William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

“You mean you remember my coming to see you before?”

“What? Oh, I see: You mean the shock treatments. When I couldn’t remember things. Well, I haven’t had a treatment since then . . . thanks to you.”

Koesler would never guess what it might be that he had contributed to ending the treatments. “Well, I’m overwhelmed. I just came to visit and find out how you’re doing. I didn’t expect to be greeted like the Prodigal Son.”

“Speaking of the Prodigal Son, I’ve been trying to puzzle something out and you may be able to help. Put it this way: I need to plumb these ideas and you’re the best sounding board I can think of.”

“Not your doctor?”

“The last one! No, not the doctor. He and I are off exploring motives and distant relationships. Mostly I’m trying to keep him away from the electricity so he won’t give me any more treatments. No, this is something Biblical I’ve got to figure out.”

“Biblical, eh? Well, what the hell, shoot.”

“Okay. Do you think Jesus was aggressive?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think Jesus was assertive? Do you think he was in control of things?”

Koesler thought a while. “Sure.”

“Then you don’t think Christ was passive . . . that he let things happen to him?”

Koesler thought again. “Well, if you put it that way, I guess he was.”

Ridley sighed. “Make up your mind.”

“I don’t know, Rid. Is anybody one way all the time? Isn’t everybody passive sometimes and aggressive others?”

“I suppose so. But what am I looking for?” Groendal appeared to be genuinely searching. “I’m looking for the dominant feature in life. You know: Granted, in some situations, common sense tells you to be submissive, sort of flexible; other times you have to be aggressive. Still, a person is dominantly one or the other . . . know what I mean?”

“I think so. Okay then, let’s see: I guess you’d have to say that Jesus Christ basically was in control, wouldn’t you?”

“I think I would. But how do you figure it? At the end of His life, He certainly didn’t seem in control. He was captured and tortured and executed. That certainly doesn’t seem like He was in charge. It’s almost the ultimate in submissiveness. And that was the most important part of His life—the end.”

“Yeah, but there was something else going on.” Koesler rummaged for the right Scripture. “Sure—didn’t He say something like, ‘No one takes my life. I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again’?”

“That’s it! That’s it!”

“Rid, mind telling me what all this is about?” Koesler had the impression this was less a search for truth than a quiz to which there was only one correct answer. And he had just guessed that answer.

“Oh, nothing.” Then Groendal added softly, “And everything.” He paused. “You know, I tended to think of Christ as a very passive character. The meek will inherit the earth, and all that. Turn the other cheek. Put away your sword. All those things.

“The last time you were here and you said that things were always happening to me, that I wasn’t in control of my life—it really hit a chord inside. You were absolutely right. But my first thought was that that’s the way to be a Christian. Christ was passive. Things were always happening to him. He wasn’t in control.

“But that’s not logical. I guess I had been at least subconsciously modeling my life on what I thought was the imitation of Christ. But it’s not that way. Christ was assertive. God! St. Paul was aggressive, wasn’t he? I mean taking it to the Gentiles and all that. Standing up to St. Peter. And it was Christ who started them all off. Go and teach all nations, he said. You can’t say that and then want a bunch of passive, submissive people on your side, can you?”

The two young men spent more than an hour in a similar vein. Koesler wondered about the origin of this conversation. Ridley gave every indication that somehow, somewhere, he had found a fresh enthusiasm.

In the two earlier visits, Koesler had been moved by Ridley’s depression, inertia, and passivity. This, today, was a new Ridley Groendal. Koesler found the change in Ridley’s attitude refreshing. So he encouraged Ridley with more examples of positive, confident, assertive Christians through the centuries. It was not difficult to find illustrations.

Koesler had no way of knowing that on that warm June afternoon In St. Joseph’s Retreat, he was present at the rebirth, the literal metamorphosis of Ridley C. Groendal. Their conversation was innocuous enough. To Koesler it seemed no more than an exercise in selective Church history. A sort of pious pep talk.

It was much more than that for Ridley Groendal. It did indeed mark the emergence of a radical change in his personality. Groendal was by no means the first nor the last to twist the Christian ethic to suit his own purpose. But he did it.

What had begun as an emphasis on Christian assertiveness quickly translated into a profound selfishness. His creed became, “Do unto others, then split.”

As he applied his newfound ethic to his life, past and future, he solemnly vowed he would never again be vulnerable. As Christ had been in control of His life, even when He did not seem to be, so Groendal would be in control. It meant a 180 degree turn, but it had to be done. It had to be done if he would be master of his fate as Christ had been.

Groendal had already pinpointed the four people who had most manipulated him. He held them responsible for, among other things, his double loss of vocation: life as a professional musician, then life as a Catholic priest. In the end, they were responsible for putting him here, in a sanitorium.

Nor was there any reason to believe they were done with him now. They, and others like them, would try to gain control of him again. But, just as Jesus Christ took control of His life and was always at least one jump ahead of His enemies, so would Groendal manipulate before being manipulated.

He had a lot of planning to do. This change in his lifestyle could not occur overnight. He’d spent twenty-one years building this passive compliant character. He could not tear it apart and rebuild it instantly. But with the fierce determination now motivating him, it surely would not take much time to turn things around.

Bob Koesler was not to see Ridley Groendal again for almost thirty-five years. Koesler would follow Ridley’s career as would almost every other literate American. But the two would not talk again until, a little more than a year before his premature death, Groendal would move back to the Detroit area and into St. Anselm’s parish. There the two would meet again. They would have periodic conversations lasting well into the night.

And always, inevitably, Ridley Groendal would expound on his peculiar philosophy. A righteous morality that had earned him many, many enemies. A theology that Groendal equated with Christianity but which, in reality, was a stark mockery of the values that Christ taught.

It was only gradually that Father Koesler realized that this bizarre lifestyle of which Groendal boasted had begun on a day in June 1950. Not only had Koesler been present at the beginning, he had assisted in the birth. Even presented with all the evidence, he could scarcely believe it.

Part Five

The Canon

15

The gifts of bread and wine had been prepared. The altar, the Paschal Candle and the casket had been incensed. Clouds of incense had dissipated and spread throughout the church. Hours later, members of the congregation would still be able to detect its distinctive odor on their clothing.

The Funeral Mass, now called the Mass of Resurrection, proceeded into its most solemn stage. During the Canon—so-called because it contained the standard, never-varying words of consecration—the same words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper are spoken by the priest over the bread and wine. According to Catholic faith, at the consecration Jesus Christ becomes present under the appearance of bread and wine.