Avery Dulles

Cardinal Avery Dulles passed away today, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was 90 years old.

Although most of the obituaries about him are brief since his eminence's passing is still so recent, there is a longer obituary in today's New York Times (probably since they had it already written and ready for print once the news came from Fordham). I saw Cardinal Dulles in May 2006 and even then he was quite frail. Apparently, the polio which plagued him in his youth returned, taking from him the use of his legs, then his arms and even hands and throat. He hasn't been able to speak or type for months. I can't even imagine what his life has been like recently.

Anyway, his story is a remarkable one. And no matter what you believe about this prolific theologian (that he was too conservative or just plan boring: a joke he often made is that there is dull, there is duller, and then there is Dulles), you cannot deny his incredible love for God and the Church.

In particular, I find his conversion story especially beautiful. In February 1939, he was walking along the Charles River in Cambridge (as a Harvard student) and saw a tree budding. He wrote in his second book, "A Testimonial to Grace" (in 1946), that in looking at the tree, “The thought came to me suddenly, with all the strength and novelty of a revelation, that these little buds in their innocence and meekness followed a rule, a law of which I as yet knew nothing,” he wrote. “That night, for the first time in years, I prayed.”

His conversion shocked his family and he has been -- without question -- one of the most important American Catholic theologians in history ever since.

I always find it fascinating that often times, the best Catholics in this world are people who started out having no love for God, no desire to be in relationship with Him, no idea that God has any relevance for their lives. If nothing else, that ought to challenge the rest of us to take the gift of faith that we have been given and reconsider just what a treasure it is!

If you'd like to read the NY Times obituary, you can find it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/us/13dulles.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
I'm sure there will be better articles from various Catholic News Services in the coming days. I'd invite you to learn a little bit more about this man and his tremendous love for God and the Church.

And I am willing to bet that any time you spend with anything Cardinal Dulles has written, you'll find it worth your while.