April 2016 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.

Daniel Joseph Berrigan, S.J.

(May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016

On Meeting Dan Berrigan at 30th Street Station

John P. McNamee

Derrybeg and Back, collection of poetry, Dufour Editions, 2010

Up from the underground in Philadelphia easier now than that appearance years ago a Methodist church the Feds in hot pursuit the task the same a word the Word

in and out of season

I don’t know why the Bishops have

to go to the State Department to get help in reading the New Testament.

A smile when he sees me a familiar face an embrace a nod in the great hall

to the giant sculpture an angel of mercy

embracing a war victim a coffee and off most times

a Quaker or college or Catholic Worker place

(why never a mainstream Catholic church?)

I am trying to get with a much bigger thing that this little churchy thing

which has been proposed as a real thing.

En route we pass an empty place once Fellowship House. I recall a night thirty years ago as though yesterday. Another talk and then a too self-conscious question: Q: Father Dan, what does it mean to be

A priest in this Vatican II Church?

A: Well, Father, I haven’t thought about that sort of thing in a long time. (pause) I don’t know. Perhaps we should stop thinking how we are different and

think how we are the same as others. (longer pause)

I think we should get rid of all that

sacred language we use to talk about ourselves. (again, pause)

I don’t know, Father, perhaps it means being with and for other in ways the authorities would call irresponsible.

We arrive. The coffee spurt wanes. The task begins. After all the years still an eager audience,

young and old wanting encouragement,

strength, comfort, wisdom, direction, more than one man can give with one night or the economy of the long haul.

It is terrifying thing to shoulder the hope of others especially

when they have ceased to hope for themselves at all.

The message whether early on in Germantown or now has that Gospel madness:

“This is a hard saying Who Can hear it?” Understand that it is not God who will beat swords into plowshares; it is yourselves.

It is you, . . . Disarm. It must be done and it cannot be done. And if it is to be

done, it must be done by God’ and it must be done by us.

Most will not. Most cannot. The sure return to classroom parish family

The “normalizing” of faith by normal times into a mere intellectual consent can only be considered as a curse of God. Faith is abnormal, in the sense that it acts most truly in crisis and dislocation. . .

So. The word returns to the preacher. His burden heavier for his hearing it again more clearly

than his listeners: “The sower went forth to sow.”

All he can do. One frail man goes home weighed

down by his impossible task. The Mystery of Weakness:

Saint Paul Franz Jaeggerstaetter the Salvadoran Martyrs.

My brother and I stand like the fences of abandoned farms, changed times

too loosely webbed against deicide homicide

A really powerful blow, a cataclysm would bring us down like scarecrows.

But before the return some comfort a party: old friends a bracer

(or two). Endless talk and late to bed the warmth of a wayside inn:

Night falls. The sleepy fire sputters, ruminates like a dreaming dog.

Bones shift in sleep. One red eye closes like a log.

Late to rise. Off at noon

Returning to the train a hospital stop

The visitation of the sick

with all else a Corporal Work of Mercy.

These many beautiful days Cannot be lived again . . .

I take them in full measure.

Woodcut: R. McGovern