Jim Mayzik SJ Blog

It was cold and it had been threatening to rain sleet all day. The darkness of the skies matched the mood that had descended upon me.  The news was depressing—over a thousand deaths from the virus, the markets in disarray, angry arguments over politics.

Have you ever been at a time of your life when you were confused about what you should be doing, or which road you should follow, or to which tribe you should belong?

You may have noticed a frequent petitionary prayer in our liturgies these last few weeks.  It’s a prayer related to our election year conversations. Last week we prayed: Dear Jesus, in these days of division, help us to be unifiers in your love. Give us grace to control our anger, that we may never be insulting or rude to one another, and that we never write one another off. 

I was on the subway Friday night, Valentine’s Day. I counted 11 people who were carrying flowers or candy or some other gift to the love of their life.

Today’s Gospel is always a winner for me, because it focuses on two things that I like a lot. One of them is light. The other is salt.

So what would be your dream of an adventure? Jumping out of an airplane? Going to Disneyworld?  Skiing in Aspen?  Driving cross country with your best friend, your partner, your dog?  If we could make that happen right now, would you go, right now?  If not, why not?

I was alone, wrapping up strings of Christmas lights out on the plaza.  It wasn’t so cold, and as the daylight was fading, lots of people were passing by on the sidewalk on their way home, or to meet with friends, heading for a restaurant or the grocery store.

A week before Christmas there was a full moon over the city, and beautiful moonlight with it, across the rooftops of apartment buildings, over the waters gleaming in the East river, through the treetops wavering in the night wind, casting living light patterns on the grass of Madison Square Park.

I visited my sister and her family up in Vermont these last two days.  I was able to get there late on Christmas day—a rarity because I usually have to stick around for Masses at the church for 2 or 3 days after Christmas.  It was great being with them—my sister and her husband, my three nieces, and their rescue dog Yogi.  And there was lots of snow up there, so I had my dream of a white Christmas

I guess I can’t really complain.  I’ve been blessed.  I had it all at one time—a house, a beauty of a pickup truck, the wife and kids, the dogs. A job that paid well enough. I always had cash in my wallet. And let me tell you, I was generous with my family, gave lots to friends in need.  And then.  Then.  Then it all turned sour.  I lost it all, everyone, everything.  I’m not saying I’m innocent.  I screwed up, I know that now.

Some mornings, I get up from bed, look out the window, watch the dark night sky begin to slowly glow lighter on the horizon.  I grab my wand from the nightstand, and I am Harry Potter, I wand-command the sun to rise upon the day, higher and higher, brighter and brighter, and soon the whole world is awake and shining on muggles and wizards, and another day has begun.

Maybe you saw him before he became a sensation, before all the publicity, the instant Facebook memes, the world-wide tweets, the TV coverage.

This week is the 15th anniversary of my father’s passing from this world into the next. As I looked at the date on the calendar, I remembered a conversation I had with him shortly before he died.

Driving back from the Alpha retreat this weekend—which was at a former seminary building in Long Island---I listened to one of our elder parishioners telling her friend in the back seat that the room she stayed in was nice, but there was a problem in the bathroom.  The mirror was so high, she said, that she couldn’t even see her face to comb her hair or put on her lipstick.

I woke up one morning this past summer and had a little trouble focusing my eyes, even after I got my trusty glasses on.  It was like intermittent blurriness, and for a few moments I had to keep blinking, closing one eye, then the other, until it finally cleared up.

We were getting some pizza in a restaurant in Manhattan, an excuse to catch up with a long-time friend.  I had warned him that the place wasn’t too fancy, but the pizza is awesome. I like it because it is so simple: great super thin crust; secret recipe tomato sauce, rich in flavor; and some very fresh mozzarella.

“You are a masterpiece”, he said.  He was prodigal when he said that.  Prodigal means excessive, immoderate, excessive, wasteful.  He said it all the time to me, and to lots of other people I knew, and he meant it.

When I was a baby Jesuit novice, I spent a summer working in a wonderful hospital in the Bronx called Calvary.  It is a hospital for people with advanced cancer---cancer which cannot be cured.  From the beginning it was about easing their pain and their suffering, but it was also about providing them with love and dignity in their final days, not unlike the Houses of the Dying that Mother Teresa established all over the world. I witnessed firsthand what an extraordinary place Calvary Hospital was, and still is.  

I have to tell you about Honeyland, a film that blew me away so much that I had to go see it again last night.  It’s an astonishing documentary, a visual poem, about a woman in rural Macedonia, who supports herself and her ailing ancient mother by selling honey from the bees that she cares for with love.

I presided at the wedding of one of my former students yesterday, and the church was full. Do you know how rare it is, first of all, to have a wedding in a Catholic church these days, much less have one with over 200 people in the pews? Young Catholics regularly now choose destination weddings on a beach or in an exotic location overseas, presided over by their best friend or their father.