Chapter 12

The Dominion Of Reason

Randy

There are buds on the dogwoods in Atlanta in the early spring of 1970 and a very light dusting of pollen on all the cars along Euclid Avenue, which is very unusual for early March. Randy Coleman sits there in the downstairs bedroom that in the days before World War II had been Loren Wilson's room. When Randy was living in the house, he never paid much attention to Blanche when she would so often speak of him, because all those times so long ago with which she seemed so preoccupied no longer seemed tangible. Then, he was convinced the world had progressed beyond the point such a devastating war could ever break out again and that the intellectually endowed could design a technique to avoid the small ones such as Korea and Vietnam.

With the draft lottery, and even talk of discontinuing the draft altogether, he had almost done it. He views it all so differently now that he is in somewhat the same situation as Loren in his last days in this room. All those things he studied in college psychology - attitudes, emotions and reactions - they all seemed meaningless terms in monotonous textbooks that must be learned and endured only long enough to achieve some qualifying test score and then, they were just as well forgotten. He always made passing grades on the tests but never understood any of it until he met all those people in Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training. They all represented both extremes of the human spectrum and everything between. There was the hopelessly exploitable attitude of George Haines who thought his fairy tale outlook about always trying to be positive and adapt himself to circumstances would somehow prevail over all the inequities in the world, but there were others who were so damn sorry and lazy they automatically made someone feel good about himself simply by being around them.

He stands up, walks to the window and looks down Euclid Avenue. No one is on the street, and the old houses look every bit as dispiriting as he remembered them. He really isn't sure why he wanted to spend his little 3 day leave in Atlanta before shipping to Vietnam. Euclid Avenue was the most distant thing from his mind during his 2 week leave following basic training, but the time he spent in his home state up north was not at all enjoyable. At first, he thought he was only dreading going back to Fort Jackson and starting Advanced Infantry Training, but he finally realized it wasn't that. He was no longer the comparatively carefree student working his way through college. Now, to some degree, he still feels the driving ambition to be in the investment profession but has all but excluded that from his mind because of his remaining 20 months in the Army. When he was drafted, he just wanted to get it all over with, but being sent to Vietnam has added a new level of dread to all those months.

Standing there, he looks at the Atlanta skyline just beyond Edgewood Avenue and remembers his years in college and all the war protests he had seen on campus. He never participated in the protests but in a strange way, was always glad to see them, because they left him with a feeling of acquittal. He had no intention of serving in the Army if he could avoid it, but not sinking into anything like the protests left him with a self-righteous posture that vindicated any feeling of guilt that his college deferment had shielded him from something he regarded as an obstacle rather than a responsibility.

He walks back to the dresser and looks at himself in the oval mirror. He doesn't want to go to church with Blanche but knows she would have been disappointed if he had declined her invitation, which seemed so warm and concerned. He adjusts his tie at the top of his poplin collar and isn't sure why he decided to wear his dress greens on his last day of leave, but finally concludes he might as well quit trying to disclaim he is in the damn Army.

The floor creaks with his every step, and there is a disagreeable chill in the old house as he walks down the hallway into the sitting room. Blanche is sitting there on the sofa and looks quite nice in her dark, blue suit and white scarf tucked in around her neck. An illuminating smile comes over her when she sees him. She stands up, but the smile abruptly fades from her face. She sits back down, awkwardly reaches into her purse for her handkerchief, and begins patting the tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says in a trembling voice. "I...I didn't expect you to be wearing your uniform. You remind me so much of Loren."

Randy's parents died years ago, and as a result, he has always been rather independent and never had anything of the close family ties that existed in this house all those years ago. He is surprised at is own emotions, still isn't sure why he even wanted to spend his leave on Euclid Avenue and is uncertain as to just what it is he feels tingling in this throat. He walks over and sits down beside her and says, "Last night, there in the room, I was thinking of all you had told me about Charles and Loren."

She puts her handkerchief back into her purse, sniffles a moment and says, "You're the 3rd man that's gone to war from this house. I'll pray everyday that nothing happens to you like it did to Charles and Loren. I mean...I just hope...."

He readily sees she wishes she had not intimated he could well be killed or wounded, moves closer and puts his arm around her. "I know what you mean," he says and glances back at the picture of Loren on the table in the back of the room. "The way things are now...I mean it's just not the same as it was then."

