• Home
  • Melted and Molded
  • Apartment 3N
  • My Sister’s House
  • While She Is Away
  • The Last Father’s Day
  • Watch The Rack
  • The Gathering Place
  • Boy Meets Girl
  • Photographs and Memory
  • The Final Telling
  • Michael Calderwood

Thoughts From The Back Of The Room

Category Archives: Catholic Faith

Soul Searching

27 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by Michael Calderwood in Beautiful Cambria, Catholic Faith, Friendship, Funerals And Tradition, Living Our Values, music, Perserverence, Social Responsibility, Words matter

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Father Mark Stetz, Memory, Santa Rosa Catholic Church

On a cool, windy, and sunny Thursday afternoon, my wife and I attended a Catholic funeral Mass for Father Mark Stetz, a beloved local priest who passed on, leaving a grieving flock and family to say goodbye. We went not as Catholics obeying tradition but in respect and appreciation for Father Mark’s good heart and his values-driven life of service.


The church filled beyond its three-hundred seat capacity. Sixty-eight priests and bishops and a convent of nuns occupied a good portion of the pews. A dark-suited bouncer patrolled the entrance lest an un-anointed muckety-muck try to sneak a seat inside the crowded building. Though the Gospels tell us “the least shall be first,” the VIP section and reserved seating said something different.


The sidewalks leading up to the main entrance bloomed with rows of white folding chairs filled with friends and parish faithful saying farewell to the good Father. Suits and ties mixed with jeans and work shirts. English and Spanish voices blended in song and prayer, and the church musicians, minus my favorite mandolin player, filled the spaces with joy, sorrow, and a message of hope.


As an escaped Catholic, I engaged in the service from an emotional distance. My mind drifted from the present to past Catholic funerals, some held in my old Bronx parish of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, others across the tri-state region of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Some were for my family members, from grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles, to my beloved younger sister Anne Marie, whose death at thirty-two had a significant impact on changing my life. Her funeral, held just a few short months after my mother’s, was the toughest to accept. It was made more stressful by the Catholic Church’s refusal to allow a dedicated funeral Mass because it was Good Friday. Yet we, the family, found our way through the grief and loss and did our Catholic duty, sore asses on hard wooden pews, silently incensed as the censer swung and click-click-clicked against the long metal chains filling the air with a smoky aroma which always says death.


I remember other sadly joyful funerals for departed friends from the world of music and theater, held in churches filled with friends and family blessed with talents they shared, through tears and smiles, in song and recitation. The loss was there, but the dread was absent. There is nothing like sitting in an unassuming church filled with a few hundred actors and singers whose voices rise in a final farewell, serving the universe with their best, most meaningful, loving goodbye.


An odd sense often fills my head when listening to more traditional music played at some Catholic funerals. Maybe it’s the minor chords, the slow tempos, or the loss of clarity as the organist applies too much pipe and pedal. Perhaps it’s the subtle aggression some church pianists bring to the keyboard, or the battle for primacy between soprano and tenor during a dramatic rendering of a mournful hymn. Maybe I just cannot stay in the moment, but I often think these songs would kill in a heavy metal motif. A thudding bass, two low tuned guitars chunking out mid-scooped rhythms, a wild-haired skinny guy wailing away like the lead singer from a 1980s hair band would undoubtedly change the vibe. Or would it? I have shared this observation with a few fellow mourners, who quickly rescinded their proffered Sign of Peace. Not big metal fans, I guess – though if you look at paintings of Jesus and the Apostles, you might see a resemblance to the lineup of ’80s rock bands on one of those Rockapalooza Booze Cruises popular in some circles.


But back to Father Mark. His funeral was a celebration of his life. A long-time friend and fellow priest related the most telling story, illuminating who Mark was. At his ordination, Mark asked if there could be a washing of the feet. This request, to me, is the pure distillation of the message of Christ. Humility, service, caring, and community. Not glory, not adoration, not the fear of damnation. The expression of love for all, no matter the station.


Regardless of how we worship or what traditions we follow, good people find ways to do good deeds. Whether done loudly or quietly, it doesn’t matter. We can only go where our humanity leads us, and if that is a search for a higher power or a nobler cause, it’s all good.

Share this:

  • Print
  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • January 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • November 2017
  • May 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016

Categories

  • Art and Artists
  • Beautiful Cambria
    • Skate Park
  • Cal Fire
  • Cambria Fire Department
  • Cambria Healthcare District
  • Cambria Scarecrows
  • Cambria Schools
  • Catholic Faith
  • Clay Tiffany
  • Coast Unified School District
  • Communicating
  • Community Involvement
    • Cambria CCSD
    • Local politics
  • Dreams and Reality
  • Educating a Community
  • Emergency Preparedness
  • Emergency Services
  • Fordham University
  • Friendship
  • Funerals And Tradition
  • Glendora
  • Home
  • Homelessness
  • Humor
  • Living Our Values
  • Local Journalism
  • Measure A-18
  • Measure G-22
  • music
  • Music and Art
  • Parcel Tax
  • Perserverence
  • Photography and Memory
  • Prop 218 Rate Increase
  • PROS Commision
  • Public Access Cable
  • Satire
  • Searching for Cambria's Reality
  • Social Media
  • Social Responsibility
  • Tolentine
  • Treasured Finds
  • Uncategorized
  • unity Broadcasts
  • Unusual Community Access Hosts
  • Words matter

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Thoughts From The Back Of The Room
    • Join 64 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Thoughts From The Back Of The Room
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: