Happy Farch 58th!
Happy Farch 58th! Yes, Farch. Something looks wrong, but it’s fine the way it is. Let me explain.
I was in my first year of theological studies in Toronto. The semester was tough academically and was dragging along. In addition, we were all suffering from vitamin D deficiency - no sunshine! That was the year of the famous blizzard of '77, which hit Western NY and Southern Ontario. There were mounds of dirty snow everywhere; the skies were gray and gloomy. We had gone for over 30 days without the sun, and temperatures were well below freezing the entire time. Depressing does not even come close to describing the feeling the weather created in us that year.
One afternoon in late March, Father John Mancini, OSFS, (my high school and ordination classmate) and I sat in his room at St. Basil's Seminary. We lived there with 104 other priests and seminarians. The building was functional but dreary - long dark halls, small bedrooms etc. We sat there complaining about everything, especially the weather. He said, "February and March are so miserable they should simply be one month." I replied, "Yes, and it could be called Farch!"
We both had a good laugh at that and it brought some light into a dreary day. We shared our thoughts with others, and it quickly became a well-used word in the School of Theology and even made it into the homily at the year-end baccalaureate mass. I still hear it referred to by those who were there and those who heard about it. February and March are the doldrums of the year - that period that makes us yearn for warm breezes, sunny days and the joy of summer. Even as I write this from Michigan, I’m daydreaming about all that summer brings.
The apparent Salesian response to Farch is the encouragement to live in the present moment. To see the beauty of God revealed to us even in little things, and be thankful and find our spirits lifted. I recently read a novel by Gregg Hurwitz titled The Last Orphan. It is a story about corruption, spies and justice sought. Toward the end of the book, a character named Deborah is speaking to the main character who had been searching for the killer of her teenage son, violently murdered over a year before. She sits at a kitchen table, commenting on how she'd love to see her son again. She says, "To see him for one minute more doing something mundane. Something I never bothered to pay attention to. Eating an apple. Picking at his dirty fingernails. To watch him watching TV. That's all heaven is. It was right there, every instant of my life before. And I couldn't see it.”
Doesn't that remind you of Saint Francis' teaching on living in the present moment? “Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him, and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.’”
May God be blessed!
Father Jack Loughran, OSFS
Provincial
Toledo-Detroit Province
