A True Friend - Johnnie D.

A True Friend – Johnnie D.






Dear Friends,



In Book Two of “Eve of All Hallows, The Power of The Christ”, to be published this fall, I have an “Interlude” dedicated to one of my lifelong friends, Johnnie D. I hope that John, as well as all of my friends, enjoys its message. Here goes:





John – “…He Was a Lamp Burning And Shining,

And You Found Joy in His Light…”



- Jesus, talking about John The Baptist in Jn. 5:35



It was well after midnight now, and we had all been sitting by the campfire for over three hours. Yet the hours had seemed like minutes. What do they say about being in Love, or more precisely, about being in the presence of God? The hours go by like minutes, and even an eternity in the Presence of divine Love will seem timeless, will seem like a moment. And it was the presence of God that we were all feeling now. It was a spellbound awe in the presence of the Holy, but also an awe in the light of the Gospel and its power to release the Holy into our world - an awe that must have paralleled the awe of the shepherds before the angelic Light that pierced their own night on that first Christmas.



During each of the interludes in the story, either Lawr or Johnnie D. - and sometimes Michael and myself - would go to get more wood for the fire. But it was Lawr and Johnnie really who were the watchkeepers of the fire that night. With each pause in the story they would get up, and guided only by moonlight, quickly run over to the pile of stacked wood along the side of the lake cottage.



Unlike Michael and me, when Lawr and John came back from the pile, six or seven logs all at once rested on one of their muscular shoulders - and those all wrapped within the fold of one muscular arm. Let's just leave it at this - that Michael and I couldn't do that. In any case, mostly because of the vigilance of John and Lawr, now, hours later, the blue flames of logs burned right to their core still kept a full and vibrant fire crackling and sizzling quietly in the dark - yet still with a sound that was in stark contrast to the late night silence of the forest.



It was the segments in Fr. Ted's story about the Gospel and its Power that makes me want to reminisce about the awesome witnesses to the Faith that both Johnnie D. and Michael were also to become, even by their college years – much like the great Lawrence himself (Lawr!)! Johnnie D. and Michael, like all the rest of us around that campfire, were cut to the heart by Fr. Ted's story. Very much like Lawr - and unlike me - Johnnie D. and Michael were quick to open their hearts that very night to God's Presence. In the days, weeks, and months to come, they kept in touch with Fr. Ted, each seeking through his counsel and friendship to fill their soul and spirit with more of the transforming Power and Presence of Christ. How that Power and Presence had moved them, and all of us so deeply, just from the telling of Fr. Ted's tale - a tale of the supernatural on one special night, by the light of one special fire, so long, long ago.



I have already said much about Michael – about his leadership, his sharp insight and wit, and his charisma, especially with women. But John in no way was less in stature. He was a young man gifted and graced in so many ways, and he could always rise to the challenge of matching Michael – matching him as readily in the academic arena as out there on the athletic field.



As for after that summer weekend by the lake, John would go on from our high school to the University of Maryland, and there made his bold stand for Christ. In one challenging situation after another, John would witness intrepidly to the Power and Presence of Christ alive in our lives in our own day and time. I have loved so many of the stories of witness that Johnnie D. has shared with me over the years. So many of these he still shares on the high school Antioch Retreats that we now run together as adults.



One story in particular captures so well the kind of courage for the Gospel that is so characteristic of John. It is a story that explains why to so many, including myself, it is the role and power of an Evangelist that marks and defines John's bold witness to youth in the Church today.









As John tells it, he was going to daily Mass in Lent during one of his college years in Maryland. For those daily liturgies the priest celebrant would invite the students to gather up in the sanctuary around the main altar. The celebrant also encouraged dialogue homilies each day, and after he gave his priestly reflection on the scriptures, the students could share their own insights as well.



During one of these daily dialogue sessions, a young co-ed shared something that was extremely problematic for John. And though it was a young co-ed who shared it, it could just as easily have been any one of a thousand different young men too – a thousand and more who though alive and well out there in the Church today seem to be oblivious to the central and core concepts of Christianity, God knows why!



