A Giant Goes to Heaven: Fr. Lawrence Boadt, CSP

To those who have known and loved and worked with him, it came as both a relief and as a very sad event. Paulist Father Larry Boadt died this morning after an incredibly courageous battle with terminal cancer. The Paulist Fathers' obituary says it all much better than I, so please read it there. 

I not only belong in all three of the above categories, I am also one of the untold thousands who, in their theology student days, could never have passed Old Testament without having used his magisterial book Reading the Old Testament. Also, I suppose I have the dubious distinction, as a photographer, of having been the last person to photograph him. Here are some images from the farewell party given for him only last month when he stepped down from the helm of Paulist Press, of which he had been CEO and Publisher since 1998. They show him in his typical way--always smiling and always glad to be around people. He may have been one of the greatest Old Testament scholars in the world, but he never stood on ceremony. Gracious humility was his style. In November 2009, as we were both returning from Montreal on the same flight after attending the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, he cheerfully guarded my luggage while I did some last-minute duty-free shopping and then drove me home from Newark Liberty Airport. This was typical of him.

As he lived, so he died. His colleague at Paulist Press, Fr. Mike Kerrigan, CSP, who devotedly looked after him during his illness, said that watching him go toward that inevitable meeting with his Creator was an inspiring and transforming experience.
R.I.P., Fr. Boadt. May not only the angels but also Fr. Isaac Hecker and the other early Paulist saints lead you into Paradise. I know St. Mary Magdalene will be on the welcoming committee--I already had a word with her.

A Garden Bursting into Life: Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

One thing I love about Mary Magdalene is that she dared to be exactly who she was: a generous, passionate, devoted and grateful person. Mary Magdalene was never, ever a cardboard copy of who she "thought" she should be. She acted out of her core, never out of a list of "shoulds" or "musts." 
    One of my favorite songs is "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol, and the line that always jumps out at me, loaded with layers of meaning, is "Show me a garden that's bursting into life." I dare say, that's Mary Magdalene's theme. Look at the Easter story in the Gospel of John, which we read on her feast. She goes to the tomb expecting to see a dead body to anoint with spices, and what does she find instead?  "A garden that's bursting into life"! And the person in charge is the Ultimate Gardener, Jesus. What a great and wonderful surprise, a gift from the God of the Unexpected.  Who was better able fully and completely to embrace this surprise and all it implied than Mary Magdalene, the "apostle to the apostles"?
    Happy feast day, St. Mary Madgalene.  Happy feast day to my friends among the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and the Paulist Fathers, both of which hold Mary Magdalene in special regard as a patron saint.