Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Call us indispensable Warwick, N.Y. To the Editors: Just returned from six weeks in Europe, wading through accu-mulated mail, overwhelmed by the heaps of printed matter, I could,...
...My Myles is only a sliver of the Con-nolly family's...
...The saint is drunk on God...
...But, judging by her account of our meet-ing [Correspondence, January 27,1989], I seem not to have been over-clear on the subject of "my" Myles...
...So far...
...On the reality of Mr Blue, this is Green guessing now: the book is a young man's account of the heroic life...
...Both expressing the spirit drunk on life...
...To the Editors: Just returned from six weeks in Europe, wading through accu-mulated mail, overwhelmed by the heaps of printed matter, I could, however, not resist glancing through the Commonweal back issues and concluded: "How indis-pensable you are...
...the poet is drunk on life...
...We are blessed in our parish...
...Sure...
...Second: Myles insisted that Mr Blue was a young man's book...
...Fact: Blue died by giving his life for a friend...
...Christ, the saint, the poet...
...Blue Yonkers, N.Y...
...PETE GREEN...
...And I realize that the Communion services celebrated so far in the Catholic church consist of consecrated hosts...
...Not yet...
...Blue was a poet heaving himself into the saint-life...
...Kathy's intel-ligence and enthusiasm were as welcome as the good ale we were served at some bar down in New York's financial district...
...As a fundamentalist-Protestant, I cele-brated Communion every Sunday-bread and wine (actually grape juice) which represented the body and blood of Jesus...
...MARTHA B. MARENO Following Mr...
...To turn a human being, however flawed, into a passive thing before throwing the switch, seems to me to be a sin against the Holy Spirit...
...This "humane" desecration of human life makes the term "capital pun-ishment" into a mocking euphemism, for this denial of the Spirit is an eighth capital sin...
...Blue exulted in the trumpeter he'd placed swaying on the skyscraper's top-most parapet...
...I read about priestless parishes and Communion services, but they don't touch my life...
...and even less of God's...
...Is Blue real...
...Its heroes are, in steeply diminishing order...
...We had a grand talk...
...To the Editors: I have just read Gabe Huck's article "Why Settle for Commun-ion...
...FREDERICK FRANCK Eucharist, life & death Marietta, Ga...
...First of all: that mystical poet a-yearn at the end of Kathy's letter sounds more like Green than Connolly...
...Life over death, please...
...To receive the body and blood of Christ, to be a part of the community as witness to the celebration of Christ's paschal mystery-these are not mine to give up...
...I say, there is no choice...
...January 27] with great interest...
...Is it unthinkable to make the jump from celebrating Communion without a priest but with previously-consecrated hosts to leaving off the consecration...
...To the Editors: I am that nephew of Myles Connolly who met Kathy Cecala for a drink after her "Does Anyone Remember J. Blue" article appeared [November 4, 1988...
...and staying that way...
...Splen-did, extravagant gesture is the principal act of the poet...
...The newspaperman-narrator's doubt and wonder and love in the face of Blue's carryings-on are very much to the point...
...The more pertinent question is, Is the Blue-life desirable...
...The written poem is a lesser thing...
...He just has trouble getting himself embodied...
...I am sending my copy to Governor Mario Cuomo-even if he has read it...
...The article should be spread in millions of copies...
...The answer has to be Yes, it is unthinkable...
...Actually, more than interest, a cold fear grips my soul...
...it will be a sign of appreciation for his courage in opposing this capital sin...
...That's for you to answer...
...The difference is the difference between life and death...
...I do not recognize the assertion that Myles had "gone Hollywood" in Kathy's letter...
...The deadening of feeling by that carefully constructed" anonymity of the execution "team," turns its members into Eichmanns, and makes it possible for them to "sleep Hke a rock" after violating the inviolate in both the victim and them-selves...
...followed by splendid, extravagant speech...
...In "This Man Has Expired" [January 13], Robert Johnson pronounces a power-ful indictment on the dehumanization of the victim by a routine of aseptic torture...
...he wrote very little...
...The report on "The Cologne Declaration" [February 24] is more to the point than anything I read about it in Europe...
...We cele-brate Eucharist not only on Sunday, but daily...
...A convert to Catholicism two years ago this Easter, at age forty-five, one of the greatest joys of my life has been the cele-bration of Eucharist...
...John A. Coleman's essay [January 27] on Catholic funda-mentalism is of paramount importance and must be filed for reference...
...An attractive woman and a new ale will float me off the beach of a given topic any day...
...To receive Eucharist is to receive life...
...So I must say to my dear Catholic church, my new home: Which is more important, a priesthood consisting of only celibate males or receiving life in the celebration of Holy Eucharist...
Vol. 116 • March 1989 • No. 6
