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Books The spiritual legacy of Joseph Bernardin
THE GIFT OF
PEACE: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS By Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Loyola
Press, 153 pages, $17.95 |
I AM YOUR BROTHER
JOSEPH By Tim Unsworth Crossroad, 154 pages,
$9.95 |
THE WORD OF CARDINAL
BERNARDIN By Paolo Magagnotti Center for Migration Studies, 222
pages, $14.95 |
By TOM FOX
The Gift of Peace: Personal Reflections by the late
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin opens with a handwritten letter he penned just two
weeks before his death. It captures much of the tone of this 153-page departing
gift.
"My dear friends," the cardinal writes. "It is the feast of All
Saints and I am home because the Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese is closed.
The weather is much colder than it was several days ago, but it is still good
for walking. Normally, I would be doing just that.
"But today I will not do any walking. The reason is that a
pervasive fatigue -- one that is characteristic of pancreatic cancer -- has
overtaken me."
Bernardin writes through continuous pain, "discomfort in my lower
back and legs." Related spinal deterioration has helped keep the cardinal
focused on suffering that has awakened within him new spiritual awareness.
Bernardin acknowledges that this book "is not an autobiography but
simply a reflection on my life and ministry during the past three years, years
that have been as joyful as they have been difficult. ... To paraphrase Charles
Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, 'it has been the best of times, it has
been the worst of times.' "
Concluding his introduction, he invites "those who read this book
to walk with me the final miles of my life's journey. When we reach the gate, I
will have to go in first -- that seems to be the rule: one at a time by
designation. But know that I will carry each of you in my heart! Ultimately, we
will all be together, intimately united with the Lord Jesus whom we love so
much. Peace and Love," (signed) Joseph Card. Bernardin
The Gift of Peace, then, is a personal invitation to share
a spiritual journey, one encompassing the last three years of Bernardin's life,
years of transformation. Bernardin gradually became aware of the importance of
the changes within him, at first sharing them with friends but eventually
feeling compelled to explain them in more public ways.
They had the effect of tearing down barriers erected through the
years by personality and position, connecting him to others through spiritual
and physical anguish. Out of this Bernardin believed he had gained new insights
or perhaps simply come to terms with beliefs never fully grasped. These were
insights born not so much out of lofty scholarship or rich associations but
rather through loneliness, humiliation, uncertainty and fear of death.
During his last years, we see Bernardin accepting a new sense of
priesthood, one finally divorced from any pretext of ecclesial ambition, one
grounded in baptism and, in the end, a faith in God's goodness and promise.
The Gift of Peace is a gift to all who seek spiritual
understanding. Those who have felt blessed by Bernardin's ministries over the
years will celebrate this small book. It should be noted that it would probably
not have been published without the assistance of several people, including his
friend and biographer Eugene Kennedy, who helped Bernardin recapture and
construct some of his thoughts. Additionally, Loyola Press editor Jeremy
Langford took on the project as a labor of love, quickly winning Bernardin's
confidence and friendship. Langford continued to meet with the prelate,
hurriedly working the manuscript through to publication before time ran out.
For the editor it was a life-shaping experience.
Bernardin's influence in church history is significant and secure.
As a U.S. prelate, his influence may come to be seen as unparalleled in the
20th century. His articulation of a consistent life ethic is already seen as
one of the faith's more important expressions. Catholicism's sacramental view
of life has long been life-supporting, but it took Bernardin to translate
abstract theology and philosophy into more practical and popular
expressions.
Bernardin's influence will continue to grow, in no small measure
assisted by the openness and consistency with which he faced his death, as
The Gift of Peace shows.
This book has nice touches. Chapter headings, like the book title
itself, are handwritten in Bernardin's script. Knowing he was in his final
days, the cardinal introduced his reflections with an essay titled "Letting
Go," in which he wrote of his release from "those things that inhibit us from
developing an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus."
To read The Gift of Peace is to gain a new personal
acquaintance; it is to recognize again the common bonds we all share; it is to
be reminded that our ecclesial leaders are people much like us, facing mystery,
uncertainty and sorrow.
We learn that Bernardin, facing death, repeatedly cried. We learn
that he believed he had long failed to separate essentials from nonessentials
in his ministries -- until, at least, his own transformation. We experience his
loneliness. We learn how a fellow journeyman, Fr. Henri Nouwen, taught the
cardinal to befriend death.
As part of his final passage, Bernardin turned impending death
into a public meditation on Christian faith. This is the essence of The Gift
of Peace. On the day he announced he was dying, Bernardin spoke about what
he wished would become of his legacy: "I hoped that through my ministry, my
life, I would leave a community that would be more gentle, more loving, more
compassionate." Later he added: "All my life I have been teaching people how to
live and I thought if I could teach them how to die, that would be
important."
Bernardin's death triggered many reflections. One of the early
ones has ended up as an easy-reading paperback, the work of Chicago storyteller
and NCR columnist, Tim Unsworth. He calls I Am Your Brother Joseph an anecdotal
biography.
