November 22, 2020
Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

The entire city of Oxford had been torn asunder by the recent election for the coveted office of mayor. The incumbent, Donnie Mac Gump who had served as mayor for four years had been challenged by the former sheriff, Joe Hob Bieber. The election was so close that votes and procedures were challenged everywhere. There were recounts already at the Ole Miss campus site and at the cotton gin. The whole thing had the town in an uproar and a couple of old men who sat in front of the general store downtown recommended that the two candidates might just duke it out in the vacant lot behind Fat Bambi’s, the barbeque deer restaurant on the Abbeville Road. Of course, Mr. Taylor Steggs had also been an influential candidate in the race but his campaign fell short when he didn’t receive any votes, even his own, as he was only 7 years old and absolutely unable to vote, in most places, at least legally. Therefore, on this beautiful November day, Mr. Taylor Steggs was getting on with his life in spite of the radical turmoil around him. Mr. Taylor Steggs was known for many things, well-known for many things. He was a famed evangelist, recognized far and wide as the natural successor of Dr. Tangerine Hope. He was also recognized for his tonsorial and haberdasheral excellence. His sense of style was unparalleled among seven-year-olds in Oxford and even as far as New Albany in the nearby county. Today he was engaged in his third most renowned characteristic, his prodigious entrepreneurial skills. Mr. Taylor Steggs knew how to make money and today he had collected a great wealth of soda pop bottles and was taking them to the Piggly Wiggly in his Red Flyer Wagon for redemption. 

Mr. Taylor Steggs had just passed the corner of Main Street and Picayune Alley and was batting the fallen leaves on the side of the road with his cane. He was dressed today in his magnificent black cape and to the casual passerby he might be taken for a very small opera singer or an itinerant midget magician. Mr. Taylor Steggs was infinitely proud of his distinctive look. Everyone knew when Mr. Taylor Steggs was on parade and to be honest, he was almost perpetually on parade.

It was a perfect day, in spite of the electoral upheaval and Mr. Taylor Steggs was very happy, particularly since he would soon be $1.45 richer when he reached the PW. And then, as he poked and prodded, in the nadirs of the leaves he heard a distinct ding, ding, ding. Once again he poked: Ding, Ding, Ding. Something metal was nested in the leaves and in that metallic ring, Mr. Taylor Steggs smelled cash. Carefully approaching the ditch, Mr. Taylor Steggs whisked the leaves until his cane made contact with the thing he sought, whatever it was. Leveraging the object, it sprang bright and promising from the moldy leaves. What in the world was it? It was round, as round as his head and large, larger than his head and tall, taller than his head. Letting it slide down his cane, he grasped the thing, turning it over in his hands until Mr. Taylor Steggs discerned that it was, in fact, a crown. How in the world had a crown come to be found in an Oxford ditch?

This was a perfect excuse for Mr. Taylor Steggs to park his Red Flyer for a moment and do what he did best, sit and ponder. Certainly, he had seen crowns before. He had two aunts, Miss Taylor Steggs and another Miss Taylor Steggs who had both been Watermelon Queen of Yalobusha Country, and his uncle and father, both named Mr. Taylor Steggs had been Ole Miss Homecoming kings, in different years, of course. Mr. Taylor Steggs peered at the thing. It was metal, but he suspected it was not pure gold, mores the pity. It was complete with jewels, though Mr. Taylor Steggs opined they were not authentic gems. It was hefty, heavy and he believed it had been worn recently. Did the regal wearer chuck it out the car window? Was the sovereign put down in a coup? 

He pondered and pondered. Kings wore crowns, he knew and so did beauty queens. Crowns meant prestige, and power. 

And then he decided to do what he always did in times of doubt and mental turmoil, he fished his King James New Testament out of his cape pocket. He screwed up his eyes and blindly opened the little leather book. Dramatically he pointed his finger to a verse and read: 

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Somehow, November, the fallen leaves, the crispy air, and the political turmoil of Oxford made him think this passage was very appropriate, very real. 

