Quiet Beauty The Mississippi River is so beautiful early in the Summers morning. The surface, for a change, smooth and glasslike. To be sure, the river is always flowing, so the glass is not perfectly smooth, but rather like old fashioned carnival or depression glass. The water reflects back perfectly the light blue and pink of the early morning sky, darkened only near the edges of Campbells Island and the other islands, where the river is darkened by the reflection of the greenness of the trees. The leaves of the trees, weeds and flowers, tremble a bit, as if there is a breeze, but there is none, they are reaching up to welcome the light of the sun, and dropping the heavy dew which has fallen a short time before. All of Gods creation looks back to its Creator and smiles. Such were my thoughts as I headed down along the river on my early morning bike ride. God is good, and despite any of our human difficulties, he shines down upon us in the beauty and majesty of his creation, and we look up towards the heavens, cognizant of the goodness of the all loving God. All is silent still. Well, not completely silent. Every once in a while the silence is broken by a passing car, by the buzz of an insect or the chirp of a bird. It is not a hot morning, so the animal world, too, waits in quiet calm, the coming of the day. A cardinal jumps by, up and down off a bench, occasionally cheeping, trying, perhaps, to locate his mate. He too, appears to be enjoying the quiet coolness of the Summers morning. As I child, I would play for endless hours in our yard and on our river banks, playing little games with myself, counting how many sticks to put in a flower pot for instance, singing to myself, and looking at the River. Always the River. In Summer there would always be boats, water skiers taking advantage of our side of the island, and later jet skiers. There would also be fishermen, making their living by dropping nets, and clammers who sold what they found to the button factories, presumably, for the production of mother of pearl. I usually did not notice these noisemakers too much, because in Summer my brothers and sisters were home from school, and we engaged in other activities. When they headed back to school in the fall, before I started, and in the afternoons of kindergarten year, usually, the River would be quiet. A train went up and down the shore across from us, so whenever I heard the whistle, I would run to the timber stairs, the back way to our river bank, and sit there as if in a theater, watching the train through our cypress trees and across the river, my own private show. In the afternoons, the peacefulness of the river valley would be interrupted by other sounds. John Deere Harvester Works was across the river and down a couple of miles, but we would hear the shop whistle go off in the afternoon, at 3 p.m., warning people their shift was almost coming to a close, again at 3:25, letting the workers go, and at 3:30, starting the second shift. As a small child, of course, I didnt know the whistle was blown for those purposes, I knew only of what it meant for me. The first whistle told me the public school kids would be getting home from school soon, our Catholic bus was later, the second told me to go inside, because Captain Ernie, the afternoon cartoon show from Davenport, was about to start on channel 6, and his Dixie Bell chugged onto the screen just as the third whistle went off, at 3:30. There were other whistles, too, from various shops, and we would hear the howitzers sometimes from the Rock Island, about 10 miles south, but if there was any significance in these whistles, I cannot recall it now. In Rome I dont have a whistle to keep me on track, but anyone visiting Rome knows that there are other reminders of the passage of time, notably the bells. When I arrived for the first time in Rome as a priest student, I made an international call, to let my mother know I had arrived safely, as I had been taught. The call was at 5:40 p.m. Little did I know that at 5:45 the area around the Casa Santa Maria, near the Trevi Fountain, would explode with the noise of bells, first from one Church, and then another, and this beautiful cacophony would continue, almost without interruption, until the pealing of the Angelus at 6 p.m. Somehow, the bells helped to soothe any homesickness or pain of separation, and when we got off the phone, we knew everything would be good. Periodic bells have always reminded Catholics to lift up their minds, and hearts, in prayer, specifically the bells of the Angelus. The Angelus Bells ring at 6 a.m., 12 noon, and 6 p.m. from nearly all Catholic Churches which have automated bells, and even from a few where someone must ring them manually. At those times, we are called to remember the incarnation, the coming to earth and taking flesh, of God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We recall through our prayers the visit of the Angel to the Blessed Virgin, there in the quiet of her own house in Nazareth, we recall what a great gift this is to us, and we thank God for his wonderful love. In the classic painting The Angelus two farm workers, presumably a husband and wife, are pictured in a field, a Church steeple far in the distance. They have paused to pray. Years ago I was given a Sharper Image clock, with an alarm which sounds like a pealing bell, and conveniently automatically shuts off after a minute or two. When I have lived in a place without the Angelus bells, I have sometimes set that clock to go off at 6 p.m., reminding me to pray at a busy time I might otherwise forget, helping me to be reminded that the afternoon is over and the evening has come on, and that God should be brought to mind, and glorified, at all times. All of us can use these reminders to pray throughout the day. You can look at your own life to see what fits for you: a quick Hail Mary at a red traffic light, an Our Father or 5 minute Scripture reading before waking the children, a Glory Be when the microwave sounds or the sump pump noisily turns on, or when the nearby shop whistles goes off, a local school bell or the civil defense siren. We all, of course, have the natural times we pray, a morning offering, grace before meals, we should consciously select other times, however, when we will briefly commune with our Lord in prayer. Life can be so much more, with these quiet reminders of Gods goodness and his place in our lives. These are quiet reminders of Gods creation reaching up in worship. The beauty of the River, the normal sounds of everyday life, the ringing of bells. May God be glorified in all
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 14:26:27 +0000
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