Mission San Miguel Arcangel

  

 The name Michael means “who is like God?”.  I frequently fall into the habit of thinking about spiritual things as just really big versions of natural things.  For example, I sometimes think about God as a big, old man with a white beard and crown sitting up there in the clouds doing basically the same thing other kings do, just on a much larger scale.  Such metaphorical imaginings are not out of place – the sensible world provides good material for an analogous understanding of the spiritual – but I still have to remind myself that the divine attributes (e.g. divine will, divine intellect, divine being), while having some things in common with our will, intellect, and being, have even more out of common.   God is not just a really old, really wise, or really powerful man, but something infinitely more.

Wednesday afternoon. My new friend John drove me to Amsterdam Coffee in Paso Robles where I made some phone calls to a contact in town, a couple, friends-of-a-friend.  Patricia got off work several hours before Heathcliffe, and she took me out to an excellent Thai dinner, her excuse being that she rarely goes out to eat, so this would be a treat for both of us.  We had never met before, but we were both friendly, Catholic,  near enough in age to have some things in common, and interested in hearing about  one another.  I couldn’t help thinking our dinner bore a striking resemblance to a blind date – no doubt the waiter and our fellow diners saw it as being likely something of that nature – but it was obviously much more comfortable than anything even approaching that.  Though our conversation followed much the same track as a first date might, the entire dynamic was changed.  Any potential anxiety, suspicion, or contrivance was dispelled by the simple fact that neither of us had any romantic designs, emotional anxiety, or in general any reason to try to impress each other (Well… I admit I did use my napkin more than usual considering that I was to be a guest in her home and I didn’t want her to think I was a complete troglodyte).  It almost makes me want to let more married women take me out for dinner.

Afterwards, she showed me the parish chapel at St. Rose of Lima where they hold 24/7 eucharistic adoration.  Out front, there is a small brick patio with a marble copy of Michelangello’s Pieta, sparkling white as snow in the bright spotlights.  

 I met Heathcliffe at their home; a physics professor, composed, focused, polite, a very soothing personality, and with an outstanding Van Dyke mustache/beard combination.

In the morning, Patricia dropped me off at the Mission San Miguel.   

   

She would have to work today, but she said that if I wanted to spend the morning at the mission, she would bring me home over her lunch break and I could write in the afternoon and evening.

 
San Miguel is on the outskirts of town, surrounded by rolling green hills. 

 It is the best setting for a western of all the missions I have seen yet. 

   

Father Buenaventura Sitjar was sent by Father Lasuen to find a site for a mission in this area.  In 1979, father Lasuen founded Mission San Miguel and celebrated the first Mass.   

 The original wooden building burnt down in 1806, but plans for a new adobe structure were quickly made, and the present church was completed in 1818. 

 The walls still bear their original paint from 1821, designed by Don Esteban Munras from Monterey after a sketchbook by the Roman architect Vitruvius.

   

On the walls are several paintings, all probably by Jose de Paez.  The three archangels all stood together on one side:

  
 
Michael,

   
Gabriel,
  
And Raphael.

I wish I had something insightful to say about the angels, but I know next to nothing about them.  I do know that these three are the only ones besides Satan named in the bible (despite implications that there are innumerable hosts of them), that “angel” comes from a word meaning “messenger,” and that according to St. Thomas Aquinas every individual angel is its own species (a remarkable claim).  I also remember hearing somewhere that when we say “angel” we are not referring to what they are, as much as what they do.  That we even have knowledge of their existence suggests that we can interact with them, especially our own guardian angels, and I think St. Bonaventure (or is it Pseudo-Dyonysus? I don’t have a library handy, and I might be imagining things) says that there are angels in charge of everything: cities, homes, seasons, bodies of water, professions, forests, the animals, bakeries, etc.     

I found the parish office and asked if one of the priests of brothers were available (There is a Franciscan monastery here still).   A little Mexican priest came out to speak with me in a private room.  He had close cropped black hair which was starting to turn grey,  and he was wearing dark blue slacks, black dress shirt, and a blue grey fleece vest.  I didn’t need confession, I didn’t have any specific problem, I didn’t really know what I wanted to talk about, I just knew that I hadn’t had an opportunity to speak with anybody in that office since the night I left Sacramento.  I told him just that, and he seemed to understand what I meant, but encouraged me to talk about whatever was on my mind.   I didn’t have to look very hard before I remembered the recent tragedy, and my frustration.  I asked him about the apparent contradiction between God’s will, our happiness, and suffering.  He gave me quite the pep talk, and I don’t remember it all, but I’ll try to paraphrase it.  I take full responsibility for any heretical errors made in the following.

Don’t forget that God loves us, and created us to be happy, but we don’t see that happiness on earth because that perfect happiness is only found in heaven, in him, and our present earthly condition is not set up for that kind of thing. To call this life imperfect is an understatement. This life is not a failed attempt at heaven, it is its own kind of existence, a brief dream, “a bad night in a bad inn” as St. Theresa put it, but still very much real in its own way while it lasts. In this brief dream we find an imperfect mixture of pleasure and pain, but how poor the temporary pleasure is compared to the eternal fulfillment of will and intellect which awaits those in heaven, and how paltry the suffering compared to Christ’s holy life and bloody death. What’s more, we know that even our suffering has been made a tool for our own salvation: “How we ennoble suffering,” says Josemaria Escriva, “by giving it it’s due place of atonement in the economy of the spirit!” And how we thwart the devil when we embrace what he refused, and by submitting to the will of God, break the curse of suffering, the curse which can only be broken by submission, and become his sons and daughters. Now it says in the gospel that not everybody who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but him who does the will of the Father. But what is the will of the Father? Jesus tells us that the whole law is contained in two commands: love God with your whole mind, heart, and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. If you love God with your whole mind, you know that he wants us to be happy, and that everything which happens to us is aimed at our ultimate happiness, and with that knowledge in your mind you are free to accept even the painful parts of life with a light heart: your heart will be right because your mind is right, and if your heart is right then that will flow out of you into every area of your life. For example, if you are begging and I reach into my pocket to give you $5 because I think I have to, but I’m not happy about it, and I grumble and I worry that I can’t buy any lunch now, that doesn’t do any good, that just ends with resentment. But if I give it to you with the knowledge of God’s generosity, and my heart imitates his, then I am happy to aid your happiness, we both walk away better off and there can be no resentment. Your thoughts become your actions, and if you sow positivity at the very root of your life then you will radiate that positivity to those around you and you will attract it to yourself. Just like if you drink or do drugs, or if you gossip or tell lies then you will attract people to you who drink, or do drugs, or gossip or tell lies. But the people who pray surround themselves with other people who pray. So don’t be sad, the measure you use for others will be returned to you.

I’ll end with a little Holy Sonnet by John Donne, then put the whole thing behind us. 
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.