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We Shall All Be Changed

11/10/2019

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     When I think of my dead loved ones - which is everyday - what I miss most is hugging them, kissing them, seeing their smiles light their eyes, hearing their voices. Which is why, in the midst of my grief, I am so thankful that I belong to the Judeo-Christian tradition: I believe and trust that one day, in Heaven, I will see, hear, and hold them again. I believe in the resurrection of the body. All Christians profess this belief, and Catholics say "yes" to it every Sunday when they recite the Creed: "I believe in the Resurrection of the body."
      Belief that after death we will have bodies is very ancient. We find that belief expressed in the Old Testament, in the second book of Maccabees, books which were written about the attempted suppression of Judaism in the second century B.C. and the Maccabee family which led the revolt against their oppressors, the Seleucid Kings. In 2 Maccabees, a mother and her seven sons are arrested and tortured for refusing to eat pork, which would be a violation of Jewish law, which, for them, is God's law.  Then the sons are slowly murdered, one by one, in front of their mother. She is the last to die. All proclaim their belief in God and life after death. The third son, putting out his tongue and bravely holding out his hands so that they can be cut off, says "It was from Heaven I received these; for the sake of His Laws I disdain them; from Him I hope to receive them again."
      The New Testament is full of affirmations that there is indeed life after death, a new life which we cannot comprehend now, but which we can depend on if we trust in Jesus' words to his beloved friends during his last supper with them, less than a day before his death: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places; otherwise, how could I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? I am indeed going to prepare a place for you, and then I shall come back to take you with me, that, where I am, you also will be." (John 14: 1-3).
      St. Paul tells his community in the city of Corinth: "I am telling you something that has been a secret. We are not all going to die, but we shall all be changed." --1 Corinthians 15:5. St. Paul has seen the Risen Lord, and his Lord has revealed to him that Jesus' resurrection is not just about Jesus' personal resurrection, but about resurrection for all of us.
​      Bishop Robert Barron (in his Daily Gospel Reflection for Nov. 9, 2019) says that "the resurrection is a bodily event. Notice how, in the accounts of Jesus’ particular Resurrection, the concrete, physical facticity of the Lord is continually emphasized. This confirms that what we await, as Paul said, is a spiritualized body, a transformed, elevated body, a body raised to a new key and a new dimension—but it will be a body."
       The Risen Jesus - now the Christ - definitely has a body. He shows his body's wounds to Thomas, and invites him to touch them. He walks and talks with some of his friends on the road to Emmaus. He cooks a meal at the seashore for his friends and eats with them. It's a changed body - his friends don't always recognize him right away - and he can travel through doors. But Jesus' resurrected body is the sign of the glorious, transformed bodies we will have when we go to live with him in his Father's mansions. 
​      Over the centuries, there have been battles in Christianity over whether we will have bodies in Heaven. "Take Five for Faith" (in the meditation for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time) remarks that "Church father Tertullian (155 - 240 AD.) insisted: 'The flesh is the hinge of salvation.' Cyril of Jerusalem (313 - 386 AD) concurred: 'Do not believe anyone who maintains that our bodies have nothing to do with God.' These thoughts countered religious schools disdaining the body and viewing only the purely spiritual soul as worthy of the afterlife. Christian thinkers held the Resurrection of Jesus as proof positive that God values the entire human person."
      How do we know that God values the entire human person? The upcoming marvelous Feast of Christmas gives us the unequivocal answer to that question: God, pure spirit, did not disdain to take on a fully human body in Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. And Jesus enjoyed life with that body! Listening to birds, watching farmers work, using his hands to do intricate carpentry work and to heal people, drinking wine and undoubtedly dancing with the men at the wedding feast of Cana. The Incarnation itself shows us that, in each of us, our body and soul unite in one special, unique person. At our deaths, our souls leave our bodies, but only temporarily. God will eventually unite each one of us with our spiritualized, incomprehensibly changed-but-still-the-same-body. 
      Our totally personal God also desires our relationships in this life to continue into the next life where, undoubtedly, we will come to know and value in a deeper way not only the people we have known and valued here, but also an unimaginably vast number of people who belong to the communion - union - of saints, also known as the Body of Christ. One indicator of this is the vivid dreams of the dying. Channel 4 News in Buffalo, N.Y. carried this story:
     "Hospice Buffalo is gaining worldwide attention for years of study involving the vivid dreams that dying patients report having in their final days of life. 
'Everybody I knew that was dead was there,” said the late Jeanne Faber, a former patient of Hospice Buffalo who is one of hundreds of patients who Hospice Buffalo interviewed on video shortly before her death about her very vivid  end of life dreams. 
      "She says the dreams became more frequent the sicker she became. 'I have seen my mother, recently more. I can’t say that my mother and I got along all those years, but we made up for it in the end,' said Faber.
      "'As soon as I started here, this seemed to be common knowledge among people who work with dying patients and who were closer to the bedside,' said Dr, Christopher Kerr, CEO of Hospice Buffalo. 'I ended up studying it because as I came to appreciate that there was this kind of subjective or non-physical element to dying, that it was important and inherently therapeutic.'
      "In the final days of life, dreams seem to bring comfort and tie up loose ends, according to Dr. Kerr. 'The thing you have to realize is the time for therapy and analysis is over. They’re nearing the end of their lives and people aren’t emerging from these experiences with questions; ‘what happened to me?’ They’re coming out of this with answers and meaning.'”
      I think of that young man from 2 Maccabees holding out his tongue to be torn out, his hands to be cut off, and still saying with such poignant, powerful hope: "It was from Heaven I received these; for the sake of His Laws I disdain them; from Him I hope to receive them again." It gives me hope that, when we die, if we die in loving union with God, we will receive WHOLE bodies from God, regardless of how our surgeries, our physical and mental illnesses, and our specific deaths have marked, marred,  and mutilated us. 
      The ancient Jewish peoples knew God as a saving and healing Presence, a Father, One Who is victorious over illness, torture, and death. Jesus also knew this God as Father, and, in the Gospels, revealed Him to us as our Father. Jesus also revealed and sent us His Spirit Who remains with us, ready to make all things new in our lives. God, Father, Son, and Spirit, yearns to love us and heal us through all the tragedies of our lives, and right through our deaths.  God has a powerful, personal relationship with each of us, a relationship that does not die with our deaths, but is renewed and strengthened and made incredibly new in Heaven. There Jesus the Christ will pour his healing life and love over each of us, body and soul, to make us whole again, and there, among his Father's many mansions, he will reunite us with our loved ones to see, hear, hold, and kiss them again, this time for forever.
      As you travel through life, and realize with each passing year that death comes for all of us, may you be at peace with the peace that passes all understanding. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him." (Romans 15:13.)


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Be Child-Like!

9/29/2019

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    If someone told you that you were acting like a child, your first response might be to feel insulted. After all, "acting like a child" often means that we're acting childish: wanting our own way, or saying "no" to everything, throwing tantrums, or wanting everything RIGHT NOW. We've all seen toddlers acting like this, and it's normal for them. But it's not normal for adults to be childish. 
      But being child-like is different from being childish. In fact, Jesus told us that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like children:
      Gospel: ​MT 19:13-15
"Children were brought to Jesus
that he might lay his hands on them and pray.
The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said,
"Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them;
for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
After he placed his hands on them, he went away."
​     What did Jesus mean? The website "Key Differences" outlines what it means to be child-like:
Definition of Childlike
A person is said to be childlike, when he or she has very good qualities, like that of a child, especially in their behaviour, appearance, thinking or character. When a person is childlike, they possess the following qualities:
  1. They trust people easily.
  2. They are innocent, sweet, simple and pure.
  3. They are quite honest.
  4. They are full of energy, excitement and enthusiasm.
  5. They are curious to learn new things.
  6. And, I would add, they have the capacity to use their imaginations.
      Psalm 131 gives a beautiful portrait of a child-like person who believes in God:
Psalm 131 ►Good News Translation:
A Prayer of Humble Trust+
LORD, I have given up my pride
and turned away from my arrogance.
I am not concerned with great matters
or with subjects too difficult for me.
Instead, I am content and at peace.
As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms,
so my heart is quiet within me.
Israel, trust in the LORD
now and forever!

