Legionaries of Christ - the past is so close, it hurts

It's the next chapter, I suppose. Vistations from Rome, to all houses and facilities of the Congregation.

When I read, recently, that the founder had died last year, I was not so affected. When I read, about the same time, he had fathered a child twenty-some years ago, I was still not very affected. This is different.

It seems I had ceased to care so much about the founder, this man I used to call Nuestro Padre. It was between him and God. I had no part.

In truth, I have no part in the affairs of the Congregation either. Still, this feels different to me. The first was one man's fate. This is about the fate of many. Many who took up a holy challenge to add to the good in the world.

Many whom, I firmly believe, were betrayed. Not "simply" by the founder, he who was supposed to model how a Legionary lived both the exterior and interior life. Again, this was just one man, albeit a man with a crucial role to play. But, one man with the frailties of men.

But the Congregation betrayed them also. The Congregation in the persons of the superiors at the highest levels. It is not believable that the founder's activities were not known to some.

Yet they kept silent, the least they did. They vehemently denied there was anything to be said, somewhat worse to do. They cast out those who spoke up, the worst they did.

One man may fail. The Congregation and many men failed the members. That is less excuseable.

Time may not really heal, but it does provide distance

I found out today that the founder of the religious congregation of which I was a member died last year. I hadn't known that. I find myself less impacted by the news than I might have expected to be some years ago.

This, the man I knew as Nuestro Padre.

The man I came to realize I didn't know nearly as well as I had thought.

That chapter is closed now. Further revelations about his life have come to light. But they leave me with a detached sadness. Little else.

And, oddly enough, that itself saddens me. For there is a wellspring within me that is fed from my time in the congregation.

Nothing is perfect, neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. No one is perfect, neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. And yet, and yet...

There is a wellspring within me that is fed from my time in the congregation. Much that is good in me flows from that. Much of what is real.

It is strange to contemplate the flaw that existed at the core of who they are with detached sadness. I feel oddly rudderless.

...and the darkness did not overcome it

On and off today I have come across references to the lunar orbit of people from Earth that gave us the "Earthrise" photo below. The themes of light and dark and their interaction form the foundation of so much literature, cultural reference and religious expression.

From the old monuments that celebrated, and measured, the return of the sun to the expressions of light emerging from darkness in many religious texts to the image of the Earth as she rises from inky darkness over the Lunar horizon.

Powerful, powerful images.

The images apply as neatly to the current situation in the world as they did to the builders of Newgrange in Ireland. That is, imperfectly and through the lens of our own beliefs.

Some, such as a commenter on a news site today who felt it necessary to say that the image did not display a "rise" because the Moon was off to the right, cannot see the image at all. They are mired in the details and focused on what isn't.

For others these themes have a distinct religious flavor - with more or less focus on light or dark depending on how apocalyptical or transcendent their religious flavor is.

My father was a pessimist in many ways - with one shining exception. He had a profound faith in our ability to work our way out of our difficulties. By "our" I mean the race, we wonderfully flawed humans.

At times I have caught myself almost planning for the self-destruction of the human race. Not hard to do with the gloom and darkness to be heard and seen all around.

I prefer my father's faith - and most often share it.

As so many of our belief systems have always proclaimed - the darkness does not prevail. This, for me, is a fundamental strand of belief in ourselves. So fundamental that, for me, it is truth.

Merry Christmas to all and, from the depth of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, may the returning light warm you to the core.