The Tidings presents a selection of the commentaries and reflections penned by former editor Al Antczak.
El Rodeo: Illegal Aliens
(In December 1983, Al Antczak wrote this editorial in The Tidings that remained one of his favorites.)
The Family was warned. The warning came in the night. It was made to the father. His son was regarded as a subversive. Death squads were after him.
The family knew what this meant. The order and intent was to kill. Here would be no questions asked. There would be no arrest, no investigation, no trial, no appeal, no mercy. The Family knew it had to flee.
The family was poor. There was little to pack. The father was a manual laborer. He took some basic tools. They left with the clothes on their backs, perhaps a small bag of dried beans, a precaution the poor always take.
The record of the family, such as exists, gave no details of their surreptitious crossing of the border, of the trek across a desert land where food and water are scarce but where at night there was cold in abundance --- and the fear of patrols.
Of these things aliens speak little. They are not on any record. Only the aliens, only the family deep in its heart knows the deep coldness of being unwanted strangers in a foreign land.
Nothing on record details the family's experience as aliens. It is simply a dimension the record does not cover. How do you live in a place where you are resented, reviled and rejected? Where you are resented for speaking a foreign language, for having different customs, for being regarded as a criminal who broke the law of the country by crossing its border, a legal line, but a gateway to safety and survival?
Of none of these things are family's feelings known. There are things not spoken of but recognized in each other's eyes, written only in the human heart where the intimacies of a family history are kept and perhaps treasured for telling to a future generation.
There is no data as to how the alien family survived day to day, of how the father worked to provide bread and shelter, of whether he was paid substandard wages under threat of denunciation to the authorities. Of the fear, anxiety, insecurity there is no record --- of the fear of being arrested at work, in the street, and not returning home to a family that waits. Did the mother work for someone as a domestic, or in a sewing factory?
None of these things is known. None is on the record, not even the yearnings for a return to the homeland they had to flee. It is known that many years later, a country was named for the son of that family. It was called El Salvador.
St. Alphonsus: Time Management
(During his years at The Tidings, Al Antczak wrote dozens of reflections on saints. The following was written in 1987 about his own patron.)
Time is a precious gift from God. Treasure it. In our culture, time management has become a science. It teaches us how to prioritize time and do important things first. There was a man who became a saint by mastering time management. We can learn from him.
The man was a lawyer. His name was Alphonsus Liguori. One day he lost a big case involving 100,000 pounds because he overlooked something essential. He took a vow that he would never waste a moment of the time God was giving him.
He examined his life and adjusted his priorities. He concluded his first priority had to be developing a relationship to God. A close relationship to God leads to holiness, sanctity. That is as possible now as it was in the 1700s, when Alphonsus practiced time management.
He did not become a workaholic, but he did much writing and preaching. Both were guides to achieving and maintaining a close relationship to God.
One of his sayings was, "He who trusts in himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things."
Think of this saint. Manage your time well. Trust in God. You can achieve holiness. Holiness is closeness to God.
'Life is Theological'
(In one of many talks he gave to Catholic organizations, Al Antczak gave this reflection at a 1966 address to the Cabrini Literary Guild on the role of a journalist.)
My remarks will be simply those of a newspaperman --- a reporter and an editor. I am not a theologian, philosopher, historian and scientist --- only a reporter.
Although a good reporter is not necessarily a theologian, he should recognize that the central fact of life is theological; that man has a relationship to God and that when his relationship is ignored there is disorder.
A good reporter is not necessarily a philosopher, but he recognizes that there are orderly, systematic methods of thinking and reasoning. And that when these are ignored, then there is fallacy and error.
A good reporter is not a historian, but he recognizes history is a record of the experience of the race, and that it is foolish and fatal to ignore history and its lessons.
A good reporter is not a scientist. But he recognizes that science rests on inexorable principles that cannot be ignored.
All of these fields have their disciplines, their rules. Recognition of these form the basis of freedom.
St. Joseph: A Memory
(In 1983, fire destroyed downtown Los Angeles' historic St. Joseph Church, built in 1888. Al wrote this poignant reflection shortly after the fire.)
And now St. Joseph's is gone from our lives.
St. Joseph's was everybody's church. All day Sunday and Monday people kept coming to St. Joseph's. They stood on the sidewalk on 12th Street and gazed unbelievingly at the burnt church Many eyes filled with tears. People seemed to have come hurriedly, as if rushing to a stricken mother.
Now St. Joseph's was gone. It was a personal loss to people, a feeling of being suddenly orphaned. This great church, now broken, ashen. Over the years people had come to St. Joseph's out of the deepest of human sensitivities --- for the solace of being in the Eucharistic presence, for the midday need of a sense of closeness to God.
St. Joseph's lived up to its patron; it served working people. Sometime in the '30s there was a predawn Sunday Mass for pressmen who printed two big dailies, the Daily News a block away and the Examiner three blocks away.
St. Joseph's was timeless, God's house for all ages. It never really got old. It simply got weathered by the never-absent warmth of prayer. This was voiced in Latin and sung by grand choirs with a great organ accompaniment. Through the years that changed to the simple exuberance of mariachis and the fervor of Spanish. But the faith was the same.
St. Joseph's is gone now. It was our father's house, a house from which sons and daughters went forth to live and strive according to the faith and love with which they were graced. It is the lesson of life. Temporal things pass away. The life of the Spirit, formed and deepened at St. Joseph's, does not. That must be the legacy of St. Joseph's to our city. |