Pas de Deux in Shadowland

Shadowland - Mary's shadow hovered to the left of the shadow of the wise priest. It stayed with him for his entire appearance. Throughout the talk, two shadows engaged in the deepest of inky exchanges.

I made reference to this X-File-like incident in my coverage of the Nurses and Doctors for Divine Mercy Conference on May 2, but perhaps it needs more attention. I've been looking to get this off my chest with a more detailed treatment than my cursory mention in my conference coverage for this blog. Time, then, to empty the notebook of previous unshared bits and pieces of what, for this correspondent, was a happy but undigested event. My good friends, let me pull the stops, won't you. But first, I remind you that this year is the 90th anniversary of the appearances of Mary at Fatima.

After a bevy of speakers, the podium and talking stick went to Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, the man believed to be the world's greatest living authority on both Divine Mercy and St. Faustina. From the stage of the large hall at Holy Cross College, Nurse Marie Romagnano introduced Fr. Seraphim. That happened for all the speakers, but then something happened that did not occur for any other presenter, as far as I am aware.

The 'Cleardark' - A floodlight flicked on from the left, as the audience views the stage. The light, which had no logical reason for going on that I could see, streamed through, being partially intercepted by a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. The Fatima statue had been situated to the left of the speaker's podium, again, from the floor's point of view. The startling end product combined the physics of light and the metaphysics of intervention. It was chiaroscuro at its best, literally "cleardark" (from the Latin clarus, clear + obscurus, dark), a term I remembered from my art history studies, referring to the play of light and shadows in a painting.

Traveling at 186,000 miles a second, the beams from the floodlight gave the stage area a whitish, washed out appearance, flattening out the dimensions. It was as if we were looking at a 2-D image, say, on a movie screen. From the light, two shadows emerged. I scribbled in my notebook a favorite line from Walt Whitman (from memory, so it may not be word for word): "The body does not travel as far as the soul."

Pas de Deux - As Fr. Seraphim spoke, the light cast his shadow onto a projection screen to his left (the audience's right). The streaming photons also picked up an exact copy of the Fatima statue. The shadow of the statue positioned itself over the shoulder of the shadow of Fr. Seraphim and stayed there throughout the talk. Our Lady could be seen hovering over Fr. Seraphim's shoulder. I can't say viewers were startled, but you could hear a low murmur from the audience as people began to catch onto what was happening. The whispers blended together, sounding like white noise of a radio with the volume down low.

At the moment where the interplay of the shadows became apparent and impossible to ignore, Fr. Seraphim - oblivious to the projected image behind him - explained the linguistic derivation of the word "religion," from the Latin religio, which he defined as "I tie myself to something, one's connection to something else, particularly something important." As he spoke and his body swayed with the natural movements of speech, his shadow melded into Mary's shadow, or, we might say, attached itself to it. Religio, he is attached to Mary.

Look again at Felix Carroll's photograph of the shadows' effect. Now imagine the shadow on the left rock steady, and the one on the right in movement, coming periodically into contact with the other. It reminded me of a dance. Father Seraphim's shadow the unwitting (though willing) dance partner, with the statue's shadow the fixed partner that gives the dance its purpose. There was an innocent, almost whimsical aspect of the pas de deux.

I wasn't sure Felix got the two shadows with his Nikon, so I drew a rough sketch of the happening to preserve it in my notebook. I knew I would have to write about this at some point. Of course, Felix being Felix, that is, one heckuva good photographer, he had the images. Several, in fact, which, when he flicked them rapidly on the view screen of his camera, formed a little movie.


Defining Love - The two animated shadows played with each other, outlining an absence of light in the exact forms of Virgin and priest. At one point, Fr. Seraphim defined love as "going out of self to the other for the other's good, especially for his or her highest good." This is a man with a half century-plus in the priesthood. He belongs to a religious order dedicated to Our Lady. The Marian priests and brothers do little else than to extend beyond their mere selves for the "highest good of others." It is an action that draws Mary's maternal happiness as a magnet draws metal filings (and as easily as a light can create a shadow).

Who are such people who give up their lives for others? Who are they, who become cloistered nuns, selfless brothers, Marian priests? This moving beyond oneself for someone else's highest good is an unscientific action - irrational, some would say - that cannot be measured by the gradations on a test tube or reduced to one of several billion bits of information that can be encoded in a microchip.

Perhaps that's why this lost age can't see the religio directly in front of it that attaches it to the All in all. We of this age are like those who light a match to see the sun. How silly. We worship on the altars of man-made squares of silicon, adherents of a lazy "religion" that requires no faith. Science makes for such an indolent attachment. As two shadows played in the flat light, they repudiated the blindness of the age. I know, once again, I stand accused of "seeing too much into it." But that, too, is religio.

Who knows what good that lurks in the heart and minds of men? The Shadow knows.


Where are the Words? - In trying to convey the effect of seeing the two shadows play, language can only go so far. With all the words in the world, we can little describe the internal effects of faith. Language pivots from one meaning to the next from the fixed hinge of the reality it is trying to describe and communicate. When that reality touches the supernatural, all bets are off. My best advice: go back and look at Felix's photo.


