Miracles Amid the Palisades Fire

The Palisades fire has destroyed homes and businesses in the Pacific Palisades and surrounding neighborhoods and cities. Even those who have not lost their homes are among the evacuated. 

The Catholic parish in Pacific Palisades, Corpus Christi was a total loss. Much of the adjacent grade school remains standing, thankfully. In the wake of these tragic events, the Catholic parish where I reside (the closest geographically to Corpus), St. Monica Catholic Communities (parish and pre-K to high school) extended spiritual support to the devastated community of Corpus. The pastor, Monsignor Liam Kidney and one of the associate pastors of Corpus, now reside temporarily at St. Monica’s. Last weekend and this coming weekend and for however long is required, Msgr. Liam will celebrate an added Mass for the displaced Corpus community at St. Monica’s. 

These recent events reminded me of an experience I had at the University of Southern California film school a decade ago. In a screenwriting class, we were to write a three-scene sequence in which the middle scene was omitted. The purpose was to show an emotional arc of the characters utilizing only scene description and dialogue in the first and third scenes. The class would then have to guess what occurred in the second scene to trigger the emotions of the characters.

I thought of that exercise after meeting and greeting the Corpus Christi parishioners at their Sunday Mass here at St. Monica’s. As they arrived for Mass, some parishioners were teary-eyed, a little hesitant and in a general fog at what had transpired in their city. I listened to their stories each in kind as I had done all week. The best I can describe it as was to be in funeral mode for a week straight. Emotionally draining, to be sure. 

As Mass began, I retreated to the rectory for lunch. After Mass, I greeted parishioners coming out of Mass and witnessed a bit of a transformation in them. They were talkative and engaging, most even showing signs of joy amid a tragic situation. Some stayed for two hours afterwards. The two communities enjoyed tacos together prepared free by a restauranteur with a St. Monica’s connection. My deduction then was the middle “scene” that pivoted the attendees from one spiritual reality to another, from sorrow to a bit of joy, was the celebration of the Mass: receiving the sacrament, hearing an on-point homily, and participating in the hymns and prayers proved transformational.

Monsignor Liam told the story of what’s now known as the “Miracle” of the Tabernacle. The priests who concelebrated the Corpus liturgy, or (like me) listened online, incorporated it into their own Sunday homilies. The story goes that a few days following the fires, a Catholic fireman inspected the ruins of Corpus Christi Catholic Church. After removing six feet of rubble, he uncovered the only intact item in the former church, the tabernacle. Virtually unscathed, the tabernacle remained locked with the Blessed Sacrament tucked away safely inside. 

That tabernacle was present on the altar of St. Monica’s for the Corpus Christi Mass. For the time being, it will live in St. Monica’s sacristy. 

We need hope and human connection. The miracle of the Corpus Christi tabernacle reminds us of this so vividly. And people have grown weary of the fire. We don’t want to see it on screens anymore, the BBQ smell irritates nostrils, smoke residue is visible on our skin, and people don’t want to inhale ash particles. We are psychologically done with the fire, even while it still rages. 

A natural human response is to hold the fire as a pointed instance of suffering—and hold it at arm’s length. Our tendency is to skirt suffering. Yet, here is the tabernacle, which was for the whole time in the center of the fire. Jesus takes our suffering upon himself, in this case symbolized as a burial under crossbeams and ashes. It’s only through that redemptive suffering, the taking on of the cross head-on that we get to the other side of where the hope of the resurrection resides.