      In the definition above of "childlike," when a person is child-like, he/she first of all trusts people easily. In Psalm 131, the believer trusts in God above all, and comes to God as a Beloved Parent - "mother" can also be "father"- and trustfully, quietly rests in this Beloved Parent's arms. 
​     Child-like believers know above all who they are: beloved Children of God. What does this mean for how they think of themselves and how they live their lives? Bishop Robert Barron (in his  Daily Gospel Reflection for August 17, 2019) explains of the child-like: "In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously, uncomplicatedly. They are in accord with God’s deepest intentions for them." When God's deepest intentions for us are the center of our lives, we are peacefully dependent on God in the best, truest sense as the One Who gives us life, knows every part of us, and explains to us our worth, our gifts, our mission.
      In the above definition of "child-like," the second set of qualities is: "innocent, sweet, simple, and pure." In the Beatitudes, Jesus says "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."
      Innocence and purity are often combined with honesty and a love of justice, which is the third quality. Who can climb God's mountain? Only the person with clean hands and pure heart, who doesn't desire worthless things, who has not sworn to deceive his neighbor. (Psalm 24.) Not desiring worthless things goes along with "I am not concerned with great matters or with subjects too difficult for me." The childlike person humbly knows himself; she knows what she is capable of doing or understanding. Anything else is essentially worthless, or unimportant to him. 
     The pure-hearted one does not deceive his neighbor through lies or cheating. We've all seen children's strong sense of justice and fairness: "You gave HER the bigger piece of pie!" or "No, it's MY turn next, remember?" They are quick to point out if anyone has cheated at a game. 
      Three great Christian authors who were great friends lived in accordance with God's intentions for them, and exemplify the last three qualities of childlikeness. They were full of energy and enthusiasm to explain and defend their Christian faith.  They were full of a curiosity about God and their faith, which led them to be full of wonder and awe. And they used their imaginations to produce literary classics. All of them knew that they had the gift of writing,  and they were true to who God called them to be as writers. They were who God meant them to be, and God used them to set the world on fire. G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis specialized in creating characters who were childlike: innocent, pure, single-hearted, honest, and brave lovers of justice.  By entering imaginatively into their stories, we can plumb the depths of the human heart and understand how to become childlike. 
      G. K. Chesterton, a Catholic lay theologian, who was author of the famous Father Brown detective series (now a tv series on BBC) said, "For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy." His priest-detective, Father Brown, is an intellectual who remains childlike. He is an innocent, unworldly priest, interested in the justice of solving a crime and capturing a criminal, and yet he is most interested in saving the soul of that criminal. He has the purity of an innocent mind, but he is the wise innocent (Jesus said, "Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.")   Here's a quote, a "taste" of Fr. Brown:
      "“Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. 'Odd, isn't it,' he said, 'that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?” (from "The Innocence of Fr. Brown.")
      J.R.R. Tolkien was a Catholic English writer, poet, and academic, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works "The Hobbit," and "The Lord of the Rings." He said this about his Catholic faith:
      "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth."
      Tolkien's Hobbits Frodo and Samwise  are as short as children, innocent, and child-like, and overcome their fears to battle for justice. Tolkien considered Samwise, a gardener, to be the hero of "The Lord of the Rings" because he protects Frodo. Samwise is neither proud nor haughty, and he rejects worldly power when he could have it. He acts out of  loyalty, love, and justice. At one point, Frodo is frightened of his immense responsibility. Sam's response to him explains simultaneously why they must go on, and the value of the great stories that kindle their and our imaginations:
"Frodo : I can't do this, Sam.
Sam : I know.
It's all wrong
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened.
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for."
     C.S. Lewis, the great Anglican theologian, apologist, and writer of the beloved "Narnia" fairy tales ("The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," etc.) once quipped "It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to." When Lewis first started writing his fairy tales, the Narnia series, he did not intend to make them specifically Christian in nature: he was enthralled by the stories and characters themselves. But his own Christian beliefs could not long remain "outside the story." In one of his last letters, written in March 1961, Lewis writes:
      "Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He [Christ] would become a Talking Beast there, as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; (b) Christ is called "The Lion of Judah" in the Bible; (c) I'd been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the work. The whole series works out like this."
      Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis were incredibly brilliant and talented men, and I would call all three child-like in the best sense, including being honest about their faith journeys, as well as points 4 and 5: full of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm about their writing, and constant curiosity to learn new things. Barron describes truthfulness, energy, excitement, and enthusiasm in children:
    "...children don’t know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature. 'Kids say the darndest things,' because they don’t know how to hide the truth of their reactions. In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously, uncomplicatedly. They are in accord with God’s deepest intentions for them. To say it another way, they haven’t yet learned how to look at themselves. Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing? Why can he find joy in the simplest thing, like pushing a train around a track or watching a video over and over, or kicking a ball around? Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself, not conscious of other people’s reactions, expectations, and approval."
      Chesterton once famously said: “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”
​      I have mentioned that two other child-like qualities are the abilities to be curious and to use our imaginations. Barnabas Piper (at Barnabaspiper.com, "Real Maturity, C.S. Lewis, and Imagination") writes vividly about children's love of using their imaginations and their ability to lose themselves in imaginative play. And adults' ability to do the same thing - if they allow themselves to.
      "Children love fairy tales, adventure stories, mystic lands, and heroic characters that launch their imagination and turn a backyard into Middle Earth, a swing set into Hogwarts, a rocking chair into a TIE fighter, and a bunk bed into a Captain Hook’s ship. Every stick is a wand or weapon and every towel a cape. Children embody their heroes in their play and live out the lives of legends. Mature adults love the same stories, are moved by the same heroes, and lose themselves in the same far-away places but without the towel-capes and slat board swords. (I’ll leave you, dear reader, to interpret what this might mean for ComicCon and Cosplay fans.) Many of us call these stories 'guilty' pleasures. We indulge them privately and feel a bit sheepish about it. What if they aren’t “guilty” but rather just pleasures? What if the places our imaginations take us are actually right where we ought to be, healthy and rich places for our minds and souls?"
      C.S. Lewis, the writer of fantasy, knew that curiosity and imagination go hand in hand, that, as Barnabas Piper says " the collection of information, the pursuit of knowledge is not enough without the fostering and feeding of imagination. Imagination guides and shapes our use of information. What do we do with information? Where does it apply? How do we do the most good with it? Who knows? The person with imagination, who values the virtue of great heroes and can envision and form a better story, know. That person is curious. Curiosity and imagination are conjoined twins...Curiosity gives flesh to imagination." 
      Lewis valued the use of imagination, the power of stories to use great heroes to tell great truths. Including fairy tales. The power of stories is that they teach us to journey into the hearts of those heroes who are both like and unlike us, who face challenges not unlike our own, heroes who teach us how to be brave in even the darkest of times. Unleashing our imaginations to delve into story worlds teaches us how to unleash our imaginations to delve into the wounded hearts of the people around us, and understand them better. Lewis understood that it is not childish for adults to read fairy tales or stories - it is childlike. He said,
      “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
      “The modern view seems to me to involve a false conception of growth. They accuse us of arrested development because we have not lost a taste we had in childhood. But surely arrested development consists not in refusing to lose old things but in failing to add new things? . . .
      "Where I formerly had one pleasure, I now have two. It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one’s adult enjoyment of what are called ‘children’s books.’ I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty – except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.”
​      I know many adults who enjoy the fairy tales of Tolkien and Lewis, as well as many adults who love the fairy tales of J.K. Rowling, her "Harry Potter" series. All of these series make use of the general tools of traditional fairy tales - magic and fantastical creatures - in the service of the ongoing battle between Good and Evil. These great modern sagas remind us of the classic sagas, like the epic King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table stories of a Christian King and Christian Knights who eventually search for the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Wizards who use magic exist in all these sagas. Merlin, a legendary wizard or enchanter, figures prominently in Arthurian legends. In all these great sagas, spiritual warfare is fleshed out in physical warfare to point out the deadly seriousness of the real inner spiritual warfare each of us engages in every day. 
      The character Harry Potter very much exemplifies St. Catherine of Siena's quote "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." Harry is the hero who saves his world from the evil Voldemort. J. K. Rowling has spoken out about Harry as a good role model. 
      "Rowling says that 'Harry is strongly guided by his own conscience, and has a keen feeling of what is right and wrong. Having 'very limited access to truly caring adults', Rowling said, Harry "is forced to make his own decisions from an early age on.' He 'does make mistakes', she conceded, but in the end, he does what his conscience tells him to do. According to Rowling, one of Harry's pivotal scenes came in the fourth book when he protects his dead schoolmate Cedric Diggory's body from Voldemort, because it shows he is brave and selfless.
​   "Rowling has stated that Harry's character flaws include anger and impulsiveness; however, Harry is also innately honourable. 'He's not a cruel boy. He's competitive, and he's a fighter. He doesn't just lie down and take abuse. But he does have native integrity, which makes him a hero to me. He's a normal boy but with those qualities most of us really admire.' For the most part, Harry shows humility and modesty, often downplaying his achievements; though he uses a litany of his adventures as examples of his maturity early in the fifth book. However, these very same accomplishments are later employed to explain why he should lead Dumbledore's Army, at which point he asserts them as having just been luck, and denies that they make him worthy of authority. After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, which not even Voldemort possesses: the acceptance of the inevitability of death." (from Wikipedia.)
      A Church-going Christian (Rowling belongs to the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian), J.K. sees her books as incorporating everyone's struggle with death and also as a resurrection story. Harry is willing to give his life for the common good. He dies, but he lives.
      On Harry's parents' tombstone he reads the quote "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," while on another tombstone (that of Dumbledore's mother and sister) he reads, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." These quotes, of course, are distinctly Christian. The second is a direct quote of Jesus from Matthew 6:19, the first from 1 Corinthians 15:26. As Hermione tells Harry shortly after he sees the graves, his parents' message means "living beyond death. Living after death." It is one of the central foundations of resurrection theology. Which makes it a perfect fit for Harry, said Rowling."They're very British books, so on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones," Rowling explained. "[But] I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric's Hollow, they sum up — they almost epitomize the whole series." (MTV:'''Harry Potter' Author J.K. Rowling Opens Up About Books," by Shawn Adler 10/17/2007)   
      Let's go back to our definition of a healthy, holy childlikeness:
      A person is said to be childlike, when he or she has very good qualities, like that of a child, especially in their behaviour, appearance, thinking or character. When a person is childlike, they possess the following qualities:
  1. They trust people easily.
  2. They are innocent, sweet, simple and pure.
  3. They are quite honest.
  4. They are full of energy, excitement and enthusiasm.
  5. They are curious to learn new things.
  6. And, I would add, they have the capacity to use their imaginations.
     If we trust in God, depend on God, as our Beloved Parent, if our souls constantly lie quietly in God's arms, then we know that God will gradually teach us who we really are. God has intentions for each of us and knows who we should become. Each of us has a unique set of talents. And if we become truly childlike, God will use our childlikeness to gradually bring us to full spiritual maturity so that we can be set on fire to change this world. All of these childlike qualities are gifts of the Holy Spirit: innocence,  sweetness, simplicity, purity of heart, truthfulness, energy, excitement, enthusiasm, ongoing awe and wonder (curiosity) about the world around us and God's Presence in it, and the use of our imaginations to creatively make change happen. "Behold, I make all things new!" God proclaims. The world is in constant change, evolving, as we are in constant change, evolving, and our place in the world, our role in the world, is constantly changing and evolving. God is constantly making things new through, with, and in us! 
      Humbly allow your soul to rest with child-like trust in your Beloved Parent's arms. Allow yourself to sit close to Jesus so he can place his hands on your head to bless you as a much-loved child of God. Allow yourself to be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, setting you on fire. Then go forth and use the depths of who you are to change the world. "And a little child will lead them." (from Isaiah 11:6).
      "There’s some good in this world, my friends. And it’s worth fighting for."




