[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]
Sitting in about the 10th row this morning for the Curt Massey funeral at the cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, two disturbing thoughts relentlessly rowed through my uncomfortable mind:
Given the deteriorating condition of my father’s health, it seems probable that I will shift from observer to mourner before this winter has breathed its last.
I am not sure whether I was more disappointed by Cardinal Mahoney’s amazingly passive role or the religious neutrality/ blandness of the cathedral itself.
When the gigantic, remarkably unremarkable structure was being built several years ago, I recall the Cardinal taking severe heat for dedicating so many millions in such a spectacular, self-aggrandizing way instead of lavishing those millions on every liberal’s alleged favorite cause, The Faceless Poor.
Considering the latter matter first, if I had not noticed a large cross at the rear of the altar, I might have thought I was in an art gallery or a large business that had just moved out.
Sparingly Furnished
Religion, much less the pageantry that is the hallmark of the historical church, was absolutely marginal to this yawning, marginal building.
What makes it Catholic? Search me.
If there were icons, they were out of sight.
Reminded me of apartments I rented in my single days. Unfurnished.
Besides being large and aesthetically cold because of the stone, even a creative mind could be stumped trying to devise a laudatory assessment. This could have been an oversized church in the middle of Nebraska.
Surely the Cardinal could have dropped into a nearby 99-Cent store for two or three wall decorations.
Burger King is more decorator-conscious.
Why Be Surprised?
I don’t know whether Cardinal Mahoney is too distracted by the latest public accusations against him, but his role in the funeral could have been played by an amoeba.
Perhaps I should not be surprised.
Hundreds of people have charged him with being consumptively self-absorbed and insidiously tone deaf.
Beyond apparently memorizing the name of the deceased — even though his credibility took a slug when he tried to recite family names — he looked to me as if he were there purely for a photo-op.
Physically, he was the centerpiece of the service, but only in the most technical sense.
Until the last minutes of the service, the funeral could have been for anyone in Los Angeles. It was shockingly impersonal, virtually anti-personal.
Lt. Massey’s stepfather, John Davis, salvaged the service by giving the best eulogy I ever have heard. It should be preserved and widely reprinted as a legacy to a giant person.
The End?
But the thought that haunted me largest was Pop’s fade, especially this week. He is gritting his teeth to make his 94th birthday, in May,.
But all I pray for this Shabbat is that he survives until I can reach his bedside.
Ninety-three-year-old diabetics, suffering from a collection of collateral infirmities, don’t run out and try to renew, or enlarge, their life insurance.
For 2 1/2 years, Pop has talked about the day we took a 100-mile drive.
For 8 or 9 hours, in his 20-year-old car with few miles on it, we weaved along undisturbed two-lane roads, through the hardcore countryside, as if it were 1931 again.
That is the way I would like to remember Pop because incontinence makes a return trip impossible.