Versed - The Shadow knows / behind your eyes what grows. / She knows just who you are. / She lives beyond the stars. / She knows just what you dream. / May all your dreams be of love. That is a verse to a song my brother, Mik Valenti, wrote in 1974. Again, my words can't create the great tune that carries these lyrics, but I found it interesting that the verse should fit so well with my topic.

Shadow is the product of light. Where there is no light, there are no shadows. One implies the presence of the other. Shadow is light intercepted by the outline of an object. It projects an image of itself as the object in light's absence, giving a precise (though often distorted) outline. When the light of God's grace fills us, it projects a light onto our sins. The shadows show up on our consciences and are removed not because the light goes away, but because the lighted object (sin) is removed.


Punch Line - Yesterday I asked if anyone could cite an instance in the New Testament where Jesus might have told a joke. No one took me up on it. I said I identified one possible incident. I'll reveal it later. For now let me give you a hint. It involves word play with one of the Apostles.


Prayer and danger - There's an old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes." Personal danger evokes prayerful response. I thought of this once when I was in central Florida, walking the shore of a freshwater lake. The mesmerizing scenery of a Floridian lake in all its jungle splendor caused me to momentarily lose sight of the trail. Suddenly, I found myself disoriented in a swamp loaded with alligators, cottonmouths, timber rattlers, and other such creatures of God. Long story short, I found my way back to the trail without incident, but I thought of that "atheist/foxhole" line because, let me tell you my dear friends, this kid did some pretty mighty praying while he thought he was lost in the swamp with the critters.

Back at the hotel, I wrote this poem. By poetic license, the lake had become the Amazon.

INSTANT SAINTS
On the Amazon, my thoughts would be more religious.
Infested waters make us fast swimmers, instant saints.
Put me once in real danger and I would break
From knowledge to Knowing as easy as a raft splits apart
On the unseen rocks hiding under raging waters.

On reptile land, prayers would gush forth, hobbling reason
With shore-sorry faith, guided groping that becomes THE WAY ashore,
Blue jungle through which I hack a trail leading to a village,
Where drums beat a message and I ask a native, "What drums say?"
He looks back and says, "Drums say, 'Persist, man, persist.'"
He mistakes me for a missionary. And he is right.



Benny Wraps Up in Brazil - Benedict XVI wrapped up his Brazil tour with a message to the general conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops. The Pope opened the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate with a proclamation of God as love. A papal spokesman said Pope Benedict "talk[ed] about the life of the Church in which this proclamation is carried out, cultivated, and spread."

As I predicted, the Pope touched on Liberation Theology. The spokesman added that "The Pope's speech was not simply spiritualistic, cut off from the reality of the surrounding world. It was a response to those who asked him how the Church would respond to the challenges that can come from the great injustices and imbalances of the continent - challenges that were dealt with in the past, and that are still around today, sometimes based on different ideologies - on the one hand, materialistic liberalism and on the other, Marxism."

Basically, the Pope told the bishops that the way to respond to the poor was to "distinguish the Church's task of proclaiming God's word" from politics, "so that it will not be seen in reductive terms, as something merely material."

Earlier, the Pope got in hot water with some comments that referred to indigenous activists, causing a rebuke from the National Foundation of the Indigenous. If I have time later, I want to discuss this.


More coming up - I've got to file now, but, like McArthur, I shall return. Stay tuned, my dear friends. Adios.


I am McArthur, Wading to Shore - Which means I'm back for a bit. I'm going to keep you hanging one more day on the Jesus/"joke." Someone out there must have a candidate of their own or want to take a guess on mine.

Say It and Weep - Back to Benedict's visit to Brazil, it didn't all unfold as planned. As AFP News reported, the Pope got into hot water for a statement that offended Amazonian native groups. The Holy Father said that "Christianity was not imposed by a foreign culture." He said "Christ was the Savior (America's natives) silently yearned for," later calling the resurgence of pre-Columbian religions "a step backward." Native leaders reacted with sharp criticism.

AFP News quoted several leaders. "Many peoples adopted Christianity, but it was imposed by force," said Marcio Meira, president of the National Foundation of the Indigenous, a Brazilian government group. Others called the Pope "arrogant" and "ridiculous." A Bolivian leader said, "The Catholic religion was imposed despite our beliefs and our religion."

According the AFP News, evangelical Christians were next in getting their noses bent out of shape. Benedict said people who are "insufficiently evangelized [are] most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of [evangelical] sects, a just cause for concern." Pentecostal churches said they were stung by the Pope's remarks.

My response? Maybe the Pope stepped in it on his comments regarding indigenous people. If so, he should fire his speechwriter. Given that, though, people need to develop more of a thick skin. Political correctness has run amok, to the point where differing viewpoints are seized by opportunists for political gain. In the name of tolerance and inclusion, they practice intolerance and exclusion. Ordinary people, as a rule, don't give a squat about such fabricated issues. The vast majority, in fact, seemed delighted to see and hear the Pope.

I thank and acknowledge Agence France Presse for the original reporting by AFP News of the Pope's controversial remarks.

Take it Easy - The Wandering Mendicant leaves you with this thought of the day: "It takes 26 muscles to smile and 62 to frown. Why not make it easy on yourself?"

Adios, my dear friends.

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