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Mr. Taylor Steggs thought about loss and death, as he pondered the stirring air and the trees, and the crown. He thought of endings and beginnings. He thought of ages past and yet to come. He thought of his grandmother who had gone to God and his little sister, Miss Taylor Steggs who had gone to be with grandmother even though she was only five years old. He thought of all of the people of Oxford, many were his relatives, even those who were not. He thought about the crown, the old, slightly rusted, but intact crown in his hand, the crown that came forth from November and the crown was a sign, a sign of triumph over November, the glory of God shining brightly, if a bit tarnished through the gloom, becoming enshrined in the glow of a more tarnished world. 

There seated on his Red Flyer, Mr. Taylor Steggs had a revelation: 

Mr. Taylor Steggs needed the crown, not in the same way he needed the $1.45 from the store. He needed the crown because of something else. The crown and whatever king wore it, not him, meant hope. 

The crown meant gold and jewels but it was the gold and jewels of glory, the gold and jewels of prayer, the gold and jewels of sacrifice, the gold and jewels of loss and pain, and vindication. 

The crown meant saints, men and women, children and all of those who had already mounted the heights of Zion, the saints who sat in gold array, round and round, waiting, waving always waiting and waving to welcome

The crown meant angels and the beating of wings against those cold November days, wing-wind that stirred his cape, and stirred the trees and stirred Oxford, and stirred the world.

The crown meant wonder in the face of doubt and trouble just when the wetness of sorrow threatened to overtake everything.

The crown meant overwhelming joy, joy, joy in the overcast skies of the gloomiest of times, times of illness, times of pain, times of death, times of quarantine. 

The crown meant, somehow meant, Jesus the King. Jesus the king, who was born in a stable. Jesus who lived among us and worked wonders in our presence that we could not appreciate. Jesus who taught us the way to the Father. Jesus, the king. Jesus who died for us. Jesus was a king, yes, but he took the form of a slave, being born in our likeness. He died for us a death no king should have to die. And yet, he died, he died for Mr. Taylor Steggs and he died to all of the people of Oxford. And that made Mr. Taylor Steggs cry. Sitting on the red flyer surrounded by the mammon of old bottles, holding onto that crown, Mr. Taylor Steggs thought: Let me take up the crown of our king and remember what he did for us, what we are called to do for others, to pour out our lives on the cross, to remember them in each act of sacrifice, his sacrifice. 

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Mr. Taylor Steggs wiped his nose and tucked the crown into the inside pocket of his cape. Off he rolled with the tarnished crown toward the Piggly Wiggly and happiness and … salvation? He was reminded of something he heard once and he thought it perfectly appropriate as he felt the crown repeatedly bump into his knee as he walked: If perfection eludes us it doesn’t matter, the crown we have in this moment is enough.

November 5, 2020
Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

It seems to me that November is the time to call the roll. As the autumn days ware on, names drop like leaves from the trees, each wonderfully colored, each unique. Names asking, begging to be remembered even as the intermingling of dust scampers up around the feet of pilgrims. And we hear those names. We know those names, or so many of them. The roll of names called out in class. The roll of names in waiting rooms and offices. The clarion call of a roll of names echoes across these hills of Southern Indiana. It is as familiar to us as breeze, or the chill of first frost. 

St. Paul had his roll of Romans to call. Who were these folks? Aquila and Priscilla, Trephine and Tryphosa? Husbands and wives, twin sisters, mothers. Today surely dust in the wind, but they were the heartstrings of St. Paul. Now they are names on a roll, but once they walked the violent streets of Rome, once they attended to family and to church. Once they raised the cry of the Gospel above the din of secular authority. Once they lay down their lives in arenas of world judgement. Now they live forever on the other shore enlivened by a morning that breaks eternal, bright, fair.  

And of course, Jesus had his own roll to call. Names, Peter and Andrew, James and John, brothers in the flesh, soon to be brothers in the spirit, all ending as brothers in the blood. Names on churches and tombs but once men, simple men, fallible men, broken men, courageous men. Once fishermen and tax collectors, now triumphant rising above the din of fishing boats and counting houses, into the halls of heaven. Once worn-down, wavering, but now eternally at peace and prayerful vigilance. The roll call. 

