Mr. Smith-Jones Goes To Washington
GUEST COLUMN
It was a perfect summer day when Fred Smith-Jones’s family left the Midwest for a vacation in the nation’s capital.
Fred and his wife, Joyce, both middle-class suburbanites, were excited and had spent several days designing an itinerary. Their two adolescent children — Ashlee and Zodiac — were likewise filled with wonder regarding their first-ever trip east of the Ohio River.
After arriving at the Reagan Airport and checking into their hotel, the family quickly hit the streets. Tour buses took them to the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and Union Station. The family photographed every monument and statue.
On the third morning, the Smith-Joneses, who are Catholic, visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
They toured North America’s largest church in awe. Fred used his camcorder to videotape everything, including the reconciliation chapel where dozens of people waited in line for the Shrine’s two confessionals.
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The truth of the Incarnation and the Mystical Body of Christ offers both hope for loved ones lost and an exemplar to be emulated in our relating to the dead.
He is a man of extraordinary intellectual and spiritual depth, and when he says that the thing we need is more holiness he does not sound hollow or platitudinous.