Winter-flowering Hellebore

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a cherished feast day.

We Catholics celebrate Saints Joachim and Anne, bringing their little daughter Mary to the Temple of Jerusalem, where she dedicated her life to God. (That's not to be confused, although it is, with the presentation one generation later when Mary and Joseph brought the Christ Child to that same Temple, to be greeted by Simeon the Elder and Anna.)

On the Catholic calendar, the Presentation of the Virgin is the 2nd of February. That's also the Celtic name day of St. Bridget. It's Groundhog Day too, so my wise-alec friends say "Happy Imbolc! If the Virgin Mary is scared by her shadow and pops back into her burrow, do we get six more weeks of winter?" One commentator, possibly Christoper Hitchins, quipped that the legend of dedicating a girl in the Temple shows whimsical ignorance of Jewish practice. Is the Feast of the Presentation even Scriptural? Well, no. The internet (a page from Missio Immaculatae) ascribes the legend to the Protoevangelium Gospel of James. Sure, it's just apocryphal. But it's an early oral tradition that we still preserve today.

Anyway. In childhood it was heartening to see that the holiness and spiritual path of even a little girl could matter to the Church, and could matter to her mom and dad. Back in New England where winters felt longer and longer by February, the holiday was a welcome reminder that we were 40 days past Gregorian Christmas, and halfway along from December solstice to March equinox. What's more, the Presentation was a source of appealing art depictions both in church, and in devotional books at home.

In any ordinary year, Presentation Day would call for going out to evening feast day Mass. But in 2012, the day didn't mean devout parents presenting their pure little Virgin to the Temple. It meant me presenting me at the Temple of the cancer center downtown. It turned out to be a false alarm, after my local clinic ran a routine annual mammography. The main cancer center took an interest in the image, and sent me a summons for a repeat session. The letter had an urgent now-hear-this tone, and key words in boldface font. The phone number in the letter connected me with an operator who found me a slot on February 2nd, at 3:00 pm sharp. 

That 3:00 imaging called for some moral support. So I packed my Bowed Psaltery, a zither-like instrument with a sweet medieval sound, plus the Mary Frances Cody book With Bound Hands: A Jesuit in Nazi Germany, the life and letters of Father Alfred Delp (1907-1945). This made a nice choice for February 2nd because Father Delp had a special devotion to feast days of the Virgin. 

Father Delp was a devout energetic young Jesuit. During the 15-year formation period required to join the Society of Jesus, the other Jesuits were sometimes surprised by his personality. They looked twice at his sociable gregarious nature, humorous wisecracks, flashing grin (apparent in most photos of him on line), appreciation for a good cigar, and gusto at singing hymns to Mary in a loud tone-free voice. They wondered particularly about his rapport with his parishioners, most of whom were senior women. There was nothing forward or improper about it; he simply had special patience and interest and warmth for these elders, including his own mother, in all their everyday work and household cares in Germany's difficult wartime days.

The Jesuits soon found that the young priest was a tireless parish leader, and an outspoken preacher with courageous principles. He completed his 15 year discernment period, with only two weeks remaining before the day set for his final vows. At that point, Father Delp was arrested. That timing was a cause of particular grief to him during months of solitary confinement. It haunted him to think that prison was a sign that God had found him unworthy of final ordination.

The Nazi authorities charged him with conspiring to kill Hitler (not true), and of helping Jewish refugees escape to Switzerland (true). At Tegel Prison, torture sessions reduced him to what he described in one letter as "a bleeding whimper." Prison officials kept tempting him with freedom — provided that he give up the idea of taking vows as a Jesuit. They kept him handcuffed and shackled around the clock. The prison authorities also kept him chained all day at a table with paper and pen, attempting to compel him to write his confession and to implicate others. 

Tegel Prison considered laundry service to be the responsibility of each prisoner's family. This is where Delp's rapport for his female parishioners changed the destiny of his work. To the surprise of the guards, an army of elderly women began showing up and demanding their pastor's clothing. (There was reason to believe that some guards secretly respected their prisoner, and did not object to his going through so much laundry.) The women were somehow inspired to unstitch and check the seams of his clothes. In those seams, they discovered and collected tiny tightly rolled strips of paper. After hand-stitching the seams again, after washing and exchanging the clothes for the next laundry load, the women unrolled and flattened the paper slips, deciphered Delp's microscopic penmanship, and copied it out. Chained and shackled at that table and chair, he served his sentence writing stealthy meditations on the theme The Advent of the Heart — on times when life is darkest, and on ways to use those times to more deeply experience and express the presence of God. Thanks to a loyal following of German women, the letters from prison were just the right company in the radiology waiting room for that 3:00 appointment.

At 2:55, Radiology Technologist Sarah welcomed me to a changing room. I locked up my things, and put on an ample comfy robe. In the imaging room next door, Sarah marked my skin with inked arrows and adhesive stickers. As a calm gentle medical provider (and a ukulele player herself) she encouraged me to talk about my psaltery while she adjusted the equipment. After our mammography, she forwarded the images to the radiology team for immediate viewing. She brought me to my cubicle to wait while she roomed and prepared her other patients.

At 3:15, the radiologists sent Sarah back to me. They directed her to start all over, reworking views from this and that angle. For this second round of images, Sarah stayed positive and calm, cradling our attention moment by moment on only the next indicated task. 

