Lazarus amicus noster dormit, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep (Jn 11:11). While the Lord Jesus was dwelling on the far side of the Jordan, in the place where John first baptized, He received word from Martha and Mary that their brother Lazarus was ill. Thus, begins a luminous page of the Gospel according to Saint John, recording one of the great moments of Holy Scripture. It is an episode so divine and so human at the same time that we can hardly grasp it all. It is all about death and about life and about resurrection.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My Very Dear Sons,
with a special mention of members of Bishop Slattery’s family that are with us, and of Monsignor Patrick Brankin,
In the presence of his mortal remains, we are here today to honor the memory of a holy priest, who was also Tulsa’s third bishop and God’s instrument for the founding of our monastery in this diocese. He was also a friend. As many of you know, Bishop Edward J. (the J. is very important he once told me, since it stands for Joseph) Slattery came to Tulsa from Chicago, where he attended Catholic schools and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, taking a Bachelor of Arts degree and later a Masters of Divinity. He was ordained a priest on April 26, 1966, for the Archdiocese of Chicago by the late John Cardinal Cody. He was one of seven children, the eldest boy. They were part of a strong Catholic parish community and of a vital Catholic culture that did much to make the man.
Lazarus amicus noster dormit, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. Unlike the friend of the Lord, Lazarus, who was no doubt a younger man at the time of his death and miraculous return to life, Bishop Slattery led a very long and full life, completing his active role as priest and then as head of a diocese over many years, all the way into retirement, when he settled into a more contemplative mode of existence, still praying for our diocese and for the many people whose lives he had touched and vice versa. In the Gospel narrative, Christ brought Lazarus back to mortal life as an incomparable lesson in the power and love of God. But raising someone from the dead had been done before. As we read in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Old Testament, the prophet Elias once raised the son of the widow of Sarepta from the dead (1 Kings 17) and his disciple Elisha likewise brought back to life the son of the Shunamite (2 Kings 4). But with Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of man, there is something quite different. As He said to Martha, when he came at last to Bethany after waiting several days, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn 11: 25-26).
Bishop Slattery once told me and a few other monks gathered at his first house in Tulsa one evening about an experience he once had as a young man. The story has been recounted to many others as well. This incident was given in very simple terms, without any poise or effort to impress anyone: he just thought it important to share a spiritual experience with us monks. He said that once, in the middle of the night, he found himself wide awake, something that was not at all habitual for him. He then experienced something he found hard to explain, but said it was basically a strong sense of the presence of God. Although the very unusual character of this experience faded, something of that Divine presence remained, and it helped him become a better Catholic than he had been before and generally to be more faithful as a believer.
The relationship between Bishop Slattery and the monks of Clear Creek goes back to several visits to the United States of a French abbot, accompanied by an American, Father Francis Bethel, including a visit to Tulsa in 1995. There was also a priestly ordination that took place in the late 1990s. Robert Torczynski, whose family lived near Tulsa, had been part of a group of Americans that traveled to the ancient Benedictine of Fontgombault, though Robert finally entered a different monastery in France. After his formation period, Robert was called to the priesthood and asked the bishop of Tulsa to come ordain him in his monastery across the sea. It was on this occasion, among other encounters, that Bishop Slattery learned more of the group of Americans and their desire to found a new monastery back in the United States, and, to make a long story short, the thing long dreamed of actually happened in 1999. The story of the American foundation of Clear Creek was told in great detail by then Father Patrick Brankin in a special issue of the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic of October 25, 1998, about a year before the founders arrived.
There were several trips of Bishop Slattery to Fontgombault and much discussion before the plan to found in the Tulsa diocese was decided upon and a charter was signed on the feast of the Assumption 1998. When asked, most of the Benedictines already established in America advised the bishop not to accept them! However, the Abbot Primate of the time, Marcel Rooney, on the contrary, warmly advised Bishop Slattery to accept the foundation, and that was enough. During this interim, when the possibility of the foundation was still being debated, someone asked Bishop Slattery whether, finally, he would receive these Benedictines into his diocese or not, he replied with a twinkle of Irish-American wit, “Receive them? I would give them a bear-hug.”
By his seminary formation and through spiritual direction, Bishop Slattery was very much a disciple of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. He followed the famous Exercises and used their method of meditation. However, he was also rather traditional in his liturgical preferences and immediately fell in love with the liturgical experience he had at Fontgombault Abbey in France, when he went to explore the possibility of receiving a Benedictine foundation in his diocese, as we have said. The power and beauty of the Gregorian chant in particular made a lasting impression. It was soon after the foundation of Clear Creek twenty-five years ago, in late 1999, that the bishop made known his desire to have a solemn requiem Mass in the older Roman rite celebrated for him after his death.
All of this being said, it is important to understand that Bishop Slattery’s first love, one that never altered, was for his diocese of Tulsa. As a wise man once said, “love is a house with many stories.” It is possible to love other persons and things, as long as the love of God fills the highest story of the house and that a proper order is maintained. Along the same order of reasoning, there is no doubt but that Bishop Slattery was always a man of the Church, a faithful son of the Church. Nothing could deter him from that primordial fidelity.
Furthermore, if it is possible to open up one last vista, one last window into the soul of our good friend, amicus noster, it would be to point out the greater pastoral intention of Bishop Slattery to restore and renew not only the faith, but the cultural fabric of his diocese, including from the liturgical viewpoint. The intention was vast. I would like to quote here a passage from the homily Bishop Slattery gave on the occasion of the Inauguration Mass for official opening of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, on February 11th, 2000. I cite this passage, not as praising the monks of Clear Creek, but as an insight into the noble mind and heart of our bishop.
That radical witness, he stated, which you are called to give is what we mean by evangelization, but there can be no true evangelization without contemplation; and as Pope John Paul reminds us, contemplation is the very heart of Benedictine life… Beloved members of the family of Saint Benedict, believe me when I tell you that from this house a new civilization will spring. Let it be intensely Benedictine, joyfully Benedictine, Benedictine in the very center of its search for God (Homily of Bishop Slattery for Inauguration of Clear Creek on February 11, 2000).
Lazarus amicus noster dormit, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. Let us not weep over much for this man, our Father and friend, who lived his life so well, a life that was blessed by God because given for others. Rather, let us accompany him now as he is taken back to the cathedral for a solemn funeral and then for burial, in his well-earned resting place, among his faithful of the diocese. Requiescat in pace. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