They were born into this world screaming and kicking. They faced the village bully and fought their way through the various dramas of childhood and adolescence. They loved and were loved by wives and children, most of them. They worked too hard and sometimes drank too much. They were men of the world long before they were legends, long before they were part of the roll. 

I was reminded as I was preparing for tonight of an old Baptist hymn. You are probably thinking, he has a hundred of these old hymns and you would be right. I was thinking about this hymn in light of our readings tonight and in light of our celebration tonight.

When the roll is called up yonder. Here is the first stanza:

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,

And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair

When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there

I’ll be there. That is a promise and November reminds us of this simple truth. When the roll is called up yonder. Last Sunday we celebrated All Saints. We know the famous ones, the Francises and the Teresas all of various stripes. They present themselves to us daily in their starched little habits and even more starched holy faces. Holy cards, pictures, paintings. But All Saints presents us with something more, it confronts us with Casearius a deacon who suffered with his buddy St. Julian. And Benginus a priest who was a missionary in France. Here is Austremonius,. The first bishop of Claremont. Who names their child Austremonius these days? Here is Vigor of Bayeux, whose tomb you can still visit today though no one does. And Severen a monk from Tivoli and St. Marturen. These are only on November 1. How many more names are there in the roll call of the saints, and so many we will never, no one will ever know. 

On Monday we remembered all of the souls, a roll of names now closer to home than Austromonius and Caesarius. Here they are striving upward, hoping and praying that the purifying road of Purgatory will not be too hard to climb, will finally fan out into the celestial Leathy. All souls working together, maybe for the first time. All souls weeping for their sins and the sins of their fellow climbers. Souls with names like brother, sister, nana, paw, momma, daddy. All souls, a role of names called up yonder. 

And what about our altar of the dead? Names and pictures enshrouded in orange flowers and candles. Now that muffled roll call narrows to the confines of our memory. Here is Fr. John and Logan, Lori, Helen, Ruth, Josephine, Fr. Joe, Thomas, Spike, Della and Louie, the roll call intermingled with bread and fruit and garish skulls. I wonder if Ruth and Spike would have even imagined themselves immortalized on a Mexican altar? 

What about the book of the dead, what is it but a roll, called up yonder? Marian, Mercedes, Matthew, Ida, Anna, Rosina, MaryAnne, JesseMae, Ruben, Augustine, Consuela. When the roll is called up yonder, certainly, but what about us? The roll is called up yonder, but it is called for us. They are names, yes, but also souls. They are all souls, all souls whose names remind us that they are stretching eagerly across time and space to be involved with us. 

Tonight, in a moment, we are going to call the roll. Names yes but also souls. Tonight, your names are called out. Tonight, your names hang in the air like a newborn litany. Tonight, your names rustle in the air like fallen, Fall leaves. Tonight, this roll call elides into candidacy. But the roll called down here is heard elsewhere too. The calling of your name tonight echoes into heaven. The call of your name tonight catches the attention of the Church militant, the Church suffering and the Church triumphant. The call of your name tonight is picked out of the din of noise rising from the earth and pricks the ear of your grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, relatives, friends. The call of your name tonight excites the ears of the poor souls pressing on that purgatorial road. The call of your name gives the hope, the hope of heaven, the hope of being reunited with you. The call of your name tonight echoes across these hills of Southern Indiana to excite a Church struggling in the midst of pandemic, and political strife and indifference. Your name, called out tonight penetrates the clouds of this world’s sorrow and permeates the pavements of all those places beyond. When the roll is called down here, it illuminates the roll called up yonder. 

It is interesting that the origin of the word candidacy is “one who dresses in white”. Tonight, you men have just a spot of white clinging to your neck, but through this action tonight, may your candidacy be called to fruition in the fullness of white array when the roll is called up yonder.