Homily

One of the more clearer memories I have from my childhood is sitting in the wooden pews during grade school mass. We had to go to church twice a week during grade school, and the parish priests all took turns leading the mass. One priest in particular sticks out to me. His name was Fr. Eugene.

Fr. Eugene was about 6'3" and 120 pounds. He was a skinny old man, with a birdlike face and an inexplicably deep baritone voice. He was a Franciscan priest, so he dressed like all those pictures of St. Francis you always see. Sort of a monk on-the-go look. Flat brown robe, bleached white tassle belt. This robe compounded with his frame, his long neck, and black round head made him look very spooky. And he loved to tell us ghost stories. Well, he told one ghost story: Bloody Bones.

He would start by describing a boy sitting in his bed trying to sleep. A strange noise was coming from the street. The noise grew louder and started to come from the lawn. Then the noise was on the outside wall of the house. Then the noise was at the window. The boy looked to see what it was. At this point Fr. Eugene would scream in a low-register, old man wail "BLOODY BOOOONES!" and the kids would all scream.

Recollecting the Bloody Bones story with my old grade school classmates would yeild to Fr. Eugene's obvious anger issues and violent tendancies. He came from the old school, where you would get beaten as a kid for acting out, and he was now living in the social atmosphere that finally realized "Hey, beating up children may not be a good idea." He showed a lot of restraint, but you could tell something was brewing when he would start speaking to us at mass.

During the middle of Catholic mass, there is a break for the priest to talk about the reading from the Gospel he just read. Some priests would just relate the story to our lives today, others would take the time to talk about what is going on in the world. Fr. Eugene took this moment to tell us how bad things are getting and just how scary life can be.

When Sinead O'Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, the next Tuesday Fr. Eugene was speaking about the evils of television and how we are all going to hell for watching a show that would allow such a display. At that time I was in second grade and had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he was condemning me for watching cartoons. In sixth grade, he went into a very detailed description of the Paducah, KY school shooting. He was even using dramatic pause and vamping his voice. One moment we all still remember from this sermon was when he mimed taking out a rifle from a wrapped up coat and said "And then the boys started blowing all their classmates away." Again, I think Hell and sin were mentioned at one point. It's very hard to deal with things like violence and religious hatred when you are a kid. It's not something you even think about when you are safe in Illinois where everyone you know looks like you and goes to your church. It's hard for kids to understand these sorts of things, especially since this may be they're only source of information. No one watches the news while in grade school. They aren't awake that late.

Compound this revelation of awefulness with the threat of burning in Hell, it's certainly enough to make you feel bad for the rest of your life. I don't know why we tell children about Hell. Why do we scare children in the first place? Is it because we can't hit them anymore?

During one Christmas, the Nativity statues were vandalized. Someone overheard Fr. Eugene saying he'd like to find out who did it so he could "tie them to a post and horse-whip 'em." Living a good Christian lifestyle is very hard when your priest speaks that way.