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SOMEONE TO REMEMBER [1]STORM OF FIRE1. On the hot, dusty day of August 05th, 1949, a storm exploded in the heavily wooded Rocky Mountains of Montana at a place called Mann Gulch. Neither rain, hail, sleet or snow, this was a storm of fire, ignited by lightning on the top of the south ridge. 2. At first, the Forest Service referred to the smoke leaking out of the ridge as merely a "cauliflower", although soon it was more like a leak in a lobe of the brain of the universe.[2] In a short thirty-five minute span, the blaze--originally sixty acres in size--became a devouring fire [cf. Isa 29:6, 33:14] ravaging seven or eight square miles. MORTAL DANGER3. In its path were sixteen young, inexperienced Forest Service fire jumpers who had parachuted into the gulch earlier with their seasoned foreman. Approaching the blaze at the top of the south ridge, the foreman recognized that the fire conditions were ripe for producing a holocaust. 4. Their lives were in mortal danger. He ordered his team to proceed rapidly and in orderly procession to the bottom of the gulch. His urgent goal was to reach the cold, safe waters of the Missouri River bordering the mouth of the gulch. Behind the jumpers, the burgeoning inferno almost instantaneously organized itself into a wall of malignant fire about 300 feet deep and 600 feet tall.[3] SPINNING FIRE FUNNELS5. The fire, pulled by a colossal updraft of converging wind currents, exploded through Mann Gulch. Although they had a two hundred yard head start, the massive firestorm pursued the smoke jumpers down the steep slope with the speed of a tornado. 6. The fire roared like a coal-burning freight train surging through a mountain tunnel.[4] Cut off from safety at the Missouri River by spinning fire funnels that exploded ahead of them, the inexperienced crew was forced to scramble to the very top of the surrounding ridges of the north slope. Desperately the young men clawed their way up the steep, rocky forty-five degree incline.[5] STATIONS OF THE CROSS7. Trapped near the top of the gulch next to a large rock outcropping--an insurmountable barrier--they perished in the 2,000 degree furnace. Norman Maclean, who makes this true story the subject of his book YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, christened the critical events of the fire jumpers short, tragic odyssey as the stations of the cross.[6] 8. We do not find dust and ashes attractive--shaking out a vacuum cleaner bag, emptying out a fireplace box, scrubbing down a barbeque pit, shaking beach sand out of our bedsit is all dirty work, something we would prefer others do. We recoil at the sight of charred houses and forest timber. The human ashes of the Nazi crematoria render us speechless. Yet ironically, what repels us, fascinates us. ASH WEDNESDAY9. Presently, the Catholic Church uses ashes only on Ash Wednesday, a universal practice going back to the eleventh century. Until fairly recently, however, bishops used ashes in the rite for the dedication of a church. The ordinary would sprinkle the Church with a lustrous mixture of water, wine, salt, and ashes known by the apocryphal name Gregorian water.[7] 10. The bishop would write in ashes strewn on the church floor with the Greek and Latin alphabets crossing each other diagonally to form the Greek letter chi as a symbol of Jesus Christ. The bishop's action signified that Christ--the beginning and the end--had taken possession of the new church. NATURAL TO SUPERNATURAL
11. This ancient practice reveals a very important lesson. Christ does not take custody of common bricks, glass, and mortar. He receives the gift of the Church anew, an "exalted house, a place for (him) to dwell in forever". [1Kg 8:13] The dust becomes a stone. The stone becomes a house. The house becomes a temple. 12. Through the grace of God, a spiritual consecration is conferred on the noble structure that has been built for God and the temporal order itself is blessed. Thus, the Lord God Almighty receives a house built by the hands of man and draws what is natural into the realm of the supernatural; God's gift to man of material prosperity is tithed to him as a dwelling place. SUITABLE DWELLING13. The Church becomes an "offering acceptable to the Lord" [cf. Psa 19:14;Isa 60:7] and the "glory of the Lord fills his house". [1Kg 8:11] Now "the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life". [Gen 2:7; cf. Sir 17:32] God, in his wisdom, has made man complete in the flesh, like all things in the natural order of creation. 14. Left to the natural order, however, man remains incomplete and unfulfilled; to man alone God has given a soul and commanded him by his word of love to bear his image and likeness. [cf. Gen 1:26] The Lord wills us to be transformed into a suitable dwelling place for the ark which carries the glory of his Spirit. LONGING FOR GOD15. The thought of personal transformation can be terrifying. Humbling oneself before the Lord may seem utterly impossible. Encountering God face-to-face threatens my reality and presses against the closed door of my conscience. Tragically, the twilight of separation between a man and the God who created him may endure to the grave. For the ancient Hebrews, this was "Sheol, the barren womb, the earth ever thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, 'Enough'". [Pro 30:16] The Word of the World feeds you "ashes