After the priest’s sharing, the co-ed was the first to speak up from among the many students gathered around that main altar. She was reflecting in response to one of the divine pronouncement passages in John's Gospel that had just been used at Mass. These are passages where Jesus clearly claims equality with God (Jn. 5:18). In this case the passage was one where Jesus clearly applied the divine name to Himself that Yahweh had revealed to Moses (Jn. 8:58) - "...before Abraham came to be I am."



The co-ed shared quite brazenly that as far as she was concerned, Jesus had problems - or to put it bluntly, had a "God-complex" like Jeremiah and so many of the other prophets who had a "pipeline to God" mentality. "Today we know better...", she said, "...than to believe in anyone who felt that as far as getting to God was concerned, it was their way or the highway. It’s preposterous for anyone to claim exclusive and privileged access to the divine, as if their way was the only way to God."



Johnnie D. was sitting there quietly around the Table of the Lord and in the context of the Eucharist, wondering why someone who thought this way would even be at the Mass in the first place. There was a prolonged silence. It was a dramatic silence, like that silent moment in film before the attack, the eruption. Or, put in more positive light, it was the quiet moment before a great and wonderful revelation, the quiet moment before Dorothy or Lucy opens a door to a whole new and beautiful world.



John studied the face of the priest and of all the students surrounding the altar to see if anyone was going to say something. The Gospel was at stake. No one spoke. But then, as is characteristic of John, and of anyone with his kind of charisma, he boldly spoke up, “driven irresistibly by the Spirit” to do so.



Yes, St. Paul’s words are meant here literally: “driven irresistibly by the Spirit”! Johnnie D. always shares on our retreats how in that moment he could feel the anointing of the Holy Spirit come upon him with Power. Perhaps, John has often reflected with me, it was much like Mary experienced when the Power of the Most High overshadowed her. Johnnie is so adamant in his challenges to me that his experience may well have been like that of the Blessed Mother. If she is the Mother of the Church, why should what is true for her not be true for us? Why, John insists, should we not expect that what is true for her, would also be true for the Church to follow and model?



In any case, it was abundantly clear to John during this dialogue homily that the Spirit of God was powerfully anointing him. As never before my friend felt with certainty that it was the Spirit Who was about to speak His Word through John as through the Lord's chosen instrument in that moment. Like Mary, John was about to bring Christ into the world, and into that sanctuary.



There at the main altar, before the priest and all present, Johnnie D. began his response to the co-ed by quoting from the Gospel of John, both John 14:6, and then John 12:32. From John 14 he read the words of Jesus that "...I am the way, the truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Me.” From John 12 he read the words of Jesus, “…And I, when I am lifted up from the earth (on the Cross!), will draw all men to himself."







John shares in his talks with youth today how when he read these Words at that college Mass, they were alive and powerful, filling the sanctuary with the tangible Presence of God's Spirit. Johnnie reflects now on our retreats how he always knew the teaching of the Church - that when the Word is proclaimed at Mass, the Risen Jesus is rendered as present in the assembly as when the words of consecration are spoken over the gifts of bread and wine.



But John shares how in this moment during that dialogue homily, he knew that teaching for the first time not only with his mind, but with his heartas well. In that sanctuary that day, he could feel the Power of God's Love become present when God's Word was spoken. The Words were Spirit and Life, and God's Word spoken and proclaimed released the Holy Spirit into the whole assembly. Suddenly, Words that were living and active, and sharper than a two-edged sword, pierced to the hearts of everyone there. It was as if John's reflection upon God's Word rendered present the Spirit and Power of the Risen Christ.



What was his reflection in the light of God's Word from the Gospel of John? Johnnie D. explained that because of Jesus' Resurrection, He was "the way" that God has chosen for humanity to enter into His Life and Love. In fact, Johnnie D. himself was at the Eucharist they were now celebrating to do precisely that - enter into communion with Jesus' Life, Love, and Power. John stated boldly that the Resurrection sets Jesus and His teaching apart from the Founders of all the world’s religions. In the light of the Resurrection, Christianity and communion with Christ are God's way to enter into His own Heart, the Life and Spirit of His Son.