The smile guardedly returns to her face, and he is relieved when she says, "We'd better leave. The bus is due in 7 minutes."

The sky is a cloudless blue, and the bright rays of the sun glisten over the high-pitched rooflines, casting long shadows of the budding branches across the street. The birds dart from tree to tree, and their cheerful songs echo against the faded walls that vaguely portray Euclid Avenue as Blanche prefers to remember it. He watches her standing there at the bus stop. Her thoughts seem decades away, and he knows she is thinking of Charles and Loren. Before he was drafted, he hadn't paid much attention to all those stories she had told him about them. They hadn't seemed like real people, because his mind was always cluttered with financial summaries and records of productivity that would impress prospective investors - that was the only thing that seemed real and important to him. He doesn't know if it is fear of going to Vietnam or dread of the months ahead of him but now, more than ever before, he feels a need for some conciliating emotion such as the love he sees in Blanche's eyes. The drive and determination he felt towards his career strangely offer no consolation whatever, and such thoughts appear wasting away altogether.

Gradually, Blanche's memories of her loved ones unbind her, and she seems so glad to be with Randy. There are only 2 others on the bus, which moves rather slowly up a nearly deserted Edgewood Avenue. A great many of the row, single-story mercantile buildings are vacant and seem to have been for some time, but Blanche doesn't see them as they are now. She looks at that red one there and the white one on the corner and recounts to him what was in them when she went to work for Railway Express Agency. He is surprised. Speaking of the way things once were seems to lift his spirits - quite the opposite reaction he thought would be prompted by looking at the comparative ruin of the street now to the time she is recalling, but then, he notices how often she is mentioning her brother, his wife and their son. She isn't thinking about the old street at all. She is thinking about the love that was once in her house and remains in her heart to this day, even though all her family is gone. Everything else has been lost to time, but nothing can take those precious memories. 

All the while they are walking up Peachtree Street, Randy's eyes are firmly set on the Imperial Hotel. He looks at the small entrance, the several railroad workmen on the sidewalk just outside and into the near empty parking lot to the side of the building in front of the Domino Lounge. Since he was drafted, he has tried to forget Evette but now, his mind is pervaded with all those memories of the sound of her voice, her large, lovely eyes, and all the ambiguity as to what she truly was - someone whose life had left her unpolished and unwitting, thinking she was making a living the only way she could, or a highly sophisticated slut, preying on the emotions and needs of men. 

This is the first time he can remember seeing the old hotel during the day, and it looks considerably worse than it always did at night. The paint is peeling from the bay windows along the parking lot side, and he can see the bricks through the white letters "IMPERIAL HOTEL" along the top floor. Long ago, when everything was downtown, it had been something of an opulent spot but now, it's simply another withered flower waiting to die. 

Being rather practical, he wants so much to expel Evette from his mind and suspend his hopes and ambitions for the future until after his active duty time. He quickly turns away from the Imperial , which so much reminds him of her, and gazes at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. With only a transitory interest, he scans the pressed, red brick and terra cotta, obviously layered with many coats of paint, the rounded arched windows, typical of the Romanesque style architecture, and the 2 identical spires rising 137 feet above the street, which were once the tallest points of the central downtown vicinity.

He waits a moment for Blanche to lead him through the heavy wooden, arched doorways, and stepping into the vestibule is like walking back in time to the last century. There is a gray marble floor and elaborately framed mirror on each side of the wall. At the back of the church, there are several confessionals, intricately carved from Philippine mahogany. He follows Blanche into the sanctuary, her fingers touch the holy water, and she makes the sign of the cross. He is taken by the high arch down the central nave with white columns on either side leading to the alter, which is covered with a white cloth and has a flickering cancel on each side. Behind the alter is a dominant baldachin, framing a wooden cross on which there is a life-size figure of Christ, his head turned to one side. Small trickles of blood weep from his hands and ankles. High above the crucifix is the dome of the apse and a full-figure painting of Christ manifesting his Sacred Heart. He is standing on the globe of the earth, and 2 angles, surrounded by clouds, kneel on either side of him. 

They slowly walk down the aisle, Blanche kneels and makes the sign of the cross before entering a pew about halfway to the alter and kneels down on the pray slat in front of the seat. She is clasping a Rosary in both hands and begins to pray.