like bread and mingles tears with your drink". [Psa 102:9-10] 16. God willing, the time will come when your soul seizes upon the Word of God and prays: Enough! Give me good news, for I am discouraged! Bind my broken heart! Deliver me from captivity! Revive my faint spirit! [cf. Isa 61:1-3] This is the prayer of the natural man who recognizes his supernatural hunger, who discovers his spiritual longing for God, the most powerful human drive of all. Transformation is not easy. It is not a passive journey: "It is the narrow gate and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." [Mat 7:14] REDEMPTIVE FIRE17. The foreman of the smoke jumpers survived the fire storm of Mann Gulch on August 05th, 1949, by confronting the very thing he feared. He lit an escape fire which devoured the dry tinder and lifeless grass ahead of him. Somehow he knew, "that if there was a space, where there was no fuel to be added to the main fire, there might also be a thin layer of oxygen inches above the ground. So he quickly burned off a plot of grass.[8] 18. He shouted to his young squad members in the furnace. He pleaded with them in the maelstrom of smoke and flame to throw themselves flat on the smoldering embers. But for whatever reason--perhaps because the foreman was a stranger to them, or they could not see and hear him--the young men did not heed his pleas to ...enter this redemptive fire with him.[9] CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD19. So he alone laid face down in the hot ashes and embers while the wall of fire swept over him moments later.[10] His crew perished, caught from behind. They were young, (very young), and needed someone to remember them.[11] The death of these young men was tragic. Nevertheless, neither disappointment, defeat, or the sting of death [1Cor 15:56] will have the last word. 20. No matter how poignant or sorrowful, these sufferings are only temporary. The profound message of this story concerns the fire jumper who lived. He was their shepherd, and he knew the way to save them. The whole of humanity has a Good Shepherd, do you see, a shepherd who knows his sheep. [Jn 10:14-15] This shepherd is Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Resurrection. CHALLENGE TO HUMANITY21. He knows how to save you, and his victory is permanent. Today, we celebrate Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Season of Lent. In this celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the temple of your bodies [cf. 1Pet 2:4-8] will be dedicated with the sign of the cross in ashes. The cross on your forehead will become a public testimony that you offer yourself as a living sacrifice to the redemptive fire of the Holy Spirit which Christ has set before you.[12] 22. Do you hunger for Christ to take possession of your life? Do you really want "times of refreshing from the Lord"? [Acts 3:20] If you do, then surrender to the Lord with all your heart when you receive his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. Draw near to him with prayer, fasting and almsgiving. In spite of our almost universal distaste for ashes and dust, they issue a profound challenge to humanity. "REMEMBER MAN"23. "Allow (your) spirit to be overturned in order to make it turn towards God!"[13] Signifying mortality, mourning and repentance, ashes speak to us with an eloquent voice: "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return....Come back to the Lord with all your heart; leave the past in ashes, and turn to God with tears and fasting...."[14]
[1] Cycle A, B, C /Ash Wednesday /Beginning of the Season of Lent /Joel 2:12-18 /2Cor 5:20-6:2 /Mt 6:1-6, 16-18. [2] Norman Maclean, YOUNG MEN AND FIRE (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) p. 43. Norman Maclean (1902-1990), William Rainey Harper Professor of English at the University of Chicago, also wrote A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT AND OTHER STORIES. [3] Cf ibid., 100, 120. [4] Cf ibid., 6. [5] Cf ibid., 175. [6] Cf YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, 273. Mr. Maclean refers to one segment of the attempted escape route: "It is the shortest distance between the stations of the cross, but it is the most critical in determining that the race would end in tragedy. This is the scene that makes the coming catastrophe inevitable, though it was not viewed that way by the tragic victims and not for some time by those who later studied it." The author alludes to the Catholic lenten prayer of the Stations of the Cross several times in the text. The subject of the Catholic Stations is Christ who carries his cross to Golgotha. [7] Cf E. J. Johnson, "Liturgical Use of Ashes", NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, 2nd ed, vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967) 948-949. Cf "(the ashes) shall be kept for the congregation of the people of Israel for the water for impurity, for the removal of sin." [Num 19:9] [8] James R. Kincaid, rev. of YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, by Norman Maclean, New York Times, Sunday Book Review 16 Aug. 1992. [9] Ibid. [10] Cf YOUNG MEN AND FIRE, 75, 99. [11] Ibid., 102. [12] "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" [Lk 12:49] [13] John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, no. 26 (1984). [14] SACRAMENTARY, "Lenten Season", Ash Wednesday (1985). |
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