Radiance
David Gibson has already reported on the death this morning of Cardinal Avery Dulles after some months of growing physical paralysis that did not diminish his mental alertness or his spiritual radiance.
I had the privilege and grace of being able to visit with him several times during his stay at the Jesuit infirmary near Fordham. I always came away with a sense of being blessed by his presence and witness.
And, after each visit, the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians always sprang to mind:
So death is at work in us, but life in you…Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed on more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.
Therefore we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen, but to what is unseen. For what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor 5: 12-18)
I never met Cardinal Dulles in person, but he has been an intellectual companion for a good part of my life. His theological reflections were always wise, balanced, and thorough and helped me clarify my own thinking on any number of matters. One of the many consolations of heaven will be the chance to know him in person. For now, I can merely recall the words of Christ that we all hope to hear: “Well done, thy good and faithful servant.”
The London Times has a fine obituary of Avery Dulles at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5332887.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
Here are the last two paragraphs:
“After his consecration as a cardinal in Rome on February 21, 2001, the Gregorian University hosted a meal in his honor. Over the rattle of after-dinner coffee cups, various high-ranking ecclesial figures rose to praise Dulles’s life and work. The most revealing moment, however, may have come when, unexpectedly, one of his Dulles cousins stepped to the podium.
“An aristocrat of that strange, old American variety — tall and puritanically thin, well but primly dressed, a daughter of stern Protestant New England — she explained that she had overheard as a child the outraged family discussions of the young Avery’s conversion. Uncle Allen, Aunt Eleanor, John Foster, all the senior family members gathered around to complain that the best and brightest of the family’s next generation seemed determined to throw his promising life away. “And, of course, they were right,” she said. “He did throw that life away. He threw it away for God.”
On its website, America magazine has links for a number of Dulles’s articles:
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10742
Here’s interesting newsreel footage of Cardinal Dulles’ priestly ordination at Fordham by Cardinal Spellman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh48PKCwG1Y