Randy doesn't know what to do and feels awkward, so he just does what Blanche is doing and kneels on the prayer slat. His eyes wander about the building and first stop at the 2 Victorian candelabras on the sides of the alter. He stares at the intricately detailed, brass pulpit. He studies the vertical series of symbols on the sides of the crucifix and never realizes they represent the instruments of Christ's passion - the 30 pieces of silver, the crown of thorns, the water with which Peter washed his hands, the seamless tunic of Christ for which lots were cast, the sponge with which the Romans tortured Christ, the cock that crowed with Peter's denial and Veronica's veil with which she wiped the face of Christ. 

His stare slowly turns to the right side of the alter and stops at the statue of Saint Joseph. He gazes at the other statue and doesn't know it is Saint Anthony of Padua, holding the Christ child in his arms. There are rows of votive candles, enclosed in blue vases, and each is flickering, thus remembering the pray of whoever lit it before the altar of God. For quite a long while, he stares at the statue of Mary, the mother of Christ and the Church, standing with her arms extended in a mediatorial position between heaven and earth, crushing the serpent of evil under her feet. Just to her right is a statue of Jesus manifesting his Sacred Heart. 

He and Blanche sit back on the pew, and he begins to look about the sanctuary which is nearly full of parishioners. In his life, he has never had an identity with any church; and while he certainly is not a disbeliever, he has never been moved by a confidence he could call faith strong enough to take it seriously.

There is a ringing towards the back of the church and a voice on the PA system. "Good morning and welcome to Sacred Heart. Please rise as we sing the first 3 verses of 127 and great our celebrant, Monsignor Patrick O'Connor."

As the entrance procession passes him, Randy looks at the 3 altar boys, one carrying a staff with a crucifix at the top. They are followed by the lector, carrying a large Bible at arms length over his head, and he is followed by a tall, rather thin, elderly priest in a white robe covered with a green tunic. The priest's face is tiered and weathered, suggesting he is not in good health, and thin strains of white hair are combed straight back across his head. The procession briefly stops and kneels in front of the altar, after which the altar boys and lector proceed to their chairs on either side. The old priest slowly walks behind the altar, bends down and kisses it before moving between the altar boys. He makes the sign of the cross and in a surprisingly firm and clear voice, says, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The people respond, "Amen."

The priest extends his hands and says, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

The people respond, "And also with you."

Again, the priest extends his hands to the people and warmly says, "My brothers and sisters, to prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins."

The people and priest respond:

"I confess to almighty God,
and to you my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault -
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary, every virgin,
and all the angles and saints,
and you my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God."

Speaking alone, the priest adds, "And may Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us of our sins and bring us to everlasting life."

For the first few minutes after Randy entered the building, he was awed by it, but slowly, his thoughts turn to the dreaded tour of duty in Vietnam, and only a few words of the priest's opening prayer register with him. He pays very little attention to the people seated around him except to notice that some seem captivated by the ceremony while others are quite clearly bored.

Randy is in something of a daze, thinking of all the things he has heard and read in the news media about Vietnam, but he never took any of it especially serious until he received his draft notice. Presently, the priest catches his eye when he stands, moves to the altar, and utters, "Almighty God, cleanse my heart and my lips that I might worthily proclaim your Gospel." He moves to the pulpit and says, 'The Lord be with you."

The people again respond, "And also with you."

The priest picks up the Bible and says, "A reading from the Holy Gospel, according to John.'

The people say, "Glory to you, Lord."

The priest begins to read:

"On the evening of that first day of the week, even though the disciples had locked the doors of the place where they were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood before them. 'Peace be with you,' he said. When he had said this, he showed them the wounds in his hands and side. At the sight of the Lord, the disciples rejoiced.

'Peace be with you,' he said again.
'As the Father has sent me,
so I also send you.'
Then, he breathed on them and said,
'Receive the Holy Spirit,
If you forgive men's sins,
they are forgiven them.
If you hold them bound,
they are held bound.'

The priest says, "This is the Gospel of the Lord."

The people say, "Glory to you Lord Jesus Christ."

