Fr. Rutler's column in this issue of Crisis

We are the oldest subscribers of Crisis Magazine we know of. This reflects our continued interest for the publication—in our large family budget there isn't room for subscriptions of magazines that might sit unopened, unread, beautifully untouched on coffee tables. In fact, this issue arrived a mere few days ago and there are several coffee and food stains on several pages. Although the coffee table is where I would like to find it, in this house Crisis is more likely to be spotted on nightstands, mother’s bag, kitchen counter, or underneath a teachers' manual on the homeschool table.

In any event: Fr. Rutler’s column this month is both beautiful and funny, as it is his usual style, and it touched s special chord in this heart. Last night as Numbers Four and Five worked in the transition of putting away Xactika (from the SET family) and setting up a family round of Balderdash, I handed it to Number Three. After revealing that he has been reading the magazine “just as long as Number One has”, he read aloud the column, entitled Jesus Vasquez, about a good man and parishioner par excellence. I quote a few. Enjoy!

As I was unfamiliar with the Spanish convention of naming boys for the Savior, it startled me upon arriving in my new parish to read on the bulletin board: "If there is no usher at the 7:30 Mass, Jesus will take up the collection." So I came under the tutelage of sexton Jesus Vasquez (1927-1996), a prototype and amalgamation of all the church sextons who would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of their Lord than dwell in the tents of ungodliness.

(...)

As one tried in the fire, he arrived in the United States after being urged to leave the Dominican Republic for having been a student agitator while in medical school. When he abandoned hope of a professional career, he retained the classical culture in which he had been formed and grimaced if a clergyman mangled Latin. Other times he would peer from the sacristy door at a liturgical faux pas with a pained look freighted with all of the agonies of the Church's suffering since guitarists and skirted dancers broke down the gates of the sanctuary.

(...)

For this Jesus, a high feast was the annual anniversary of his new citizenship. When he was semi-comatose on his deathbed, he recited the Pledge of Allegiance in the English he had laboriously studied in night school. In turn, he taught me much Castillano, explaining that my Spanish tutor was teaching me expressions useful only if I had been summoned to the court of Alfonso XIII.

(...)

A sturdy build served him well when he hammer-locked a pickpocket and dragged him from the pew to the street with an inconspicuous grace that did not interrupt the Gloria. He spied a thief carrying off my chalice as I was greeting people at the door after Mass and he leaped after him like a gazelle, knocked him to the ground, and pried the precious cup from the menacing hands. On busy days he would choreograph the confessional lines, and I feared that he might start dividing the mortals from the venials.