      



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Jesus: Outside The Walls

9/25/2019

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      Jesus of Nazareth lived as an actual person on earth, in first century Israel. There is historical evidence in both Jewish and Roman writings outside of the New Testament that Jesus of Nazareth did indeed exist and was put to death under Pontius Pilate. One such writer, for example, was the first century Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote that Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross. Jesus, a Jew, was born into tumultuous political times. In early first century Israel, Jesus' country had become a province under Roman rule. Jesus the Jew became a victim of Roman violence.
      While people were allowed to worship their own gods, the Roman Empire had zero tolerance for anyone they believed was opposing its rule. One major instrument of intimidation was the cross. Theologian Elizabeth Johnson tells us that the cross was "a form of punishment used specifically to execute those who were guilty of threatening the state either by direct rebellion or by inciting others. In addition to ensuring a torturous and ignominious death for the rebel, crucifixion was a spectacle of warning to others. Its cruelty was meant to serve as a deterrent to those who might consider acts of treason against the empire."
(From her latest book "Creation and the Cross.") Under Roman rule in the first century, literally thousands of Jews, both rebels and the innocent, were crucified. 
      It's important to remember that Jesus was the Jewish victim of Roman violence. Jesus was Jewish in the biological, ethnic, cultural, and religious sense. After all, he was born of a Jewish mother. Johnson reminds us:
      "The gospels depict his parents as observant Jews; they gave him a popular Jewish name and followed Torah instruction about the birth of a male child, including the ritual of circumcision. The gospels also depict the family celebrating the annual feast of Passover, at times making pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast, which their first-born son continued to do in his adult life.
      "Jesus taught in synagogues, or Jewish halls for meetings and prayer, throughout the northern province of Galilee. He also taught in the temple in Jerusalem...He honored the Sabbath and kept it holy, at times arguing about its proper observance, arguments common at this time among people who wanted to understand how best to follow God's holy law. In obedience to Torah he even dressed Jewish. A woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and, seeking healing, 'touched the fringe of his cloak' (Matt 9:20). These are twisted cords tied on the four corners of the outer garment, as called for in the Torah....The purpose was to remind the wearer of the teachings of YHWH, 'who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God' (Num 15: 38-41)....
    "When challenged to choose the greatest commandment, this prophet from Nazareth quoted the Torah's book of Deuteronomy: 'The first is, 'Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' (Mk 12:29-30, citing Deut. 6:4-5). To this, he added another Torah commandment that flows powerfully from belief in this God: 'The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these' (Mk 12:31, citing Leviticus 19:18). To even make such a choice Jesus had to be familiar with Torah, and to have spent time mulling its meaning in his own life." (From "Creation and the Cross.")
      Jesus was Jewish to the core, practicing his faith, praying with the Psalms, living securely among his own beloved family and friends, in his beloved country that he wandered throughout, preaching to and healing his countrymen. Son of Mary and Son of God, he listened to his heavenly Father's Voice, and showed his Father's Face of justice and mercy to all, teaching all to follow Jewish spirituality and call God "Father." Calling YHWH "Father" is part of the Jewish tradition, as is belief in the resurrection of the body. As is belief in the coming of the Messiah. In a time of great political unrest and occasional armed confrontation, Jesus accepted his mission from his Heavenly Father, and taught that he was the promised Messiah who would inaugurate the coming of the reign of God, a time of justice and mercy for all people, a reign diametrically opposed to the selfish, arrogant, violent reign of Rome. 
      "From an historical point of view it is true to say that Jesus died as a result of his mission to which he stayed faithful with a courage that would not quit. His words and deeds sharpened hope in the reign of God that spelled salvation for all, especially for suffering and marginalized people. Going up to Jerusalem (the capital city) for the festival of Passover signaled that Jesus was bringing passionate hope for God's saving reign into the very center of the nation. In first-century Israel dominated by Rome, this was a dangerous thing to do. Jesus died as a consequence of fidelity to his ministry." (from "Creation and the Cross.")
      Pilate was a mean man, angry, inflexible, stubborn, cruel, abusive, the architect of frequent executions of untried prisoners. Rome ultimately removed him from office because he stirred up so much trouble with his belligerence. Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, crowds hailing him as Messiah - a title with both religious and political significance - and his overturning of the tables of the moneychangers in the temple - brought him to the attention of the jealous high priests, who hated Jesus, and knew they'd find an ally in Pilate. After all, anyone who was hailed as a Messiah who preached the coming of God's Kingdom, was a huge challenge and danger to imperial domination! Crucifixion seems the inevitable result of Jesus' ministry.
      And where is this devout, faithful Jew crucified? On Golgotha, otherwise known as the Place of the Skull, outside the walls of his beloved city Jerusalem, the Jerusalem he preached in, the city he wept over because he could foresee its eventual destruction. Why outside the walls? Golgotha/Calvary, according to some scholars, is located just outside the Damascus Gate and faces the major east-west road that runs just north of old Jerusalem. It is precisely the type of public location where the Romans liked to crucify rebels so that their gruesome handiwork could scare the passing travelers and deter future rebels against Rome. 
      But, in addition to horrific pain, what a sense of rejection and alienation Jesus must have suffered, realizing that he has been shamed and taken "outside the walls" of protection of his own Jewish people, some of whom called for his crucifixion, and "outside the walls" of protection of his own Jewish religious leaders, who have rejected him and given him to Pilate for execution. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author compares Jesus, the slain Lamb of God, to the animals used in Jewish ritual, such as during the great Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur): "the bodies of the animals whose blood the high priest brings into the sanctuary as a sin offering are burned outside the camp" even as Jesus is slain outside the walls. "Therefore, Jesus suffered outside the gate, to consecrate the people by his own blood." (Hebrews 13: 11-12).
      But - from a different perspective  - during his time of ministry, wasn't Jesus always experimenting with "going outside the walls," outside the common experience and culture, of his own Jewish people?  He ministered to outcasts, like the lepers, or the woman caught in adultery, to the demon-possessed, to Samaritans, to the Syro-Phoenician woman, to the Roman centurion, to the often-forgotten children. He spoke alone with a woman, the Samaritan woman, and many of his disciples were women, especially Mary of Magdala, whom he graced with a Resurrection appearance, and whom we call the "apostle to the apostles" because she brought the good news of Jesus' Resurrection to the male apostles. We could even say that Jesus loved his own people "within the walls" so much that he taught his followers how to go "outside the walls," outside the rigidity of "staying with your own tribe" and "staying away from the different." Jesus, so particularly a Jew, yearned in his final prayer that "all may be one." He prayed for us to, above all, Follow Him. Follow Him outside the walls to heal, to bring others to faith, hope, and love.
      From this viewpoint, Hebrews 13:13 has a special, specific resonance for us: "Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the reproach that he bore." Where will we find Jesus today? Outside the camp! Outside the walls that we build. Among the reviled and rejected. Among the suffering refugees, who are not allowed inside the walls of the Promised Place of Refuge, America. Among those who have been cast outside the walls of acceptability and/or the walls of churches because their sexual orientation is different. Among the suffering outside the safe walls of Healthcare who die because their insurance doesn't cover the drugs they need to live. Among those who are outside the walls of acceptance because others think their skin color or their disability makes them inferior, even useless. Among the unborn, in danger of abortion, or the aged in inferior nursing homes. 
      Like Jesus, you too are called by our Father to embrace your calling.  In your own specific identity, within your own specific nationality, culture, gender, age, sexual orientation, neighborhood, church community, you know whom the people "outside the walls" are. You know the specific people God calls you to go to, to love. There among them is where you will see the Face of Christ.
      Jesus the Christ - "Christ" means "The Anointed One," the "Messiah," - was and is not only the slain Lamb of God, but also the Good Shepherd, the One Who gathers His sheep together, who brings them from outside the walls back into the safe walls of His sheepfold, His own transcendent Body. "In fact, all of Jesus’ ministry would be an invitation for all kinds of people to come together and rejoin the fold—the healed leper could now live with his family again, the woman at the well could be the town hero instead of a pariah. How will you honor the Good Shepherd, who gathers people together instead of driving them apart?" ("Take Five for Faith," for Wed. Sept. 25).
      God calls us as individuals to live as Good Shepherds, faithful to our own unique ministry until death, as Jesus was. Being faithful to caring for those who are often rejected can end with our being rejected also. Can we say, with St. Paul, that "in life and death, we are the Lord's"? Are we strong enough in his Holy Spirit to "bear the reproach that he bore"? We have been called by the Father, by Christ, the Crucified One, by the flaming love of the Holy Spirit,  to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, to bring home those who have lost their way.
      In the world today, if we open our eyes to see, we can see the ways in which our own nations, our own politicians, are as arrogant, selfish, and violent  (at least verbally) as imperial Rome. We can see that many of God's people  are not valued, are even brutally rejected,  when they are doing the right thing.  We see, for example, courageous teenage activist sixteen year old Greta Thunberg, who has ignited world-wide peaceful protests calling for climate change action, and is being sneered at, called "a spoiled child", or "mentally ill" by the politicians and rich ultra-rightists throughout the world because she is a "mere" child and has Asperger's syndrome (which is a developmental disability, NOT a mental illness.) She has gone "outside the walls" of her family,  her country, her age, even the "walls" of her disability, because she believes that she must do this - alert people to the reality of destructive climate change. Even if it means being cruelly persecuted. She says, bluntly - and humbly - 
      "There is one other argument that I can’t do anything about. And that is the fact that I’m 'just a child and we shouldn’t be listening to children.' But that is easily fixed - just start to listen to the rock solid science instead. Because if everyone listened to the scientists and the facts that I constantly refer to - then no one would have to listen to me or any of the other hundreds of thousands of school children on strike for the climate across the world. Then we could all go back to school.
      "I am just a messenger, and yet I get all this hate. I am not saying anything new, I am just saying what scientists have repeatedly said for decades. And I agree with you, I’m too young to do this. We children shouldn’t have to do this. But since almost no one is doing anything, and our very future is at risk, we feel like we have to continue."
     I have no idea whether Greta is a Christian or not, but she has the right idea. We are all only messengers. We don't live for ourselves, we live to deliver the Truth, in words and actions. Do we have the courage to step forward and answer the call to vocation, to ministry, in spite of insults, or even danger? Bishop Robert Barron tells us,
      "We are light by which people around us come to see what is worth seeing. By the very quality and integrity of our lives, we shed light, illumining what is beautiful and revealing what is ugly. The clear implication is that without vibrant Christians the world is a much worse place. Let me illustrate this principle with an example. One of the most painful truths of the last century is that the weakness of Christian witness allows some of the worst elements in society to flourish.
      "Think of the rise of the evil powers that created World War II. Christianity had become so weak, so uncompelling, so attenuated that great evil was allowed to flourish. Yes, indeed there were a handful of powerful Christian resisters, but let’s face it: the overwhelmingly vast majority of Christians either supported Hitler or remained in silence, out of either fear or indifference." (Daily Gospel Reflection for Sept. 23.)
​      The choice we have to make is clear. Do we choose silence because of fear or indifference? Or do we daily listen to God's Voice? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Who is your neighbor? The weak, the oppressed, the grieving, the suffering, the discriminated against, the poor, the imprisoned, the ignorant, the neglected, the lonely, the rejected. All those people our God of Justice wants to free and gather to His heart. Can we be so faithful in ministry to these "little ones" whom God loves that we can freely follow Jesus outside the walls to the rejection of the cross? Can we be faithful to the death? The death of our own egos? Can we be Good Shepherds in Jesus' Name to bring the suffering back inside the walls so that all God's people become One People?
​      If we faithfully follow the Good Shepherd outside the walls all the way to our deaths, we will be drawn into the great reunification of the Resurrection, when all will be one - all of creation, made new, gloriously, eternally new by the Light of God's Face. And there will be NO MORE WALLS!
      

      
      