Few U.S. Catholic writers have the storytelling ability of
Unsworth, whose favorite yarns have focused on the Catholic clergy, many of
them in the Chicago archdiocese. Writes Unsworth with characteristic humor: "I
have long had a fascination with prelates. It is seen as a character disorder
by my friends."
Since Bernardin's arrival in Chicago, Unsworth kept a keen eye on
the man, recording and writing about him with the distance of a journalist and
frequently with obvious admiration. "I considered him a friend and generally
wrote sentiments that others occasionally saw as pandering," Unsworth tells us,
half apologizing. "Yet, I stung him a few times, even causing anger." One focus
of Unsworth's book is Bernardin's interaction with the media. He depicts the
cardinal as pastorally sensitive and politically shrewd, "a man who understood
the difference between leadership and authority."
"Bernardin was a man who loved the media," Unsworth writes, a man
who "never viewed it as a threat or as a group of supplicants grateful for
decrees pushed under their doors." He adds, "The cardinal had used a rare
technique to manipulate the media: He told the truth."
Bernardin, we learn, began each day with prayer, a light breakfast
-- and three major newspapers. He closely followed national and international
events, wanting to stay informed and ponder their moral dimensions.
While The Gift of Peace, primarily a spiritual reflection,
transcends place, I Am Your Brother Joseph finds its strength in being
located in Chicago, a city that fits Unsworth well and came to fit the cardinal
too.
The reader feels the chilly winds coming off Lake Michigan and is
invited to an episcopal visit to the Unsworth home, where the cardinal, Roman
collar discarded, sits in the kitchen "sipping Campari, until the meal was
ready." I Am Your Brother Joseph has its own flavor and will be
especially pleasing to Unsworth addicts and other Catholics still mourning
Bernardin's death. Unsworth retells the story of Bernardin's rise through the
clerical ranks, but is at his best on the streets of Chicago.
Unsworth's writing is always entertaining. Consider these
Bernardin-directed Unsworthisms:
- "He appeared embarrassed when people tried to kiss his ring,
but he didn't stop them. He understood the frail packages in which faith is
carried."
- "His room at Loyola had been inundated with flowers, enough to
bury a monarch."
- "For poor Cardinal Cody the priesthood was a career; for
Cardinal Bernardin it was a vocation."
- "During a dinner visit, I asked him how he kept his weight off
in spite of a genuine passion for good food. 'Will power,' he answered. I could
have killed him."
- "Other cardinals travel in retinues, emerging from stretch
limousines, accompanied by solemn-faced careerists who had arranged convenient
-- and often illegal -- parking in front of the church. Bernardin generally
arrived alone, searched for a parking spot, carried his own baggage, and vested
in the sacristy with his fellow priests."
It will be some time before the Catholics of Chicago adjust to
their loss of Brother Joseph. They are finding ways to mourn and remember, to
adjust and continue on. It's called coping. Unsworth's recollections represent
one such response.
Authors will examine Bernardin's life for years to come. His
speeches and writings will be assembled and published; scholars will study
their impact. In the process, his place in history will find its shape. One of
the earliest efforts to give form to his writings is another labor of love,
this by Paolo Magagnotti. In the preface of his book The Word of Cardinal
Bernardin, Magagnotti explains that the prelate has "always stirred up deep
emotions and a great interest in me." Understandably. Magagnotti shares the
same homeland as Bernardin's parents -- the Trent region in the Italian Alps.
Some years back Magagnotti began to comb through Bernardin's writings and
talks, distilling them, editing them down, cutting and paraphrasing, with the
intention of disseminating them to a wider audience. Bernardin cooperated with
Magagnotti, who sent 27 chapters of manuscript to the prelate for his approval.
In May 1993 Bernardin returned the revised manuscript with some notes and
suggestions.
For personal reasons the project was delayed, Magagnotti explains,
but Bernardin's death prompted him to complete it. And with the help of the
Center for Migration Studies in New York, headed by Scalabrinian Fr. Lydio F.
Tomasi, the book was published.
It serves admirably the purpose Magagnotti set out to achieve,
acquainting the reader with Bernardin's views on a host of issues starting with
the "Ten Commandments and Human Rights" and ending with "Health-care: A Point
of View from a Cardinal Diagnosed with Cancer." Other topics include civil
rights, racism, family and marriage, immigration, education, sexuality, the
death penalty, morality, peace and war, and pornography, among others. The
shortcoming to the topic approach is that the book loses some context. The
reader does not sense the development in Bernardin's thinking on these
matters.
Magagnotti has worked conscientiously to present the essence of
Bernardin's thought, at times paring talks of 5,000 or more words down to
several hundred. The book will help the reader gain an appreciation for the
breadth of Bernardin's interests in matters of public morality. Magagnotti
struggles not to insert himself into the texts. The book provides a nice
overview of the cardinal's thinking.
Tom Fox is NCR editor and publisher.
National Catholic Reporter, May 30,
1997
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