"But did the Resurrection really happen?" the co-ed retorted swiftly. But John too was quick to answer. What is this Eucharist, he replied, if not "the way" we enter into the Spirit of the Risen Christ, and become filled with the Love of the One Who was given up for us? "In the Eucharist", John said, "I expect to enter into union with the Risen Christ, and know in Him the Love and Spirit of the Father present in power to my life. And if you open your heart to His Risen Presence, you will experience that Power and Presence as well.”



“A personal Pentecost after all is the sign given to all of us that Jesus did rise from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus Himself said that when he would go to the Father, He would send His Spirit to us. In Eucharist, when we partake of His Body and Blood, we too are filled with the Spirit of Pentecost, and know even as the apostles did that only in Jesus do we find our way to God - only in union with Him, with His Spirit, does humanity become empowered like Christ to go to the Father as well."



There was now another kind of silence that came over that small assembly after John had finished speaking. It was a holy silence, a silence filled with the Presence of God. The priest looked at John with wonder and amazement, much as a father beaming with pride over a son who had just spoken with courage before a vast assembly. It is true too that each time John tells this story to yet another group of youth on our retreats, that same awesome silence settles over all of us. I have been on so many of those retreats, and seen this myself. Much like on that special night by the fire long ago, I too have felt with all the youth there on those retreats, that holy silence rich with God’s fire, a silence where our hearts burn with the Life and Love of the Risen Jesus - the Risen Jesus Who is present in power to us as well, alive and still with us in our own day and time.



But a final thought here is imperative. Each time Johnnie D. shares that story, like the priest in that U of M chapel, I too beam with pride over my friend. I feel so proud of him for speaking up - that he did what did, and that he did it for Jesus. I feel proud that such a man is honored to be my friend. His courage to proclaim Christ is exemplary, and so desperately needed today.













Contemporary society can be such a dark place – a dark world void of God’s Love, a world excising even the mention of God from it academic arenas and forums, from its assemblies and market places. How desperately then our society of today needs persons of courage to proclaim Christ, to proclaim that He is risen and still here in the midst of us. How desperately the world of today needs to know the Light of God’s Love as real and powerfully present to us. How desperately the world of today, tormented and terrified by its own darkness, needs to know the Power of God’s Light in the face of Evil, the Power of His Love as a real force for freedom - the freedom of a Love casting out all fear from our lives.



Yes, I feel proud that I have such a man of God for a friend, someone who has been my friend and brother since high school. I feel proud that such a man has stood with me and by me in the cause of Christ for the whole of my adult life. He is that rare friend who has especially stood by me even in the shadow of my cross. He is that rare friend who has imaged to me the unconditional love of God, even when it meant for him stepping out onto the water, and facing for me and with me the winds and waves of a storm at sea.

Larsan’s Funeral

Yes, as St. Paul says, our time on this earth is not meant to last forever – "We have not here our eternal home." How deeply that truth was brought home to me and to all who attended Larsan's wake and funeral over the last two days.

Our labor and suffering here is meant to prepare us for eternal weight of Glory in a world beyond our own – and again, as St. Paul says, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the Glory that awaits us. And Larsan now sees the Glory!

The students at our school were at the services to the point of overflowing, and all seemed so open to this message – that Larsan has already what the rest of us still strive for, and strive for so often through cost, cross, crisis, and challenge.

The numbers at the wake and funeral were unbelievable. Over five hundred cars followed the hearse to the cemetery from the Church. Two lanes of the highway were blocked by the police for the five mile stretch on Rte. 95. Larsan was laid to rest in the cemetery right across the street from school property. White doves were released into the air after the closing prayer at the gravesite.

On Friday evening over a thousand people came to pay their respects. The waiting line went out the Church – the wake was in the Church – and around the whole parking lot into the neighborhood beyond. I said to Larsan's mother that it was a miracle that she and Larsan's father were able to greet all those people, and give each person their special moment with them. She agreed. She said the Lord strengthened her for that challenge, and that she would have had it no other way than to honor each and every person who came out to pay their respects to her son.

