Generations
The death of Tony Zummo this past week moves me to write about the demographics of the Church. Those of you who don’t recognize Tony’s name would still likely recognize his face. He was the embodiment of those parishioners that are sometimes described as “the previous” generation (an unfair title, given their presence in the parish, but one that nevertheless brings a smile even to their own faces when one of their own is called a “Mayfair Catholic”). But while there are unique characteristics about the generations filling our pews these days, it is still, I believe, commonality that holds us together.
We share with all larger communities the likelihood that most of you reading this do not know who Tony is (simply because there are so many of us that it’s impossible for any one of us to know everyone else - though the ladies in the offices likely know more than any of us). But there is still a dynamic that is uniquely our own as Catholic Christians. We still experience the same generational overlap as secular institutions and organizations, but we also live an uninterrupted communion with the first people to touch God. That’s why we are more able than others to permit our members their different ways of making sense of life. When Pope Benedict was asked, “How many ways are there to God?” he replied, “As many ways are there are people.” I imagine he meant that whenever someone touches Christ their touch is as unique and unrepeatable as that person is.
Anyway, I hope you will agree it is a lovable thing that there are so many personal expressions of our Catholicism; the diversity of charisms in the Church should assure us of its being an extended family, not an enclosed cult.
Do we live this in our parish? Do we celebrate how God “has mercy in every generation,” as Our Lady said? I think we do. And I think it is precisely our Holy Communion that will enable us to continue to love one another as we move forward with the world into this change of era we're all experiencing. Our closeness with God makes us uniquely poised to move into the uncertainties of the future with hope for peace. After all, it’s the warm smile of the coffee-clutch generation that moves the young couple to ask the Church to bless their marriage, and the weary (even long-faced) brothers and sisters who have their way of reminding us to take our salvation more seriously.
Men like Tony Zummo understood this. He was able to permit that every age carries the burden of sin, and that no one generation has it all figured out. And he smiled, gave generously, befriended the younger families, laughed at funny things, and was rightly angered by injustice. I could say the same thing about many of you - and I do - but Tony truly was one of the best of us. Guys like him make me proud to be Catholic. And that’s why I’m remembering him here, to assure you all (in his name) that those who belong to his generation are not forgotten, nor will they be, but also to encourage those who belong to the younger generations (as I do) to remember that we will be the “previous” generation one day, God willing, and that day will likely come for us as it did for Tony, sooner than we expect. +