Nativity Catholic Church
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More Than Just Passing
Through To say that I am “thorough” when packing up and getting ready to leave a hotel room would clearly be an understatement. If I open some remote drawer or reach inside the closet safe once, I do it a handful of times; although most things I’m carrying could easily be replaced if I were to accidentally leave them behind (after all, once money, airline information, and wallet are secure—the rest can be dispensed with). Credit cards, although dangerous in most people’s clutches, are wonderfully comforting pieces of plastic, knowing that some missing item can quickly be re-acquired (perhaps even something better than the old model) with a simple swipe of the hand. I am determined, when checking out, not to leave so much as a trace of my presence behind. And then, of course, once departed, the cleaning crew does the rest, wiping out any vestiges of the previous guests, so that upon arrival, every newcomer has the distinct illusion that they are the first ones to ever stay in this suite. It’s part of the magic of hotels. Just think about it, you can occupy the same space for a week, spread all of your life out in every nook and cranny of those pampered quarters, do the most personal hygienic things in the luxury bathroom, make the place feel like home—and then, in the blink of an eye (and the scrubbing bubbles of the maid), your memory is eliminated from that space, just as if you had never been there, or for that matter, ever existed! Hotel rooms, no matter if they are the plushiest Ritz-Carlton grandly towering over the most magical island resort, or the seediest “Hideaway Acres” wedged in between a truck stop and a worn out, beer-encrusted swill hall, are all about passing through—and leaving no traces behind. In The Sea, a mesmerizing, lavishly penned novel by John Banville, the story’s narrator, Max Morden goes back to the seaside town of Ballyless, where he spent his childhood summer holidays in the hopes of coping with the recent death of his wife Anna. As he returns to The Cedars, that grand estate where once the Grace family languished away their idle summers (he the poor interloper who was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of its more well-off renters), Max nearly expects the old place to be the same as it was those 50 summers earlier. In trying to recapture the past, for this, since Anna’s death, is all he now seems able to function in, he says: I had hoped for something definite of the Graces, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, a faded photo, say, forgotten in a drawer, a lock of hair, or even a hair-pin, lodged between the floorboards, but there was nothing, nothing like that. No remembered atmosphere, either, to speak of. I suppose so many of the living passing through—it is a lodging house, after all—have worn away all traces of the dead. As I recently passed my 22nd anniversary of ordination to the priesthood, I reflected on the wonder and beauty of that grand day in time. But with it always comes a gnawing tinge of sadness and disappointment. While to all appearances that long-awaited occasion could not have been celebrated more perfectly, it was slightly shy of “perfection,” as two incredibly important people in my life and journey toward that day were missing—my maternal grandmother Emma, who I am sure prayed me all the way to the moment I rested under Bishop Garland’s outstretched hands, and my dear friend Fr. Stan Cmich, C.Pp.S., who died of cancer only six weeks beforehand, after serving as a priest for merely two years. Fr. Stan was to preach my first Mass in Pittsburgh the week following the ordination liturgy. Fortunately for me, and for all of us who claim the name “Christian,” we do not suffer from the “hotel syndrome” in our passing through this life. There is no illusion amongst Christians that no one has come before us and occupied our space (although, sometimes in our struggles and anguish, we feel as though we are the first ones in all of history undergoing some woeful tribulation). In fact, as Max Morden’s search illustrates, we desperately need to see, feel, experience, and be assured of traces of those who have gone before us, and who, in our longing desire, are with us still. To purge our spaces, whether physical, psychological, or emotional, of those who have been dear to us, is unthinkable. Rather, we seem to want to surround ourselves with memories, with touchstones of those who have since died, so that we might once again experience, albeit in a less than satisfactory way than we would greatly desire, their influence, presence, and love. We watch the well-trod steps we take so as not to “wear away” the traces of the dead. No, unlike guests briefly “owning” and then passing through a hotel accommodation, leaving no trace behind (except for the credit card receipt), we are a people who leave our mark, want to be remembered, and know deep down that memory is our most significant stand against the passage of time’s giant eraser. And more than this, we have another destination, a destination where all traces of our lives will be permanently, indelibly marked in the heart of God for all eternity. At times, in our busyness and inattentiveness, we the living, as we pass through the spaces of life once occupied by others, allow the traces of loved ones momentarily to slip away. And then something happens, something stirs inside us or around us, and the dead come back to life, and we once again touch them and their meaning to our lives, and we are deeply thankful, that in God’s grand estate, God’s many-roomed mansion, the “dead” are indeed living, so that we, the “living” can find our way home.
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