As for the Feehan students. I was bursting with pride and love for them. Three of them gave tributes to Larsan at the funeral, and all of their talks centered on how he was a witness to Christ's love for us all. They shared too so many examples of how Larsan demonstrated courage and strength through Christ to proclaim His Love boldly by his words and deeds – "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me." (Phil. 4:13)

What I saw so profoundly throughout the whole time of our coming together was how much became "sacraments" to each other – people who allowed the power of Christ's Love to reach out through our love, and touch and heal and strengthen others in the process. It was like the embodiment of what the "Mission Talk" on the Antioch urges us to become: "sacraments to the world". Especially in the student tributes before the whole congregation, you could feel that their words were a word from God, for through their words all of us were inspired, comforted, and strengthened. Those students were truly vessels of Grace. The whole experience was a true celebration of Church, "Church" as a people filled with the Holy Spirit, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, a people becoming the Face of Christ for each other.

In my prayer during the service it was so clear just how much we need people, especially to face the unthinkable, which the tragic loss of Larsan's life truly was. Unless we come together in times like that we cannot handle such "dark hours" in our lives. We were truly not meant to handle such crises all alone. Yes, "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me", but how much His Love wants to reach out and touch our lives through others.

Well. There's so much more I could write about, but enough for now. Forgive me if I got too heavy in this letter, but realize that I just have come through a most anointed and graced experience. It was that experience, more than any other right now that I felt led in the Spirit to share with you.

To all my friends, let us all live for the praise of his glory, for whatever "season" it is given to us by the Lord to live on this earth…

I hold you all in my heart,

In His Love for you,

Peace,

Doug +

A World In Desperate Need of Jesus

 

 

 

Henri! Hey there!

 

In this letter I'm going to reflect on the next essential point of the Gospel: "…be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts of The Apostles 2:38) Specifically, let's focus on the need we all have to seek forgiveness of our sins by "baptism" – that is, immersion in God's Love through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even your journey and mine to the fullness of God's Love in us must be out of and from a world steeped in sin. We too have been in that world and part of it.

 

But before we get into that, remember how I told you that I thought it might be fun if we used "Under The Tuscan Sun" to illustrate the meaning of the Gospel. So this morning I was reviewing the film on the Internet. Don't tell anyone, but I've come to love computers and the Internet – it puts a whole world library right at your fingertips!!! Believe me, the Doug Michaud of ten years ago would never have said something like that about computers.

 

I love "Tuscan Sun" because of the whole "Paschal Mystery" framework of the film. "Paschal Mystery" is the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we participate in through our communion with Christ. Through the Power of Christ, communicated through the Word of God and sacraments, we too pass from "death" to "life" in union with Him. This means that through the Power of Christ's Love we pass from brokenness to healing, from despair to hope, from darkness to Light; from being scarred, wounded, hurt and torn apart by sin in the world to being made whole and strong and free to love once more even as Christ loved us.

 

The whole California sequence in "Tuscan Sun" shows a broken world, a world in "sin". I don't remember if I taught you that the Greek word for "sin" is "harmartia"? Well, it is. And "harmartia" is actually an archery term, meaning to "miss the mark", "miss the target". "Sin" therefore is human lives "missing the mark", falling short of the ideal of Christ's Love, human lives twisted out of focus, human hearts and souls becoming cold and hardened to love because of the way sin and wickedness in the world have hurt us. (Matthew 24:12)

 

Thus, you have in the film the divorce (brokenness!) that tears Frances apart, the apartment house filled with divorcees, where you can actually hear people "weeping and wailing in this valley of tears." (Words from the prayer, "Hail Holy Queen")

 

It's also a twisted world, a disordered world that militates against the plan, order, and design that the God Who is Love (1 John 4:8) wants for our world. Consider the lesbian couple who want to toast over dinner to Frances' new found "freedom". Yet it is not at all a concept of "Christian freedom" that they are toasting to, but a "license" for Frances to do now whatever the "hell" she wants to do. There is no "right" or "wrong"; no natural written upon our hearts; no absolute Good or absolute Evil – kind of like what liberals want us to believe in contemporary American culture, and perhaps even more so in California!

