Mary Ruiz Remembers RJN

Our former assistant editor Mary Angelita Ruiz has a beautiful remembrance of Fr. Neuhaus in the new issue of Dappled Things , the magazine she helped found. The beginning is especially nice:

Richard John Neuhaus sang “Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing,” that stalwart American hymn, as though it were a rollicking drinking song, the rhythm swinging like a full tankard in a fist. His voice was rumbling and huge and pleasantly out of tune and his eyes lit up as he sang:

COME thou fount-of EV’RY ble-ssing
Tune my HEEAART to singthygrace!
STREAMS of mer-cy NE-VER cea-sing
Call for SOOONGS of loudestpraise!

It was a favorite hymn of the Community of Christ in the City, the little ecumenical community in Manhattan that was Father’s home for over thirty years, and my home for almost three while I worked for his journal, First Things . We always sang the hymn this way, though its words are raw. Father’s rendition may have been rollicking, but it was also tender, even confessional. When he sang

Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood

he sang with an immediacy that made clear he was singing not about an abstraction but about a daily meeting with one man. He was the same in conversation, speaking of “Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” with awe but also easy familiarity—the way one might say “Abba,” daddy. He had a childlike faith.