Father Richard Neuhaus

I recently finished reading Father Neuhaus's last book, American Babylon. I love that man. I always said to myself that if I ever got to New York, I'd go to one of his masses and listen to him preach. That will never happen now, sadly. I mourn his passing. I pray, I trust, that having fought the good fight, having run his race, he has reached the longed-for home, the goal he describes in such moving language: "The pilgrim destination is not so much a place as a person. How do Christians envision their final return from exile? It is the personal encounter and eternal dwelling with one who is no stranger, for we knew him in his humility and will then see him in his triumph. The finite, once receptive to the infinite, is now received into the infinite. Received, not absorbed or subsumed, for we continue to be creatures, but now creatures perfectly attuned to the love by which and for which we were made."

I'll be reflecting on his book in my next few postings. In this, as in everything he wrote, there is a lot to chew on. But today, I just want to quote the last two paragraphs:

"Throughout these pages, the proposal is that the whole creation groans for the glory that is to be revealed. With the resurrection of Jesus, a genuinely new world order has been inaugurated, and we are on the way, out from exile and on the pilgrim way toware the City of God. We are sustained on the way by faith's embrace of the presence in time of the End Time, who is the Alpha and Omega, the logos of all that has been, is now, and ever shall be. We are moving toward our destination, and our destination is moving toward us. At the very end of the very last book of the Bible are the words of Jesus, "Behold, I am coming soon." To which all the saints respond: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"

"... we seek to be faithful in a time not of our choosing but of our testing. We resist the hubris of presuming that it is the definitive time and place of historical promise or tragedy, but it is our time and place. It is a time of many times: a time for dancing, even if to the songs of Zion in a foreign land; a time for walking together, unintimidated when we seem to be a small and beleaguered band; a time for rejoicing in momentary triumphs, and for defiance in momentary defeats; a time for persistance in reasoned argument, never tiring in proposing to the world a more excellent way; a time for generosity toward those who would make us their enemy; and, finally, a time for happy surrender to brother death -- but not before, through our laughter and our tears, we see and hail from afar the New Jerusalem and know that it is all time toward home."

Amen to that, Father! Richard John Neuhaus. Requiescat in pace.