 

So California in the film is the disordered world, a world in sin. Yet don't be mistaken here. Frances is part of that world – and so are you and I. Remember Jesus words to the people who wanted to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery: "Let him among you who are without sin be the first to cast a stone at her." (John 8:7) Remember also Jesus' story of "The Pharisee and The Publican". (Luke 18:9-14) Jesus condemns the Pharisee who felt He could stand righteous before the Lord in the Temple and say, "I thank you, God, that I am not like other men." But about the Publican (A Tax Collector), Jesus says, "…he went home at rights with God…" Why? It was because before God in the Temple, he would not even dare to raise his eyes. But bowed low before the Lord, he only repeated over and over, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

 

So Frances begins a journey – both an actual geographical journey to another place, but also a spiritual journey to healing and wholeness through the Power of Christ's Love. That love is imaged to her through Mary, the ultimate "transparency" of God's Love.

 

Now any window is a "transparency" – something that we do not look at, but rather something we look through. In "Tuscan Sun" Mary is a transparency to the Sun – or if you are open to the symbolism of the film, to the "Son", to her "Son", Jesus. Mary is a transparency to the Love of the Son, a window through which we can reach for and touch the Love of the Son, the fullness of the Love of God.

 

The name of the Villa that Frances purchases is called "Bramasole", which means "pining" or "yearning for the Sun" ("Son"!!!). But everywhere in the Villa are signs of Mary – 3 actually that I remember - and ever so slowly Frances will learn that Mary will be the medium, the vehicle, the window through which Frances will touch the "love of the Son". Through Mary, Frances will reach for and achieve the Love of the Son for which she is really yearning.

 

Henri, do you remember the night of the storm? When her friend Patti mentions "Tom", the husband that left Frances, the deep night "storm" outside in the Tuscan countryside ignites with fury. It is a metaphor for the storm within Frances, for her soul and heart torn apart.

 

But when in the fury of the storm, she "touches Mary", immediately there is a "sharp cut" in the film to a beautiful and peaceful morning. The "stormy night" is over; there is peace. It is a very significant scene that in many ways symbolizes what is going to happen in the film – and in Baptism as well. Through the Power of the Son's Love that we touch through Mary, darkness gives way to Light, a heart torn apart and broken is healed and made whole again.

 

Did you know that the Greek word "diabalein", from which we get the English word, "diabolic", means "to tear apart". It translates a Hebrew word that means the same, but which also means "to tear a man limb from limb". Interestingly enough, that Hebrew word also means as well "to gossip".

 

Now we're only scratching the surface so far with the Gospel brought to life through the film, "Tuscan Sun". There's so much more! But as you know from eating so many Italian meals, you shouldn't have all the courses of the meal all at once. You must have pauses between them to allow yourself the chance to savor what you have eaten.

 

So let's pause here and try to digest what we have looked at so far: 1.) Making a "leap of Faith" by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior; realizing too that we need a Savior. 2.) Allowing the Power of the Spirit to help us turn from the darkness and sin of this world to the Light of His Love. That will be the way we most powerfully experience God's Grace in our lives. It will be in the healing of our own sin by the power of His Risen presence anointing us in and through the Person of the Holy Spirit. 3.) That the world apart from God is in sin, twisted out of the true pattern and design which God's Love had planned for it; that we are part of that world, and by our own power cannot break free of it. We can and will experience God's Spirit empowering our own "Paschal Journey" from the world steeped in sin to "Church" in a most authentic sense – "Church" understood as a people filled with the Spirit of His Love and having the courage before the world to be the Face of Christ's Love for each other.

 

As always, I fear I may be getting too deep; or, giving too much of the "Gospel meal" all at once. But I pray that the Lord may use these words I write to lead you more and more into the Light of His Love for you.

 

For now it is enough. Next time we'll look at that last part of the Gospel proclamation by Peter: "…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38)

 

Until then I pray that in ever-deepening ways, our Lord may continue to bless you with the fullness and Power of His Love.

 

Peace,

Mr. Michaud +