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The Seasons Of Our Lives

9/11/2019

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      Nothing or no-one stands still in our lives! As quickly as the weather changes, or the seasons change, so do our lives change, bringing new challenges, hopes, dreams, fears, laughter and tears.  Look at photos of your families or church  or work communities from even a year ago, and you'll notice how the contours of faces have changed, hair has new streaks of gray, a few wrinkles or inches have been added.  If those same photos were taken today, some of those smiling faces may be missing.
      Families, churches, nations - there are always times for common rejoicing, times to share common grief, times to admit we are in grievous upheaval. How wonderful it is, then, to know that our loving, merciful God intimately accompanies us during all of those times. The Book of Ecclesiastes captures this so well:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
(New International Version)
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
    Each of us is a unique combination of beautiful spirit and beautiful but fragile flesh, here on earth for only a few years. Our lives are over like a quickly passing dream or sigh. Yet, each one of us is here because we are a child of God our Father, and life on earth is a precious gift. How much is packed into our unique,  brief years, everything from passionate loves to great tragedies, from deep yearnings to ecstatic fulfillments. Every moment, our God works with us and in us and for us in a hidden, humble way. The imprints of His beautiful hands lovingly rest on everyone and everything.
      When we allow ourselves to be "stuck in time," we can think that nothing will ever change for the better. Yet the growth of new life is happening everywhere, all the time. In our families, churches, and nations, we experience the arguments that contain killing words that we think no-one can recuperate from. And yet, somehow over the passage of time, healing breaks upon us like the dawn.  In our neighborhoods, we see buildings - even churches - torn down. Yet something new and equally valuable is rebuilt in their place. We plant lawns, and then see them covered over by parking lots for new stores or apartment buildings, and we mourn because the neighborhood changes again in our lifetime. But new people live and laugh and love in the new neighborhoods. We weep over the death of a loved one. But we live to laugh when we see the unexpected, glorious birth of a child.
      Change can be painful, but only change can bring new growth. Our Universe is constantly expanding; everyone and everything is constantly changing. We think that, as an individual or a community, we are planted in one place; suddenly we are uprooted and asked to put down roots somewhere else. In our churches, we want to keep a particular Liturgy or translation of a prayer, or familiar priest or minister, yet the familiar is taken from us and we have to grow into new ritual, new words, new relationships. Our group desires to stay one race or ethnic group; then the stranger Christ comes among us, a new color, a new culture, knocking to seek admittance. We weep and mourn at the "funerals" of our dreams and self-images, but then we laugh and dance at those unexpected "weddings" that fuse new ideas and insights into one for us. Behold! The Holy Spirit sings. I am always, always doing something New!
      From youth to old age, life changes, - and changes us. The young who are married think sexual love between them will never end - yet old age and illness can cause them to refrain from sexual embracing, and discover that love between them still lives. The young love collecting and keeping so many things, from clothing to houses to cars. Yet old age finds them stripping down to simplicity and giving things away for others to enjoy. God needs every season of our lives. When we are young, we pour our boundless, passionate enthusiasm in torrents over the dry earth. When we are old,  we gently shine on all as serene moons of wisdom. 
      The seasons of war keep us in dread. Over and over, wars take place in every setting, in dining rooms, Board Rooms, in Parish Council meetings, in Dioceses, between nations. Honest people  choose different sides, and are reviled for the positions they take. People throw stones! Yet every person's opinion, every side, can reveal a new part of Truth, as various prisms are needed to reveal the total beauty of a chandelier. The whole fabric of a family, church, or country can be torn apart in ideological wars. Yet always prophets will arise who pray and seek and speak the words that sew divided hearts together in the Holy Spirit's own time and own mending. When peace eventually comes, the war, which was a trial by fire, can result in new maturity, a greater appreciation of what was temporarily lost and is now re-found. Spiritual stones, gathered together, can build new edifices of hope, new portions of the Body of Christ. 
      During these tumultuous seasons of our lives, change after change perplexes us, tears us apart. Who is God anyway, we ask. All we can discover is a love that undergirds each day, a hope that endures when we are most spent, a faith that lives like a little candle in our grieving heart, an unexpected surge of patience, an uplifting joy that seems to spring out of nowhere. We search for years for the answers to some of life's most perplexing questions, and finally give up, quiet and accepting in the Holy Face of Mystery. We think we are meant to grow to adult maturity, yet we discover gradually that maturity means  regaining the simplicity, freedom, humility, and inner peace of children.  
​      Ecclesiastes continues, " God has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into human beings' hearts, without their discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done." The timeless in our hearts is God's own hidden, humble Presence, our first taste of eternity, which remains like a constant sun through all the changes we endure. God's Presence reminds us that we were created for eternity and that every moment of time is preparation for the timeless. Every experience can mold us anew, deepen faith, hope, and love in our hearts, cause us to reach even more quickly for our Savior's hand to walk with us and guide us along the unknown path of every day. 
       Nothing or no-one stands still in our lives. Fragile, frail, short-lived, we travel life's journey through season after season, change after change. Yet God reassures us that no season, no change, no matter how devastating, is without purpose. Nothing is torn down, even our bodies, without there being a final new re-building and resurrection. If we trust in the Lord with all our hearts and revere and accept that Life is beautiful Holy Mystery, one day we will see our mysterious God Face to Face. Then God will reveal what we could only see through a glass darkly on earth: His own divine purposes for every season in our lives. 
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When Jesus Gets Into Your Boat

9/7/2019

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      One day, while Jesus stands by the heart-shaped Lake of Genneserat, preaching to an interested crowd, he sees two boats moored by the side of the lake. The fishermen have gotten out of their boats and are washing their nets.
      Jesus looks the fishermen over and chooses the boat owned by Simon Peter. He gets into Simon's boat, sits down, and asks him and his companions to pull out a short distance from the shore, where he begins once more to preach. Now the power of his voice is amplified by the water, because open water is a good conductor of sound.
      After he has finished preaching, Jesus says to Simon,​ "Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch." Simon protests. He and his buddies had been out all night and caught nothing. But he says "yes" to this charismatic stranger. Miraculously, they catch such a huge, heavy load of fish that they have to ask the fishermen in the boat next to theirs - James and John - to put part of their catch in James' and John's boat so their nets wouldn't rupture. Soon Jesus tells these amazed - and even frightened - men, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men." (Luke 5: 1-11.)
      My friends, we are like boats, moored by the unknown lakes of our hearts.  Waters so deep that they are frightening to enter. Oh, sometimes we'll travel a little offshore and throw in a net, a thought, a prayer,  to get to know ourselves a little better - discover our talents, or that there are people whom we love more than we thought, or that we can even do things we never thought we could do - but this may not even be a daily occurrence. It's far easier to stay close to land so that we don't "rock our boats."
