When you get to be at a certain age like me, sleep is important, but you cannot always count on it. Sometimes I feel tired and go to bed rather early then at one, two o’clock I wake up feeling rested and I can’t go back to sleep. So what do you do? That is where radio comes in; if there is something nice it can soothe the night away. Some people in such circumstances can pray and I do try to elevate gentle thoughts to God, but engaging in prayer is just too hard for my psyche. Others switch on the light and read. It doesn’t work for me. We are all different. So I just lie there quietly and while the body is resting my mind listens to the radio until I fall off again. I used to like certain stations and certain programs but in the last couple of years they have become too rough and ideological for me and a lot of them sound pompous and noisy. I like calm and intelligent conversation.
Then in February came an answer to my prayers in the person of Doug McIntyre. Check him out on Red Eye Radio. I know little about him because I have not bothered researching him. He speaks a lot about LA so he must have lived and worked there for many years but he also sounds very familiar with New York’s politics so I don’t know. He is a conservative but a moderate one. Here moderate means one that can give reasonable, acceptable explanations for his positions. He is intelligent and like me sees both sides of an issue; in every controversy like education or health care there are always two sides and if you spew out ideology and talking points and never address the good points of your opposition how do you expect to win their respect? He sees the same corruption, the same sell out to big interest? On both sides of the political fence and calls it out. He is scholarly; he knows history, literature, art and music. He speaks respectfully of the President even when he does not share the same view. So now when insomnia hits me there is an intellectual companion on the airwaves.
This past week I was asked by my vicar Msgr. Modugno to hold the monthly clergy meeting here in our rectory as an emergency. No problem I said. So we had all the priests here on Wed. for a meeting and a good meal after it. I was glad. I love the other priests. They are a fine bunch and they take care spiritually of East Harlem. I always ensure they get a good meal and enjoy a few nice hours together.
Normally we are able to talk about pressing pastoral issues, this time we had a consultant talking about our electric bills and how to save money, things I have already dealt with long time ago. I mentioned the lift, you know the new chair lift in front of the chair, they had noticed it and of course were curious to know how it worked and how much it cost, so I told them story of the Bernstein family and Julia Vega which you all know. There was great interest. Well, the chair lift could be something that other churches could easily replicate. Msgr. Modugno for instance said that something like that would be the perfect solution for his church; he says it is nice, good looking not bulky and although expensive it is within the reach of their pockets. He asked me to forward the contacts.
During the meal we talked a lot about Bishop Fulton Sheen. Some of the priests had met him at a big retreat in the Philippines years ago. Msgr. Modugno talked about the occasion when Bishop Sheen was preaching inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and he had some of those moments of rhetorical genius for which he was well known all over the world, he said something like this in his inimitable delivery: If you open wide the huge portals (doors) of this great Cathedral you’d see there outside this hallowed temple, Atlas, the ancient titan on whom befell the task to hold the entire planet Earth on his shoulders. So he is there in his titanic pose. You might think as you look at that figure that the weight of the world may be buckling his knees as one is tilting, more bent than the other but you would be wrong because the great Atlas, one of the great cyclops, titans, is not buckling under the weight of the world but he is bowing down and showing reverence to the Tabernacle and the One who dwells in the Real Presence.
Bishop Sheen was unique, the greatest televangelist. The US Post office said that one day they delivered 10,000 letters, an unbeaten record for an ordinary citizen. Unfortunately due to jealousies among the hierarchy the beloved bishop had to put up with a lot of small-mindedness and in the end, abysmally, the Catholic Church was not able to put anyone in his shoes and so that inheritance was frittered away. His television programs had huge audiences, ratings even when he came up against the greatest of his days. Well with time the Protestants took over televangelism and we were left out in the cold.
Here are some of his zingers. Every mother, when she picks up the young life that has been born to her, looks up to the heavens to thank GOD for the gift which made the world young again. But here was a Mother, a Madonna, who did not look up. She looked down to Heaven, for this was Heaven in her arms. A heckler asked Bishop Sheen a question about someone who had died. The Bishop replied, “I will ask him when I get to heaven.” The heckler replied, “What if he isn’t in Heaven?”The Bishop replied, “Well then you ask him.” We do not need a voice that is right when everyone else is right. We need a voice that is right when everyone else is wrong.
