I asked her, “Carol, are you afraid to die?”  And she smiled at me immediately, you know, with that smile that she had and with that gaze that she had; she looked me right in the eye and said, “Oh no, I’m not afraid!  How could I be afraid to go to Jesus?”  She said, “I don’t trust in my own good works. I don’t trust in my own merits, because I don’t have any.  Every good thing I’ve ever done has been God’s work through me.  And I know that all of my sins can be wiped away by one drop of His blood.”  That’s a consolation to all of us.  The consolation of knowing that Jesus Himself is our ransom from death and that Carol placed herself completely in His care.

   The second thing Carol wanted to say was to her Seton family.  She made me promise I would say this.  She said, “If I’ve ever done anything to hurt any of you, please, I beg you for your forgiveness.” She knew that she had faults, and she wanted very much to ask forgiveness for anyone she had hurt.

   I don’t think a lot of Carol’s students ever knew just how much she loved them.  She would think about them, pray for them and do everything in her power to help them.  She would bring their troubles home with her, and she would think about what she could do to help.  Many times she asked me what was the best way to help one of her students.  Despite her best efforts, she still knew that she had offended people, and she wanted to ask them for their forgiveness.

   You know, one of the very best things to keep in mind as we go through this life is that we must live forgiving and being forgiven by others.  Jesus said, “Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  “Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be theirs.”  And, “The measure you measure out to others will in turn be measured back to you.”

   We live our lives knowing our faults and knowing that we must seek forgiveness from others.  Forgiving and asking to be forgiven, this is perhaps the very best way to prepare ourselves for our own death and judgment. Carol knew that she was not perfect, but for her students and co-workers, she wanted to ask for your forgiveness; wanted you to know that she loved you all very much.

   The third thing she wanted to say was to her greater family of the whole Church. Carol is the last person who would want me to stand up here on the day of her funeral and canonize her.  Here is what she wanted me to say to you: “Tell those people to pray for me!  You tell them I want their prayers!  Tell those people to pray for me!”  Because we know that all of us will one day stand before God, and we know that if there are any sins that stand between us and His kingdom, our prayers for the deceased will help them and make them worthy to see God face to face.

   Carol was always thinking about eternity.  I remember one time she had Steve driving half way across Northern Virginia looking for my mom’s house, trying to return some tapes that my mom had lent her.  Mom came out of the house and saw her and said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I’m going to pray for your condition.”  Carol, without missing a beat, said, “Oh, the heck with my condition.  God will give me a new body!  Pray for my soul – I‘ve only got one of those!”  She had such a quick mind.  She always knew exactly what to say.  She was so sure of the need to pray for one another, even after this life.

   Carol has many friends in high places, I am sure.  That’s for certain now, but I believe it was true even in the last days of her life.  Just last Saturday, I got a call from Steve at about 10:15 p.m.  Carol had taken a turn for the worse.  Her breathing was very erratic, and it appeared that this might be the end.  So I drove to the Hospice in Arlington, arriving around midnight  The entire family was there.  We celebrated Mass together.  I gave Carol the Apostolic Pardon and gave her the Anointing of the Sick.  I want to tell you, for your consolation, that in ten years of being a priest, I’ve never seen a holier death. 

   At the moment of consecration, I held up that Host for a long time.  I wanted Carol to see Jesus and to know that He had come to be with her in her last hour  I held up the chalice of His Blood.  And although Carol was not able to receive the Host because of her weak condition, I was able to place just one drop of the Blood of Christ that I had taken from the chalice and place it on her tongue.  She got that “one drop” of Christ’s Blood that had been her trust and her hope.  Carol died within the hour.  Carol died with the grace of the sacraments and with all her sins forgiven by the Blood of her Savior.

   And now we gather one last time to pray for her; to offer the Sacrifice of Jesus  for the forgiveness of sins.  Pray now with me that even today Carol may see Jesus in the face, and hear Him say to her those most beautiful, and most powerful words that any Christian can ever hope to hear:  “Well done good and faithful servant.  Enter now into the joy of your Father’s kingdom.”