​      Then, one day, even if we have kept him at a distance, Jesus decides to enter the boat of our life. Bishop Robert Barron calls this moment "the invasion of grace":
      "Without being invited, Jesus simply gets into the fisherman’s boat. This is to insinuate himself in the most direct way into Simon’s life. And without further ado, he begins to give orders, first asking Simon to put out from the shore and then to go out into the deep. This represents the invasion of grace. The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat? 
      "In many ways, everything else in your life is secondary....When the Lord Jesus Christ gets into your boat, he will always lead you to the depths. Duc in altum, as St. John Paul II loved to quote. More dangerous? Yes. More exciting? Yes." (Word on Fire Daily Gospel Reflection for Sept. 5, 2019).
      Only God our Father knows the deepest waters of our hearts, because God created them. Only God knows all that we are capable of becoming, of doing. God is Love - and all our fears of our own "deep waters" do nothing but keep us separated from Love and separated from ourselves. If we accept God in the Person of Jesus, true God and True Man, into the boats of our lives, Jesus will take us on the ride of our lives, into the deepest waters of ourselves.
      This is the daily Divine Call to us: to trust Jesus and dive into life, as His first followers did. Think of the lives they led after they encountered Jesus: not only caring for their families and original communities, but traveling to unknown places and people, preaching, healing, caring, as he did. Listening to his directions, they fished for other human beings, to deliver them from darkness and despair, and give them the gifts of faith, hope, love, and abiding joy.
      "Jesus wins the trust of his beloved by leading them into deeper waters, delivering improbable results that boggle the mind but stir the soul. Trust where Jesus asks you to go, into the depth of your heart and abilities." ("Take Five for Faith," Sept. 5, 2019).
​      Fear of the deep waters of our hearts most often attempts to paralyze us when there is something good and life-giving in us that our Enemy (Satan) does not want us to "surface." Paralyzing fear of doing something is often a spiritual sign that we should ask for God's help, and then DO IT! What we can't do - or think we can't do - God WILL do, in us, through us, for us. Our weakness, our limitations, are either revealed to be a false illusion, or through Jesus' gift to us of the Holy Spirit we are given new talents to meet our new needs and desires. When we are sailing and diving into the deep waters of our hearts, Jesus' constant words to us are: "Behold I am doing something new: something new in you to bring something new, through you, into other human beings' lives - their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls."
​      Think of Jesus' getting into your boat as the sign of God's supreme mercy given to you. God, in His mercy, forgives you, heals you, feeds you with His own life-giving grace (and, for Catholics, feeds us in the Eucharist,) leads you and inspirits you into becoming all that you can become.
      Once Jesus gets into our boat, he steers us into the deep waters of doing ministry, which is giving God's mercy to others through helping them in ways  that imitate Jesus' own life. Jesus always cared for the whole person: body, mind, heart, and soul. If we want an overall view of that ministry, an examination of conscience, meditate on the corporal and spiritual works of ministry. First, the corporal works, which focus on people's bodily needs. The standard list is given by Jesus in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, in the famous sermon on the Last Judgment. They are also mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 13.  The seventh work of mercy comes from the Book of Tobit and from the mitzvah of burial.
      "Body and soul both matter to God who chose to take on human form. In fact, Jesus’ ministry was dominated by healing and feeding. He even sometimes broke the religious rules of his day to tend to the physical needs of others. In doing so, he modeled how we should take care of our neighbors and gave us a new rulebook: The corporal works of mercy. So feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, bury the dead, and give to the poor. Taking care of the body does a soul good." (from "Take Five for Faith, " Sept. 7.)
     Just as the corporal works of mercy are directed towards relieving corporeal suffering, the aim of the spiritual works of mercy is to relieve spiritual suffering. The third comes from Ezekiel 33, verse 19, the fifth comes from the mitzvah of forgiving others before receiving forgiveness from God,(20)  and the seventh comes from Maccabees 2. These works include: To instruct the ignorant, To counsel the doubtful, To admonish the sinners, To bear patiently those who wrong us, To forgive offenses, To comfort the afflicted, and To pray for the living and the dead. 
      The spiritual works of mercy are the divine call to journey with others, to accompany them in times of trial. To help others, we need to learn more about our faith so we can share that faith with others when they are hungry to know more themselves. We can pray for the gift of Counsel,  so that when others are facing doubts, we can either clear up any of their misunderstandings of faith issues, or else explain that doubting is part of the normal cycle of faith, and that we've faced doubts ourselves. When they are grieving, and feel lost and alone, we can be with them, sharing our own experiences of grieving, so they don't feel as if "they are going crazy." 
      In our daily relationships, our faith can help us both understand why we routinely offend others, as well as give us the strength to forgive others, and humbly accept being forgiven. A regular nightly Examination of Conscience in which we think about the day of experiences we've just lived through, and a regular celebration of  the Sacrament of Reconciliation keep us "in touch" with our own individual "triggers" that lead to us sinfully hurting others. What triggers our own insecurities and pride that lead to our arguments, our alienation from others? "To admonish the sinner" can simply refer to those difficult conversations in which we honestly, calmly, and lovingly explain to someone why we think that he or she is doing something wrong or dangerous - and yet accept that people make their own choices. 
​      Pope Francis has added on another work of mercy: care for creation, care for our common home. In Genesis, God gave human beings the knowledge that all life forms, not just human beings, are interconnected, dependent on each other for life and thriving. Human beings have a responsibility for the entire planet. The cosmic Body of Christ includes not just human beings, but the whole of creation, the Universe, which Christ holds together in Himself. 
      When Jesus leads us into the depths of our hearts, we learn more and more that Love is eternal and inexhaustible. We never run out of it, and there is always more in us to give. We live, not out of a belief in scarcity, but a belief in plenty. It's living out of a vision that a community, a country, and a world always has the resources to care for all its people, and the earth and its creatures - not either/or, but both/and. 
​      The works of mercy unerringly call us into the works of justice: "Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:9) And, since Jesus always worked one-on-one with individuals, the depths of our hearts will always lead us to desire to get to know people whom we never dreamed we would ever meet, or listen to.
      "Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we won't experience." (Nancy Mairs) 
      As Bishop Robert Barron says: "The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat?"
      Are you willing to travel into the depths of your heart's waters to discover the depths of God's Mercy and the immense wideness of your own spiritual gifts? Are you willing to dive into the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to become an instrument of God's providential mercy for others, their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls? Are you willing to be called into the works of justice for new people, new faces, new lives - the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed? The oppressed and afflicted earth itself?
      Remember, Love never fails. God is Love Itself, the One Who will lead you into the unending joy of truly knowing yourself and truly knowing Him. Do not ever be afraid, Jesus tells you. ""Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching human beings." (Luke 5: 1-11.) Catching them and holding them safe and tight with God's own life-giving, light-giving  love so they will not be lost in darkness.



