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The Shield of Achilles
For me, growing up in the years after World War II, Memorial Day meant a civic service of remembrance at a neighborhood monument with a heart-stopping rifle salute to the dead; followed by a parade down Staten Island’s Victory Boulevard, where columns of veterans, active military units and martial bands passed in review; and finally a family visit to St. Peter’s Cemetery to lay a wreath on my Uncle Joe’s grave, where the American Legion had already stopped to plant an American flag.

Today my rituals are more private, pensive and mournful: a small Mass in community where, as we do on most days, we pray for all today’s war dead; a mournful remembrance of the service personnel killed in Iraq, whose photos I survey each month in The New York Times, and the scores of faceless Iraqi civilians daily slaughtered by terrorist insurgents; and finally reading war poetry, for a poem captures better than news reports the ambiguity, the pain and, most of all, the evil of war.

This year I settled on W. H. Auden’s Shield of Achilles, a favorite I read often in times like these, of low-intensity, low-profile warfare. Published in 1955, the poem draws on a passage of Homer’s Iliad, where the lame blacksmith god Hephaestus, at the request of Thetis, Achilles’ mother, fashions a magnificent shield for the hero celebrating scenes of Greek pastoral and civic life. As if to contrast the heroic ideal with the modern reality, Auden alternates short, lyric depictions of the Homeric shield with elegiac descriptions of modern war.

The second modern stanza is typical:

Out of the air a voice without a face

Film
Once More, Without Feeling: Melinda and Melinda
It’s hard. Reviews of Woody Allen’s new films generally break into two categories: The master hasn’t lost his touch, or the master is in decline. Those of us who have followed Allen’s career closely over the last 30 years and consider him the greatest American filmmaker of th
Letters
Letters

Real Heroes

The Without Guile cartoon by Harley Schwadron, How come there aren’t any peace heroes? (4/25) ought to be made available on T-shirts and sweatshirts. I’d buy one.

Phyllis Karr

Arts & Culture
Books
May 23, 2005 issue
Alas, an Uncivil Alliance
Donald P. Kommers
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were historical landmarks This double-barreled assault on apartheid in the United States was the first time since 1875 that Congress was able to muster the votes necessary to make good on the Constitution 8217 s promise of equality Un
Arts & Culture
Books
May 23, 2005 issue
Worship's Place, Space
Thomas R. Slon
The problematic issues regarding art and architecture vis- -vis worship and current liturgical practice have seldom been thornier The saying that real art won rsquo t match the sofa seems to sum up the status of art today At least in the areas of painting and sculpture what is considered ldquo
News
Signs of the Times
Jesuit Officials Say America Editor Resigned After Vatican ComplaintsJesuit officials in Rome said Thomas J. Reese, S.J., resigned as editor in chief of America magazine after repeated complaints from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who objected to the magazine’s treatment of sensitive church
Holy Ground
In May 2003, the city of Oakland, Calif., had already reached its 44th homicide of the year. At one intersection three young men were tending a shrine set up to remember their friend, killed in a drive-by shooting. The shrine consisted of a picture of the deceased from much earlier school days, ciga
A Spark of Hope Across the Atlantic
The precious Catholic Church in the United States is in trouble. This is not news, of course, to anyone who has watched a newscast or read an American newspaper within the past few years. When I moved from Denver to the Netherlands a year ago, I did not know what to expect, but I was certain things
Faith in Focus
Why Are There So Many Old People in Church?
As a youngster, I wondered why there always seemed to be so many old people in church. A few kids and younger adults attended Mass every morning, but most in the church were really old - 50 and above. We cynical teenagers speculated that older folks came to church so often because they were bored ju
Letters
Letters

Food for Contemplation

Please convey my gratitude and appreciation to James Martin, S.J., for editing What Should the Next Pope Do? (4/25). The compilation from various knowledgeable individuals made me realize the importance of the Second Vatican Council. Curial officials doing hard time on an annual basis made me laugh (gee, ya gotta be kiddin’). The Rev. Richard McBrien’s article spoke to me. I sent him a thank you e-mail for voicing what so many of us faithful know. Special thanks go to Thomas J. Reese, S.J., for the guts to go against the grain by giving some thinking Catholics religious-based food for contemplation.

James N. Letendre