Old Wine in New Wine Skins

Sep 15, 2009 | Latest

CONSIDERING THINGS BRIEFLY

Mom and I do not watch TV or listen to the radio, which I think I have mentioned before, so we are often unaware of many “news worthy” events and are very grateful for this.  Mrs. Torres, mother of six alumni and a current Seton senior (Justin, Jason, Josh, Dan, Jessica, Amy and Jennifer),  periodically sends me, well, periodicals and Catholic newspapers.  This catches me up on some things.  I just learned that Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska, for example.  The magazine said that she was going to resign – and I just asked Mrs. Carroll yesterday if she had in fact resigned.  She said, “That happened a long time ago.” So, despite my knowledge being of late late breaking news, I am going to mention some things I learned from the Torres materials, some things I have learned from family and some things I have learned from experience.  Some you may find interesting.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi is perhaps the only person to have survived both atomic bombs.  He was a resident of Nagasaki and went to Hiroshima on business the day the 1^st bomb was dropped.  He was two miles from the epicenter.  Burned badly, he managed to get on a train back to Nagasaki where he was treated.  He returned to work on August 9^th, heavily bandaged, but his boss did not believe his story and was in the act of berating him for missing work when the 2^nd bomb fell on Hiroshima, two miles from his place of work.  He is now 93 years old.  Croagh Patrick is a holy hill in Ireland where St. Patrick fasted and prayed during the 40 days of Lent, and it is now a frequent place of pilgrimage.  A mining company recently determined that there is “gold in that thar hill” and applied to mine it.  Fortunately, the County of Mayo said the gold is fine where it is.  Mr. P, Miss Pennefather (Laura), Shelly (Sister Rose Marie) and I climbed the hill on our Marian Year pilgrimage to Europe.  On the way down the mountain, Mr. P got a good sized gash in his knee and lost a lot of blood.  He got stitched up by a doctor, and when Mr. P asked about getting the stitches removed, the doc told him to take them out himself.  And so he did.  Is “snuck” now ok?  In one edition of a newspaper, two different writers used the word “snuck” in their columns.  Past tense of “sneak” is still “sneaked” or did I miss the change?    Points of interest in Ohio.  I had always thought Ohio was somewhat dull, but that might be because my primary experiences of the Buckeye State are of its bus stations.  I can tell you that Toledo and Cleveland’s Greyhound terminals are nothing to write home about.  However, it was in Cleveland while I was waiting for my bus that a man in a trench coat approached me and opened his coat to show me hundreds of watches and assured me  that they were very cheap.  My nephew has been working in Zanesville for the past couple months.  (I went to Mass in Zanesville when I drove rather than took the bus from Virginia to Colorado and thought the people were so friendly waving and honking to me as I drove down the street – then I realized I was going the wrong way on a one way)  Brent texted me that he had crossed the World Famous Y Bridge in Zanesville.  I knew not of its fame, but you can see an aerial view of it by googling.  It’s the only bridge you can cross and stay on the same side of the river or receive the direction of “Go half way across the bridge and turn right.” Then he sent me a phone picture of a building that looks like a giant picnic basket – this is near Columbus.  It is worth a google.  Has anyone reading this been on the Y Bridge and/or seen the Picnic Basket Building?    First Frost.  I like folklore and the folklore around here according to my sister Barb is that the first frost is six weeks after one hears the first locust.  Our local locust says that the first frost will be October 1^st this year.  I’ll let you know on the 5^th of October if our locust was accurate.    California Smoke.  The smoke form the fires in California was very visible here for two days – I mistook it for an early morning fog rolling in and then for a haze later in the day.  It wasn’t until a dove hunter stopped in and told us that it was California’s smoke that I knew what it was.  Tax $$’s at work.  A man came to our house to ask if he could count and classify birds.  A couple weeks later, a couple women came to the house to ask if they could count and classify trees because an aerial view of our farm indicated that it could be considered forested land.  The bird man was here roaming around for quite a while.  We do have lots of birds.  The tree women roamed around for a while before returning to the house to say that our farm did not meet the qualifications for a forested area and they were not going to count trees after all.  We have fewer trees than birds.  The bird man said he would send the results of his count, so when we get that, I’ll let you know the official government summary of the type and # of birds on our farm.  One of the tree women looked a lot like alumna Tess Kelly.  2^nd Year Seeds.  Learned this year that plants grown from seeds saved from the previous year’s crop will often cross with related plants in the garden.  I can attest that pumpkins and gourds  cross with zucchini and produce some strange looking vegetables.  Not saving seeds anymore.  Peach Pits.  If you want to try to grow a peach tree from saved pits, about now is the time to plant.  Wash and dry the pits, then plant.  The success rate for germination is not high.  Peach pits must get cold before they will germinate, so to start them in the house, one must chill them first.  I am going to try planting five pits.  Three years from now we may be eating homegrown peaches.  Since we talked about the birds, we had better talk about the bees.  For a really long time we have had a hive of bees on our roof or in the wall just below the roof.  (Our house has a flat roof.) We recently had a new roof put on, and I had not thought about the bees.  I called a bee man to find out what would happen to the bees with the new roof.  He said that if they couldn’t get back to their hive, they would die and when the weather gets really hot their honey will probably start coming through the roof or wall.  I think, maybe more hope, that the bees are getting back to their hive through a crack in the stucco.  Year of the Priest.  Father Vander Woude, you were great on EWTN.  I don’t think your dad was embarrassed having you talk about him – I think he is even prouder to call you his son than we are to call you our priest and friend.  When you said that your dad wasn’t perfect, I thought about his missing finger.  How did he lose that?

Jesu, ufam Tobie.