      
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The Right Way To Have Enemies

8/25/2019

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      Very often, Christians assume that it is "wrong" to have enemies. If we are honest with ourselves and admit to ourselves that we consider someone an enemy, we believe that this is a failure in our discipleship. We have personality clashes with people, so we consider them our "enemies," and don't know how to reconcile with them. Or we consider people "toxic" because they are physically or emotionally abusive, so we cut them out of our lives, even our prayer lives.
      When we have people in our lives whom we consider our enemies, we can literally be overcome by anger, bitterness, even hatred. Bitterness and hatred are negative emotions so strong that they can make us incapable of knowing how to deal with the person except through repeated arguing, insults, and/or rejection.  
    But anger is an emotion that can work positively or negatively in our lives. When it is a negative emotion, it does not push us to understand others or ourselves. Instead our anger is a proud wall that isolates us from the other, breaks the primordial bond that we have with every human being because we all have the same identity: we are all sons and daughters of God. Negative anger breeds violence in us so that we respond to others out of a will to hurt them verbally or physically, instead out of a will to discover the roots of our disunity and try to make peace.
      If we can step back from a situation or hurtful ongoing relationship in prayer, walking humbly with our God, we can begin to try to understand what is happening in the relationship. There are good and not-so-good reasons to be angry at someone. What are you angry about, to begin with? Be honest with yourself, and ask God to help you be honest. Are you angry because someone has hurt your feelings? Ask yourself: Did the person say or do this deliberately, or did he or she not realize they were being insensitive? Is your anger ongoing because your battle for control with another person is ongoing? Are you angry because someone is stealing the limelight away from you?  Are you angry because you are holding on to a grudge over something that happened years ago, something that should have been settled and laid to rest long before now?
     If other people's anger and bitterness is directed at you, do you know the  people well enough to understand their background, the incidents in their lives that have made them thin-skinned, insecure, quick to anger, dominant? Do you know the ways in which others have hurt them? Remember that you are responsible for your attitude towards them, and if you can begin with understanding the other, that helps to keep or re-make your bond with him or her as a fellow son or daughter of God. Understanding helps us to be patient. Understanding helps us to frame the words we use so that they are a well-thought-out response, a strong, truthful, but not insulting or belittling self-defense, instead of a violent reaction that only hurts the situation. Understanding and patience help us to be non-violent in our responses, and to devise creative, responsible solutions to problematic relationships. 
      But sometimes, especially if we have become passive or self-defeating, the best response to hurtful relationships is positive anger. Positive anger is an anger anchored in a strong desire for justice, for ourselves or for others, especially if we or someone else is being used and/or abused, physically, emotionally, economically. If we are all sons and daughters of God, then justice says that we all have equal dignity, equal rights. In Scripture, God's anger is a positive, righteous anger, aimed at everyone who uses or abuses others, especially the poor or helpless.  Catholic Theologian Elizabeth Johnson (a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood) says, "Divine anger functions for justice. It bespeaks a mode of caring response in the face of what harms beloved human beings or the created world itself.
      "Righteous anger...is profoundly ethical. It waxes hot in moral outrage because something good is being violated. Arising from love, it awakens energy to act to change the situation. Editing a powerful book of photographs of African-American women, Barbara Summers was struck by the creative power of anger of even the most accomplished of these women: 'A truly beautifying discovery for me was to find so much love in anger. It was a fist-up, death-defying love  that challenged the unfair conditions of life and muscled in on injustice as it nursed both sides of a nation.' This is not anger with the spirit of murder in it, but fury that is creative of life.'" (from "Creation and the Cross.")
      In other words, if we are in an abusive relationship, or enduring an unjust economic situation, we need to be transformed by the power of a positive, righteous anger that flows from love for ourself and our identity as a beloved son or daughter of God, a righteous anger that propels us into positive action for ourselves and others.
      But, let's go now beyond our own relationships and our own lives into the unjust situations in our community, our country, and the world. Because, if we have a love for justice, our hearts will expand to feel righteous anger and compassion for all our brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer, even if they are strangers to us, suffer often from unjust laws and prejudice.
      Jesus himself operates often enough out of a divine wrath, a divine anger that flows from observing injustice - and Jesus names these injustices - and names his enemies. For Jesus, like his Father, enemies are not people we disagree with. Enemies are not the people we dislike, or those who are different from us. Enemies are the people who support and uphold the structures of terror and injustice. Melissa Florer-Bixler, Pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church in North Carolina, says,
      "Often people outside the Church tell me how they are drawn to Jesus, meek and mild. This caricature misses out on the actual Jesus of the Bible, who lashes out against the religious teachers whom he calls false prophets, blind guides, white-washed tombs, and hypocrites.
      "These stories of Jesus lounging with children and lambs leave out that in the next breath Jesus told onlookers that it was better to tie stones around their necks and throw themselves into the sea than deliberately bar the way for children who want to come to him. They leave out that Jesus' anger drove the moneychangers from the temple with a whip.
      "This Jesus teaches us that there are right and wrong ways to have enemies. When we look at Jesus' life we see that enmity is born when we recognize that the structures of terror and injustice are held up by people.
      "Oppression is enacted by individual human beings, who collectively wash their hands of the matter. Without the participation of people - individuals doing the work - these systems would collapse.
      "In the Gospel, enemies are those who make camp on the far side of the line that is justice. And God is beckoning us - all of us - to join God among the oppressed......We can do the careful work of putting ourselves in spaces to hear from those who experience oppression and making their enemies our own, an act of solidarity as we rightly name the world." (from "How To Love Your Enemy," "Sojourners" magazine,  Sept/Oct 2019.) 
       Have we allowed the Holy Spirit to imbue us with a divine anger, a passion for divine justice, so that we can name our enemies? Name the community leaders or politicians or workers who do their will who are offending God by their injustices?  Or have we been confused about what God wants from us? We can observe people doing truly evil things, and since we know that Jesus tells us to forgive our enemies, we can misinterpret that as meaning we should absolve people of blame. So we mistakenly mentally back off, assume that they are doing their best, or failing on some things but not on other things, or that they are cogs in a machine and can't do anything else. We don't want to be angry and we don't want to call them our enemies, (because Jesus said to LOVE our enemies) so we say they are simply "misguided" and the best thing we can do is pray for them. But while prayer is important, this kind of backing away from evil - and from legitimate enemies - can lead us into indifference. And it certainly doesn't help our enemies to change their ways!
      The prophet Micah tells us to "do justice." For Pastor Florer-Bixler, the oppressed are the Latinx community in Durham, where hundreds have been picked up by ICE, and children wait at the local elementary school for parents who will never show up. "In a recent round of ICE raids in Durham, a young father was picked up while packing his car for work, collateral damage among the targets set by ICE. In a nearby NICU, his premature infant - born at seven months - waited alone. Maria, the baby's mother, recovered from surgery while her spouse sat in a detention center, hoping our community could raise the $15,000 bond set by a judge. Eventually they raised $7,000, securing the rest through a loan. ICE officials 'don't have a heart,' Maria told a local reporter."
      Florer-Bixler, full of a just anger and passion for justice, has chosen Jesus' way of battling for justice, the way of non-violent, positive response to oppression. She says, "Jesus reorients our way of having enemies. We do not arm ourselves with weapons to coerce or threaten enemies of God's liberation into submission. Instead we create the world we want. In Durham, this means creating a fund to support families like Maria and her baby in the NICU. It means that strangers sign up for shifts to check on reports of ICE activity in the area. The world we create is one in which religious communities open their doors for temporary sanctuary if a person without papers is afraid to go home. It means we check on our neighbors in ways we did not before. We carve out a life of community amid the terror. It is a life of joy amid destruction. And it is the life into which we invite our enemies."
      Catholic priest and peace activist John Dear teaches that
      "Practicing nonviolence means claiming our fundamental identity as the beloved [children] of the God of peace. . . . This is what Jesus taught: “Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called the sons and daughters of God [Matthew 5:9]. . . . Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors, then you shall be sons and daughters of the God who makes [the] sun rise on the good and the bad, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” [Matthew 5:44-45]. In the context of his visionary nonviolence—radical peacemaking and love for enemies—Jesus speaks of being who we already are. He talks about our true identities as if they propel us to be people of loving nonviolence. . . .
  "Living nonviolence requires daily meditation, contemplation, study, concentration, and mindfulness. Just as mindlessness leads to violence, steady mindfulness and conscious awareness of our true identities lead to nonviolence and peace. . . . The social, economic, and political implications of this practice are astounding: if we are [children] of a loving Creator, then every human being is our [sibling], and we can never hurt anyone on earth ever again, much less be silent in the face of war, starvation, racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, systemic injustice and environmental destruction. . . ."
      If we truly love mercy, we will mercifully pray for our enemies to rediscover what it means to be just and merciful - and be examples to them of justice and compassion, even through non-violent protests. Whether our enemy is the relative who tries to dominate us, the obnoxious downstairs neighbor, the cold, rigid Boss, or the politician who seeks to pass unjust laws, we need to stand up for truth and justice - courageously speaking the truth in love - so that we are truly lights in this world. We need to mindfully cultivate a divine righteous anger, a passion for justice, so that we will act against oppression, in the ways that we can and should in our own circumstances - and for our country and for the world. 
      I will close with Pope Francis' Prayer for Peace at the 2017 World Day of Peace:
      "I pray that the image and likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity. . . .
May charity and nonviolence govern how we treat each other as individuals, within society and in international life. When victims of violence are able to resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promotors of nonviolent peacemaking. In the most local and ordinary situations and in the international order, may nonviolence become the hallmark of our decisions, our relationships and our actions, and indeed of political life in all its forms. . . .
   "Violence is not the cure for our broken world. Countering violence with violence leads at best to forced migrations and enormous suffering, because vast amounts of resources are diverted to military ends and away from the everyday needs of young people, families experiencing hardship, the elderly, the infirm and the great majority of people in our world. At worst, it can lead to the death, physical and spiritual, of many people, if not of all. 
      "An ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence . . . cannot be based on the logic of fear, violence and closed-mindedness, but on responsibility, respect and sincere dialogue. Hence, I plead for disarmament and for the prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons: nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutual assured destruction are incapable of grounding such an ethics.  I plead with equal urgency for an end to domestic violence and to the abuse of women and children. . . .
      "Jesus taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace meet, is the human heart: for “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come” (Mark 7:21). . . . Jesus marked out the path of nonviolence. He walked that path to the very end, to the cross . . . (Ephesians 2:14-16). Whoever accepts the Good News of Jesus is able to acknowledge the violence within and be healed by God’s mercy, becoming in turn an instrument of reconciliation. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: “As you announce peace with your mouth, make sure that you have greater peace in your hearts.” .