Raising the Bible to his lips, the old priest kisses it, gently places it down on the pulpit and quietly says, "May the words of the Gospel come into our hearts and wipe away our sins." He stands there, looking over the parishioners for a few moments and then, without notes, begins to speak in a very firm voice, quite the contrary from his feeble appearance:

"If one judges today's Gospel simply by its length, there doesn't seem to be much there and, therefore, my homily should be directly to the point and appropriately short. When you heard me read it just now, what thoughts did it bring to your mind? Something in the distant past? Something you hope for or perhaps dread in the future, or did it prompt at least an incidental self-evaluation that possibly wasn't at all reassuring?

"As is the case with any form of literature, there are several means by which it can be assessed. There is, what shall we say, a 'pragmatic evaluation,' so often favored by those who regard themselves as educated. Under such a judgment, we must be quite certain we get all the names and dates in the right places, much the same as a history teacher would insist. Then, following this chronological record of events, we should mention that this is an account of a time shortly after Christ had been crucified, and as the Scripture suggests, the apostles were afraid and had locked their doors for fear of the Jews. If we must update this to our present dialect, I would simply tell you they were afraid of their shadows, and that is certainly understandable.

"Just take a moment and try to imagine how they must have felt. They had spent over 3 years with a man they had seen work miracles but also had seen him hang and die on a cross, the same as a common criminal. Think of someone you love and respect - try to conceive how horrible it would be to see such a person suffer such a tormenting death. Seeing something like that would be bad enough, but considering the prospect the same thing might happen to you would be even more alarming. And so, the apostles were rightly afraid - not only because of what they had seen but also, I'm quite sure, of the awesome task that lay ahead of them.

"Each of us, I suppose, has had similar experiences, although on a far lesser scale - something we knew we had to do but wished we could just simply walk away and leave it to someone else. Fear and dread are normal human emotions, and I don't know we need to be ashamed of them. Indeed, Christ himself must have experienced some of these same emotions when he uttered, 'Oh, that this cup might pass from my lips.' Usually, however, our own conscience and better judgment will tell us what is right, and most of us will not allow ourselves to be totally dominated by fear and dread.

"The pragmatist might tend to stop his evaluation there. The historical accounts of Christ's life on earth stop about here in the Bible, and if one studies the records the same as any other subject, the chronology can be memorized and indeed, one can become, what is the term - 'a student of the Bible.' Then, our whole faith could become something based on pure fact and after each mass, a 20 question true/false examination could be given and should anyone fail, that person would be required to attend some sort of refresher course during the week.

"Perhaps our assessment of the Gospel should go beyond that. We need only look through time to any of the great romantic authors and composers, and while without question, some of their works are open to various forms of interpretations, there is at least general agreement they contain some message of sorts extending beyond a simple record of events. I must tell you that for all these years I've been in the priesthood - and one need only look at me to know how long that has been - I've always been a romanticist, but before we get into that, let's look at the facts, just as a pragmatist would. When Christ said to the apostles, 'As the Father sent me, so I send you,' this was the very birth of the Hold Catholic Church, and surely Christ intended there be one universal church and certainly not the many fragmented persuasions of the belief that exist today. And so there, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, those few frightened men with the risen Lord standing among them received the Holy Spirit and were sent into a sometimes contentious world to convey Christ's message of love, understanding and reconciliation. Through these facts recorded in today's Scripture, the Church has evolved over the centuries from that indeed modest beginning to what it is today where millions upon millions of people all over the world are listening to the same Scripture you have just heard.

"I might also add that during all these years, many of the saints and martyrs of the Church have met rather violent deaths, resolutely following the mandates of our Lord, and comparing their suffering to these things we fear and dread, our own 'tribulations,' might tend to appear inconsequential.

"There's a very compensating side to this as well, because Christ told the apostles, 'If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them,' and that part of this reconciliation the Church has taught for all these hundreds of years is surely the hope that forgiveness did not die with the last apostle and that through the Sacrament of Confession, all who recognize their sins, are genuinely sorry and make an honest effort to live better lives have the hope of forgiveness.

"And so, these are the facts. We all need to be sure we have the correct places, dates and events accurately sorted out in our pragmatic minds and maybe on occasions, determined by ourselves, might mention something of these accounts to other people, simply to impress them with our knowledge of Bible history, if nothing else. We might even chose to imply our own righteousness in such nondescript history lessons and predict all sorts of dreadful events soon to befall the world because it is so sinful, as some of our Protestant denominations constantly do. Then we could indeed call ourselves 'students of the Bible,' all the while assuring ourselves that was what Christ intended....I think not. No, there must be another dominion to it all that I can only portray as the philosophical or romantic perspective.

