Good morning, friends. Today’s recommended reading is by Joseph Bottum, a remembrance of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus that is eloquent and powerful. You can read it in The Weekly Standard:
He was the greatest reader I ever met. The greatest reader, and a cigar smoker, and a walker, and a preacher, and a brewer of some of the worst coffee ever made. What odd items the mind latches onto in moments of grief: the tilt of a friend’s head, the way he used his hands when he spoke, an awful meal shared a decade back, a conversation about a book only a month ago.
Only a month ago–it was only a month ago that he was still whole, still sharp, still himself. Novels and movies always seem to me to get it wrong. Grief doesn’t conjure up ghosts. Grief renders the world itself ghostly. The absent thing alone is real, and in comparison, all present things are pale, gray, and indistinct: a vague background to the sharp-edged portrait of what is gone.
In New York City, a wake will be held tonight, and a funeral mass tomorrow morning. Several contributors and editors of The City will be in attendance to honor a magnificent man of God.
You can see pictures of the late RJN here, and read other interviews and acknowledgements collected here.
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