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The Divine Spark in Your Soul

8/15/2019

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      One of the darkest, most horrible, paralyzing emotions that overwhelms me from time to time is the feeling that I am helpless to make a difference in this world,  that my life is so small that it is essentially worthless. What am I, after all? A wife, a mother, a Church worker. I've had and have some terrible griefs - the death of a son, a daughter who has battled cancer, grand-children with various mental and developmental disabilities - but many others have faced these and far worse. I'm middle class, and middle of the road. What impact can I ever have for good, in a world that is so spiritually empty and hungry? Have you ever been overwhelmed by similar negative feelings?
      But the prophet Isaiah tells us "Shine, for your light has come." Jesus, light of the world, has come into the world and into each of our lives. Jesus is our light who has come and is always coming, is always at work, is always making things happen for good.  Jesus, minute by minute,  tells us that it's time - high time - for each of us to come out of our self-imposed, self-absorbed darkness and SHINE!!!
     If you or I ever lose faith in our ability to be forces for good, Jesus never does. While he debates with the Jewish leaders, he says "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12) But he also uses that term (light of the world) to refer to anyone who, down through the ages,  becomes his disciple: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven." (Matthew 5:14.) 
      Now, how is it that Jesus, Divine Son of God and Human Son of Mary,  can simultaneously affirm that both he and you and I are the light of the world? Because he promises us that if we follow him, we will never walk in darkness. If we follow him in obedience to our Father, we can never be overcome by the dark, internal forces that would cause us to lose faith in ourselves and faith in him.
      If we are Jesus' faithful disciples, he leads us fragile human beings to discover the deathless, infinite Divine in ourselves. We are created in the Image of God, and at the center of our souls lives a Divine Spark, forever united with our soul. This spark of the Divine, - the uncreated part of our souls - when it is fanned by the Breath of the Holy Spirit, erupts into the blazing fire that makes us the light of the world.  Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M, tells us four truths about our Divine Spark. (The following Rohr quotes are from The Center for Contemplation Meditation for August 15.)
      First, he says, "We are made, the scriptures of all religions assure us, in the image of God. Nothing can change that original goodness. Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, whatever problems we may have in the present, in every one of us this 'uncreated spark in the soul' remains untouched, ever pure, ever perfect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our personality ablaze with light."
      Referring to this Divine Spark in us, Jesus says "A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." Here, Jesus is telling us that we can discover and recognize this Divine Spark in ourselves; we can actually actively tend it through our prayers and actions and allow it to shine through, with, and in us in numerous places in our lives. 
      Rohr continues,
     "Second, this divine essence can be realized. It is not an abstraction, and it need not— must not—remain hidden under the covering of our everyday personality. It can and should be discovered, so that its presence becomes a reality in daily life."
      It can be a temptation, Rohr is saying, to retreat into being the person, the personality, that others - and ourselves - have always known, the personality that hasn't grown to its full potential. Hiding our Divine Spark under the covering of our carefully cultivated personality that "fits in" with society is like Jesus' image of placing our lighted lamp under a bowl, keeping our individual talents and spiritual gifts hidden. As disciples of Jesus, we are SUPPOSED to stand out from the crowd, as uncomfortable as that may get.  We are a people who follow God's Truth,  who have a greater commitment to love, mercy and justice.  The Divine Spark is always calling us on and forward, not to become MORE than we are, but to become precisely WHO we are! Our personalities need to be illuminated and refined and "grown" through the spiritual Gifts given us by the unique Divine Spark within us. 
      Notice, Jesus first encourages us to put our light on a stand so that our Divine Spark gives light to everyone in the house. What a homey example! God placed our Divine Spark - God's Divine Image in us -  in our souls so that first we would illuminate the houses of our families! First, our families of birth, and then whatever families we belong to next - marriage and family, or religious order, or the brotherhood of priesthood or diaconate. They are the first ones whom we illuminate by teaching them Who God is by our words and our example, by the faithful light of our welcoming smiles, the warmth of our daily work done out of love for them. 
      But, it is so easy to forget about or get distracted away from, our Divine Spark and our call to become a light of the world. It is so easy to become discouraged by our faults, our failings, our busyness, the lure of pleasure, the lack of discipline, that so easily get in the way of our spiritual lives. Fr. Rohr observes that this is where actively choosing our Life with God as our First Priority is the core of discipleship. He says, 
      "Third, this discovery is life’s real and highest goal. Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our name on history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts."
      When I look at my life as wife, mother, Church worker, a simple, quiet, mostly hidden life, I am inspired by the woman who also lived a quiet life, but lived it in the fullness of discipleship. Mary, who was the closest human being to her son, Jesus, understood that Jesus came into this world to do the Will of his Father - and so did she, and so do we. Jesus obeyed his Father's will by moving step by step through every day, paying attention to each situation, each person, appearing before him. In his prayer life, his travels, the people and situations he encountered, his inner vision could see the Reality of God present there, the Reality of God's Kingdom, playing out in his daily life. In love with his Father, in love with this world, he poured the Father's healing, teaching, challenging Divine Fire of Love into every situation, every person he met. And so, light of the world, he set the world on fire with Divine Love, the Fiery Love of God's own Word Who consumes our sins and gives us the bright promise of eternal life.  
      Jesus saw his daily life unfolding  as his unique mission from his Father. Because he approached this mission with courage and understanding and love, he lived his life with imagination, freedom, and creativity. The Divine Spark in him led him to see and care for the people on the margins whom no-one else ever saw - the lepers, the sinners, the unclean, the foreigners, the women and children who others saw as simple possessions, the sections of the Law that were manmade rather than ordained by God and placed heavy burdens on the people. His vision illuminated their lives, and he preached so that others would see the neglected and unwanted as well. 
      Mary - simple wife and mother, leading a semi-hidden, simple life - tended the Divine Spark in her heart/soul, and saw this Spark illumine her unique life mission for her. Her words to the angel Gabriel who asks her to be mother of the Messiah  illuminate her whole life for us:
​      "I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say." In other words, "I choose and I am prepared to see God's Will in everything that happens to me - and I surrender to the Wisdom of the Plans of God's Heart that live from age to age."
      Bishop Robert Barron meditates on a young, pregnant Mary finding out that her aged cousin is also pregnant and rushing to her side to care for her.
​     "I’ve always been fascinated by Mary’s 'haste' in this story of the Visitation. Upon hearing the message of Gabriel concerning her own pregnancy and that of her cousin, Mary 'proceeded in haste into the hill country of Judah' to see Elizabeth.       