"The philosopher or romanticist surely must recognize the facts but then, would reach within himself for the meaning. When Christ appeared to the apostles, why to you think he showed them the wounds in his hands and side? Was it to belabor the point he had suffered for the sins that you and I commit to this day and that he was indeed a martyr who had conquered both sin and death? The pragmatist would insist that if life after death even exists, if someone were to appear as a spirit, his image would be considerably different than his worldly form. Such a supposition isn't totally without merit, and so the apostles might not have recognized Christ, thus showing them his wounds was a method of identification.

"This might well be true, but I believe Christ continued to feel the same love for the apostles as he did when they walked at his side and showing them his wounds was simply an expression of his continuing love. Not a single day passes in any of our lives that we do not have the opportunity to express our love and understanding to someone, but due to this preoccupation many of us have with ourselves, we fail even to recognize the chance, and even worse, the need that someone receive our understanding, which requires no amount of money and very little intellect on our part. 

"Indeed, during those times we feel the world has treated us so unjustly, we have the likelihood to make something of a martyr of ourselves and display our wounds only for the purpose of mandating that others understand us on our own terms. Other times, such a pretext is only for the purpose of justifying to ourselves the way we have chosen to lead our lives, but in one way or another, we all insist on displaying the wounds we feel the world has ever so unjustly inflicted on us.

"Most of the time, I prepare my homilies in the late evening and sometimes, when I can't grasp what seems an effective means to explain the theme of the mass, it's very unsettling. After many years as a priest, and I suppose in other professions as well, it finally struck me that this uncertainty, this doubt that one often feels about himself, is something that few master. At any rate, for years, I was so beleaguered with this doubt that I couldn't sleep until finally, someone suggested on those occasions when I found I could not find the supposed eloquence to effectively relate the theme, I simply give it up, listen to music for awhile and then, try again. I began doing that many years ago, and strangely enough, just the other night, when I was preparing what you are now hearing, I came to a dead end. My thoughts were confused. The ideas were just not there. Many of you have had similar experiences, I'm sure.

"I began to listen to the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto; and although I've had the recording for a number of years, I've never read the little paper on the inside of the cassette. It seems Rachmaninoff, at least at one point in his life, also had some very severe doubts about himself. During the early stages of his career, he had composed a number of very popular piano pieces but came under increasing pressure to create something more substantial. What resulted was his First Symphony, which was a dismal failure, and whoever wrote this explanation inside the cassette box related at some length as to just what were the reasons for his failure. The insight was that of a pragmatist and went on to say 'economy of means is a characteristic common to many of Rachmaninoff's works. It is evident in both the First and Second Symphonies where the opening bars contain pithy ideas that constitute much of the substance of the whole pieces.' The implication was that Rachmaninoff just didn't have the intellect or creativeness of many of the other romantic composers. 

"After such a devastating failure, the composer entered a period of deep depression so severe that he required psychiatric therapy, but eventually, he began to regain some confidence in himself and in 1900 and 1901, created his most popular composition, the Piano Concerto Number 2 in C Minor. It was an immediate success and remains a success, even until this day.

"According to this critique on Rachmaninoff's career, after the Second Piano Concerto, he entered a 'mature and creative period,' sometimes displaying a fully fledged melodic style and an opulent but infinitely varied and discerning use of the orchestra. The piano portions of these compositions were texturally complex and often made extreme demands on the agility and power of the pianist.

"This so called more productive period of Rachmaninoff's life marked the end of what musical historians call the 'Romantic Period.' Composers of that day began reaching out for new concepts, new images, and often challenged the structurally sound harmonies of the Romantic Period, but Rachmaninoff would have none of it and steadfastly held to the old methods, once again becoming a subject of disapproval among his contemporaries, one of whom described him as 'one who has only mastered the melancholy.'

