Since the first of September, Halloween decorations have been appearing everywhere in my neighborhood. It seems like more and more of my neighbors are following trends from their favorite retailers rather than adhering to the week of Halloween or actual month of October. The local Methodist church’s pumpkin patch just opened and their pumpkins are cooking in the Florida sun. The sign should read, “Get them now before they rot!” I’ve seen plenty of soft, moldy, blacken jack-o’-lanterns in early October.
One of the joys of traveling to Italy is not having marketing and advertising rush me into the next season. There was no mention of Halloween or Christmas anywhere in Italy. It was September and the Italians were holding onto the last remnants of summer as much as possible. There was no rush for autumn or winter.
My ghost story starts earlier this year in the Spring, around Easter. A local injury attorney firm in the area, I shall call them SG&F have dozens of digital billboards up around town along our highways. On any give week I pass several billboards with the faces of clients saying SG&F won them $30,000 or $100,000 after their accidents. But then there is the ghost who says SG&F won him $500,000. The first time I say him I thought it was the trick of my eyes. But as days and weeks progressed, I couldn’t deny it, the man on the bill board was the dead ringer for my late father. The wispy barely there dark blond hair, the glasses, the half-smile.
Intellectually I know it wasn’t my father but the man looks enough like him to make me feel uncomfortable and at times resentful. Here is the imagine of a man who never had time for me. Ironically, I only saw him at funerals, the last one being his. All summer I’d talk about it with God. Why does God want me to see this face every day while I sit in traffic. Does he want me to forgive my father? But how do I forgive someone I don’t really have any sense of hurt from? Am I to manufacture sadness or anger or hurt just so I can forgive him for not being my father? Because of his absence I was blessed by my maternal grandparents and uncle filling in for him. Instead of a nuclear family of two parents, I had four adults who raised me and cared for me.
On one of my mornings in Rome, I visited the Scala Santa. According to tradition, Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helen, brought these stairs from Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem. It is believed that Jesus was led up these stairs to his trial. Roman Catholic tradition holds that climbing the entire staircase on one knee leads to a plenary indulgence, a full remission of temporal punishment for sin for oneself or for someone in purgatory. As a former seminarian and a reader of Luther’s works, I recognize the complexity of the concept of indulgences. Nevertheless, I sought to engage in a meditative practice that would enable me to accompany Jesus on the very stairs tradition says he climbed during a time of his profound anxiety.
I soon learned it was not so easy as I thought. I was soon crying as I slowly and painfully climbed those stairs. My knees sank into the bones of my legs and into the wood and grit of the stairs. The acrid smell of my own pain filled the air, mingling with the body odor of others. The dirty soles of shoes inches from my face made me gag and claw my way out from the claustrophobia, and I felt dizzy, yearning to lie down and weep.
But I kept going. By the halfway mark, I really wanted that full remission of temporal punishment! I wanted to make sure I didn’t have to suffer this kind of pain again. I never knew so much discomfort, even after surgery! Just then, my father’s face came to my mind’s eye. I prayed out loud then on the stair that I offer up any remission of temporal punishment for my father, and I cried. I cried for the remaining steps and in the chapel at the top.
Since returning to Miami, I rarely catch a glimpse of the man's face on the digital billboard. I believe God allowed me to see this face so that I could pray for my father and endure the emotional turmoil of climbing those stairs, offering up its spiritual benefits for his soul and finding emotional closure.
Pace e Bene,
Br. Carlos Roberto Fernández, CFC