At 3:40, I waited in the cubicle while the doctors summoned Sarah for a conference. They ordered her to start again, same images, now with two more angle views.

At 4:00, Sarah and I finished imaging round three. 

The radiologists conferred for a much longer time. Sarah walked with me back to the changing cubicle. Although it is probable that she had no such time to spare, she sat down beside and stayed with me for several minutes, listening attentively while I played her a song. Then, she told me what would happen next.

The room had two doors. The outer door faced the waiting room. The inner door faced the imaging suite. If I heard a knock on the outer door, that would be Sarah. It would mean that the radiologists had decided that my topography looked benign, and I was free to go. A knock on the inner door would be a radiologist, calling me in for an ultrasound. After the ultrasound review by the team, they would sit me down to describe the results and options for treatment. It sounded like the two doors in the Frank Stockton story about the lady or the tiger; but in this version, any tiger would be waiting inside me. 

I sat in the cubicle, practicing my psaltery. That way, if a radiologist had to come and get me at the inner door after a long day of delivering sobering news, maybe it would make a nice change for them to be greeted by some music. But the minutes unraveled along and along. My spirits fell and fell. It was almost 5:00, then 5:00, then after 5:00. In this basically soundproof booth the psaltery sounded plaintive, like a whistle in the dark or the music box in a scary movie. I gave up and put the instrument back in its case. Then, everything was quiet and still. There was no sign of footsteps or voices in the hallway any more. Did they forget that I was in here? My nerves wound up, bracing for a knock on this side, or maybe that other side. I told myself sternly that for this hour here and now I did not have a problem, although the viewing team certainly did.

But wait — here was my book! What about Father Delp? He waited in a little room for a verdict too. And not for an hour, but for six months. And not in a thick soft cotton robe, but in handcuffs and shackles. And not for people trained to come and help, but for people trained to leave him bleeding and break his mind before his death. The thought of Father Delp in that cell centered me right down. He liked to pay parish calls, and if he could then maybe he would pay a call on a cell like this. I'd play him a Mary hymn. He'd say a prayer, and from all we know he'd think of something humorous and cheerful to say. What might that be?

At 5:15 there was a knock. The waiting-room door! I threw it open. There was lovely Sarah, all beaming. She looked just beautiful. I tackled a big hug around her. And just in case she needed me to babble at her, I said "Sarah! Sarah! If your news were complex I would be still more huggy and more grateful for all your kindness today. But it is this news instead. So God must have some other ending for me. Maybe it's a harder ending. Maybe not. Who knows what or when that is? But today, my walking out of here — it does not mean He likes me any better than He likes any of your other patients."

   "Well, look," Sarah said. "I don't get to give good news every day. So I say just run with it. Keep playing that psaltery! Go out there and do wonderful things for yourself."

I rode the bus back uptown, and got out at my transfer stop. It was getting colder. The wind was picking up. Mass would be over by now. I sat on the bench for the next bus, took out the psaltery, and played a hymn by St. Nektarios of Aegina, "Agni Parthene," or "Most Pure Virgin":  O Maria, Pure Maiden, Most-Holy Theotokos… Far above the hosts of heaven, uncreated light, Joy of maidens, higher still than angels, Rejoice, O Unwedded Bride!

People stopped to listen. A little kiddo walked over and dropped 35 cents in my music case.

Home at last, a seven hour round trip. What a great relief and a comfort to pull off my adrenalin-soaked clothes and put my compressed and tender magic-markered shape in a hot shower and to peel off the imaging stickers. Then in flannel nightgown and sweater I fixed some miso soup and tucked in to my blankie roll on the floor for early bedtime. While the wind rocked the trees outside I curled up to read With Bound Hands, all eager to learn the ending.

In 1944, Father Delp looked forward to December 8th, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, hoping it would bring some sign of God's care for him. What it brought was a visit from fellow Jesuit Franz von Tattenbach. The visitor handed the prison guard a page of Latin, offering to  translate it into German. But the guard stopped him, wanting nothing to do with this meeting between the priests. Delp recognized the Latin as the rite of final vows for the Society of Jesus, a vow which to be valid would have to spoken right out loud — in the wary presence of this guard. Delp realized that this visit signaled two things. One, God had accepted his ordination: the Jesuits had decided to grant an exemption, ordaining him right here in this cell. Two, the Jesuits had somehow discovered his verdict, and knew that he would leave this cell only for his execution. To the alarm of the guard, Delp burst into sobs, rendering his Latin spoken vow even more incomprehensible. That veil of spontaneous tears gave the priests a moment of space and time to conclude the ordination in peace. 

In 1945, with the end of the war weeks away, Father Delp wrote letters of farewell. He signed his mother's letter "Your Big Troublemaker." To a parishioner, he wrote "Do not let my mother tell 'pious legends' about me. I was a brat." After the execution, Heinrich Himmler ordered that the Jesuit's body be burned, and his ashes dumped in a sewer. First, chaplain Peter Buchholz consoled his fellow priest with a reminder of the hope of heaven. Father Delp smiled and said, "In thirty minutes, I'll know more than you." 

On the feast day favored by German Jesuits for taking final vows, Alfred Delp was hanged at 3:00 in the afternoon on the 2nd of February, Presentation of the Virgin.