"If we apply this analogy to our own lives, I'm sure each of us has his own hopes and ambitions, but the sometimes cruel reality is that only some of us will achieve them, or some portion of them, and some of us will achieve none of them at all. What might seem an unfair consequence is that some who must face disappointment and failure are consumed by it, or at least substantially changed in the process. On the other hand, those who attain their goals might well find accomplishing what they had set out to do really isn't as important as they had thought. Sometimes, the selfishness that results from peoples' worldly ambitions destroys the feelings of those around them and such is a fate far worse than failure. There is no human being in this world that doesn't want happiness. There is only a difference in opinion as to what happiness actually is and how to attain it. Regardless, whether one is viewed by himself or the world as a success or failure, the process in reaching one of those ends is going to leave wounds. Some display those wounds with bitterness, self-righteousness, or perhaps a determination to always seek to worthily fulfill their places in this life, whatever they might find them to be.

"Perhaps we can begin to grasp this dominion of reason, this implication of punishing injustice, by recognizing one 'fundamental point,' as the pragmatist would put it. The Holy Scripture doesn't teach that God created all men as equals. Actually, what it does teach that in the eyes of God, all men are equal. In worldly terms, we are exceedingly unequal. Some are fortunate enough to attain a good education, to pursue rewarding careers, to be driven by standards or even commendable ideals, and yet, others, as Rachmaninoff's critics put it, are driven by pithy ideas that constitute the major substance of their lives. Is this phenomenon simply a natural consequence that since the beginning of time, there has always been the fortunate and unfortunate and that the unfortunate by their very substance, must always be ruled by this pithy nature? No....One need only look at literally any period in the history of any vocation to see that some of the greatest contributions have come from those with rather humble backgrounds and from those who only had their own will and determination. The romanticist would explain this by saying something like, 'A full-rigged ship under an unfurled sail makes a beautiful picture but it does not move without the wind.'

In the case of Rachmaninoff, his First Symphony was a failure because it was a product of necessity and not inspiration, but it was the depression that followed that ultimately produced a certain motivation and determination that resulted in the Second Piano Concerto, which does have some rather dark themes that quite understandably convey his frame of mind when he created it.

"I would suggest to you that this wind can be the same Holy Spirit that Christ breathed on the apostles on that night related in today's Scripture. Regardless of one's intellect or social standing, we must recognize we all have opportunity, certainly some more than others, and reason must lead us to recognize that. Rachmaninoff, the master himself, in his later years, refused to perform his own 3rd Piano Concerto, because he could no longer answer its technical demands; and even thought those demands were his own creation, he recognized his limitations. Still, as much as he was criticized by his contemporaries, 27 years after his death and some 70 odd years after his productive period, one need only pick up the program of literally any orchestra in the world and there will be the name over and over again..... Sergei Rachmaninoff.....Sergei Rachmaninoff.

"Before we become too intent to on displaying the wounds we feel this world has ever so unfairly inflicted on us, perhaps we should ask ourselves what is it that drives our lives? I'm not going to tell you worldly ambitions are bad, and I'm not going to assure you that your faith in God will always lead you to total happiness and success in whatever you set out to do. I can tell you, however, with no fear of being wrong, that God loves the unhappy and the non-achievers the same as he does the most knowledgeable medical doctor, the most accomplished concert pianist or the most imaginative industrialist; and as Christ told us in today's Scripture, if we only return a portion of that love, there is hope that our sins will be forgiven. What could bring one greater happiness than knowing this or that those around us love us for what we truly are - not what we wish we wish  or what we want them to think we really are. Surely, being loving, considerate, unselfish - and yes, recognizing and accepting our limitations most surely will not result from a single event but more likely, will result from a process that might well last for most of our lives. Grellet expressed it so eloquently when he wrote:

'I shall pass through this world but once.
If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do,
let me do it now -
let me not defer it or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.'

"I can't tell by looking at any of you whether you are a pragmatist or a romanticist, what your impression is of what Saint John was trying to tell us in today's Scripture, your impression of an old man's commentary on those holy words, or even if you have an impression. Certainly, everyone's lives, in one way or another, eventually teach them to think for themselves. And so, these then are only a few thoughts that come to the mind of a romanticist, reflecting on that night long, long ago when the Holy Catholic Church was in its infancy, when the apostles were afraid and behind closed doors when Jesus appeared to them, and he showed them the wounds in his hands and side."

Click here for Chapter 13 - Part 1