RIP: Fr. Stanley Marrow, SJ

(Original post from 2012)

Today there was news of the death of one of our favorite teachers, Fr. Stanley Marrow, SJ. A seemingly cantankerous but really very gracious old Iraqi, every student he ever had is full of his sayings.

The last time I saw Stanley, on a visit to the old Jesuit home, he showed me a manuscript that he had just completed. A commentary on 1 Corinthians, I think it was. He remarked how nobody would publish it. Not the conservative presses, he said, because his exegesis proved the non-existence of the sacrament of penance, and not the liberal ones, because he insisted on calling God 'Father.' In this, as in everything else, he was the consummate iconoclast. He was very insistent on the God the Father thing. When he thought our more progressively-styled school Masses were ashamed of it, he declined to attend, saying that he worshiped a different God. I remember once when he did come to a school Mass, he remarked that the music sounded like "something from a Moroccan whorehouse."

During the same visit that I mentioned above, Stanley told me that he was praying for death. But, he said, the answer to his prayers thus far had only been, "Please stay on the line; your business is important to us." 

Underneath all the humor, though, was a very serious scholar of the Scriptures, and that's something we younger folks sometimes forget. You don't just get to be an iconoclast. You have to work for the privilege, and work long and hard.

When I was a new priest, Stanley sent me one of the most beautiful and encouraging notes I have ever received:

Before all else, congratulations! One of my fellow-ordinands, a man of extreme emotional reserve, remarked after the ceremony, "Now I know what Rahner means when he speaks of the 'physical redundancy' of grace." I shall offer my Mass for you some day this week, and ask the "author of our calling" to make your priestly ministry the unfailing source of your peace and joy. God has blessed you with an abundance of gifts, and the great beneficiary of that abundance will be those he entrusts to your pastoral solicitude. May you find in your selfless service of them the infinite satisfaction of saying, "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty."

The quotes could go on and on. But I always respected how he responded when he was asked how he saw his work as a professor of Sacred Scripture: he said that it was his mission to minimize the damage his students were going to do to God's people.

Requiescat in pace.

2025 UPDATE: I missed this until now, but the manuscript mentioned above was published. In the foreword, Fr. Thomas Stegman, SJ (may he also rest in peace), alludes to the difficulties.

Paul for Today's Church: A Commentary on First Corinthians

How to go to Confession

What follows is an excerpt from the book, Happiness in Holiness: A little guide to holiness of life for members of the Third order of Saint Francis and for other devout souls, edited by Rev. Apollinaris Baumgartner, O.M. Cap.* (who was later the first bishop of the diocese of Agaña, Guam), published in 1930, which purports to be an adaptation of Conduite intérieure pour toutes les actions de la journée, by Very Rev. Joseph of Dreux, O.M. Cap,* first published in 1667.

The following is attributed to St. Bonaventure, though without citation.

"Confess with simplicity as if you were speaking to an angel who knew all your secrets. Do not draw the veil of excuse over your actions and do not seek to diminish the gravity of your faults. Specify your sins but do not give the history of them. Do not enter into superfluous details and do not tell the sins of others. Acknowledge briefly and directly the faults you remember to have have committed since your last confession: but do not make a long series of of general statements such as: 'I have not loved God sufficiently well, etc.' 'I have not fervor enough, etc. ...' You may accuse yourself of such faults to God in prayer. In a word, let your confession be sincere, humble, and brief."

The book goes on:

"Listen with humility and gratitude to the admonitions of your confessor, being careful not to interrupt him repeatedly by saying, 'Yes, Father.' When the confessor imposes a penance upon you excite yourself to humility at the thought that it is in order to condescend to your weakness that he places such a slight burden on you.

"When you receive absolution, place yourself in spirit at the foot of the Cross of Christ and recite more with your heart than your lips, the act of contrition. The Precious Blood of our Lord is poured forth on your soul because its merits are applied to you when the priest pronounces the words of absolution.

"Leave the confessional giving thanks to God, and imploring Him to confirm in heaven, in accordance with the promise of Jesus Christ, the absolution which the priest has pronounced over you. Renew your resolve to amend your life, and make one practical resolution to which you will attend particularly until your next confession. Carry it out promptly and respond to the grace you have just received. Say your penance with devotion and ask God to accept it favorably, even though it is so small and inadequate. Offer some little sacrifice or some penance which you will perform that day in order to make up for what is wanting in your sacramental penance.

"Leave the church with the firm purpose of never again committing what you have confessed, lest falling back into the same faults you may become unworthy of God's mercy: 'Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee.' (John v. 14.)"

*O.M. Cap. is an older postnominal for the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, now O.F.M. Cap.

An Alternate Conversion Story

As I've mentioned various times on this tired old blog, the telling of my conversion story, whether to myself or others, has been a fascinating part of the journey. What I mean is that the story changes; it deepens and develops as time passes and I gain perspective, make new connections, and come to name broader economies of grace.

Recently I've been reflecting on an entirely different account of how I came to be a Christian and a Catholic. I'm fairly certain there's some truth to it.

A few years before my parents were married, my father converted to Judaism. The only religious affiliation I know of before that was with the Unitarians where he grew up. My mother says that the conversion was for a woman he had hoped to marry at the time, and I don't doubt that this is true, but it must have been something more than just that, for when I was a child my father had some Jewish practice about him, if not much. He lit the menorah at Hanukkah and said the prayers. I also remember him looking out the front window and saying prayers of some sort around Passover. But these seemed to be private things; he didn't invite anyone to participate and didn't seem interested in explaining or sharing what he was doing. As I grew up, these practices faded away.

Years later, after I had grown up and been baptized in the Catholic Church, my mother showed me a document my father had signed before a rabbinical tribunal at the time of his conversion. Among other things, the document indicated a promise. If God were to give my father a son, he would bring him into the covenant and raise him as a proper Jew.

A few years I was born and God had given my father that son.

I find it rather surprising that my father, who was a loyal person and someone who very much believed that people ought to do what they said they would, made little to no effort to be faithful to this promise in my regard, to which he had affixed his signature in the presence of those rabbis. Yes, he took me to Hebrew school a couple of times when I was little, but I think he didn't approve of the program himself, so that didn't last. There was no sabbath nor temple or synagogue, and certainly no bar mitzvah in my childhood.

On the contrary, growing up I had a very clear sense that I was a 'none.' Other people seemed to belong to this or that religion, but not me. I did find this curious as a child, and remember asking my parents about it. They said that they believed this was an adult decision someone should make for themselves when they grew up, though I don't think they expected this to actually happen.

All of this leads me to a new account of my own conversion. Our Heavenly Father, seeing my earthly father's negligence with regard to his religious promise concerning me, had pity on me and gave me the grace of an invitation to become that curious sort of eschatological Jew we call a Christian, such that I would be baptized into Jesus Christ and thus made an heir, in Him, of the covenants and a member of the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:16)