   "Why did she go with such speed and purpose? Because she had found her mission, her role in the theo-drama. We are dominated today by the ego-drama in all of its ramifications and implications. The ego-drama is the play that I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m directing, and I’m starring in. We see this absolutely everywhere in our culture. Freedom of choice reigns supreme: I become the person that I choose to be. 
    "The theo-drama is the great story being told by God, the great play being directed by God. What makes life thrilling is to discover your role in it. This is precisely what has happened to Mary. She has found her role—indeed a climactic role—in the theo-drama, and she wants to conspire with Elizabeth, who has also discovered her role in the same drama. Like Mary, we have to find our place in God’s story."
      Our Divine Spark illuminates our mission, our role in God's story,  day by day for us. In the daily surprises, joys, tensions, griefs, and sacrifices of marriage, family, religious life, diaconate, priesthood, we learn how to gradually  discover our missions, our roles in God's great drama, the plans of His heart for us. Like Mary, we are called to say "yes" to God, even when we feel like blind men/women on an unknown journey. Like Mary, we are called to visit others, when it's convenient, and when it's inconvenient. Like Mary, we come to the sides of those who are suffering illness and death, sometimes violent death, and we weep in anguish even as we accept that a compassionate God is present there among us, with us and with the dying and deceased. Like Mary, we are called to be part of a Church growing in unexpected ways, a Church filled with tension, misunderstandings, great virtue, and great sinfulness. She remembered - and we remember - that her Son, Our Lord, promised to be with us until the end of time.
      Fr. Richard Rohr tells us the fourth and final truth about the Divine Spark within us:
     "Last, when we realize this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all—all individuals, all creatures, all of life. . . ."
​      When we spiritually kneel before the Spark of the Divine within us, and allow our entire being to be set on fire by our God of infinite Mercy, Justice,  and Compassion, our hearts/souls expand to contain the entire universe. We recognize that God is present and is the Life Force everywhere and in everyone and in everything.
      We discover the gift of tears - tears of compassion and empathy for strangers, for those with disabilities, those of other skin colors, other cultures, other sexual orientations, other faiths and even those with no faith. We recognize God the Son as present, still being crucified, in those whom the world despises and rejects.
       We spiritually acknowledge the depth of human beings' responsibility to care for and protect all of creation, and we  weep, begging God to forgive our human race's willful destructiveness as we pollute and destroy our soil, air, and waterways, and fail to protect other species from extinction, all out of power and greed.
     We intercede for all nations, weeping and begging for God to teach our world leaders that there is no real peace without cooperative relationships and justice for the poor and oppressed. 
      Our tears of compassion, our rage for justice, propels us from tears to merciful action, often outside the family circle, even beyond the circle of our acquaintances, even out into the unknown world of those who are not part of our comfortable "tribe." For Jesus also calls us to be cities on hills, where we will be seen, and lampstands that illuminate beyond our families. Wherever we shine with free, unstinting love, people will see us, recognize that our light is God-Light, and give glory to God. 
      "In Matthew 5:15 Jesus calls out: Put the light on the lampstand where it gives light to all in the house. Find those lampstands—people, places, positions, prayers—that support your fire. Then thrust your light atop their sturdy foundation. Fan your flames as big as they’ll go. 'Let your light shine before others,' Jesus implores, 'so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven' (Matt. 5:16). This is fire’s call. This is our call. 
      "To become fire is to shine wildly. 
   "Rage and roar with divine energy. Radiate the warmth our world so desperately needs. Imagine yourself becoming fire—really imagine it. Where do you shine brightest? What values do you illuminate? Whom do you hope your sparks kindle? 
     "The embers are already aglow within you. 
     "Why not become fire?" (from "Jesus tells us to become fire. Here's how to claim your flame," by Jessie Bazan, in "U.S. Catholic.")
       We will never know, in this life, how many hungry, despairing souls lift their hearts to the Divine Spark of our smiles, or the fiery mercy of our ministering hands, and allow their own souls to be lit with their own Divine Sparks.  We will never know, in this life, how many cold, indifferent souls are illuminated and uplifted by the fire of our truth-speaking and protests for Divine Justice, and allow our passion to re-light their own desire to discover their own Divine Spark. All we can do is trust and believe that many will be set on fire by our lives. Because Jesus told us this would happen. Jesus told us "You are the light of the world." Jesus NEEDS us to be the light of the world for his Kingdom to come to fullness in this world.  
        Mary, who lived the fullness of discipleship, is a pure, blazing light of the world; her whole being emanates radiant light. Is it any wonder then that her appearance is the totality of light - sun, moon, and stars? Catholic tradition identifies her with the “woman clothed with the sun” who is described in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation. The passage calls that woman's appearance “a great sign” which “appeared in heaven,” indicating that she is the mother of the Jewish Messiah and has “the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Accordingly, Catholic iconography of the Western tradition often depicts the Virgin Mary's assumption, body and soul, into heaven in this manner. She is the first disciple, and so the first to experience the fullness of the resurrection.
      We are made in the Image of God, and God's own Divine Spark lives within our souls, the Divine in unity with our human nature. Our life's greatest priority is to discover the Divine Spark within us and allow it to kindle us into fire so we can become, as Jesus calls us, lights for the world. Our greatest temptation is to be distracted by pleasure, or money, or possessions, or other pursuits. But Jesus calls us to our real mission - to obediently do the will of his Father every day of our lives, putting one foot in front of the other. Then our ordinary lives become extraordinary, because every person,  every event we encounter, is soaked in the sunlight of God's Love, shining through us as the sun shines through clear windows. 
  When we allow our Divine Spark to grow into a fire that rages through our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies, that is when we become total living sacrifices and gifts to the Father. We become on fire with Jesus' own hunger for souls, his passion for the whole world to experience the joy of our Father's love. Because Mary became Perfect Fire, she was taken by God, heart, soul, mind, and body, to Heaven - "assumed into heaven." If we live out our discipleship to the fullest, we too will one day rejoice like dancing flames, spirit, soul, and body, in the Presence of our God Who is the Perfect, Consuming Fire of Love.
​      Do you hear the Voice of Jesus? He's saying, "Come on, it's time for you to come out of the dark where you're hiding. Come on, it's high time for you to SHINE."
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Today's Spiritual Identity Crisis

8/12/2019

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​       All of us belong to a "tribe" or "tribes," groups that help us feel that we belong. These tribes help make up our identity. What is your identity? I'll bet it is at least partially wrapped up in your family, the color of your skin, your ethnic or cultural background, your social class, the kind of work you do and your co-workers, your neighborhood, or your church. All these aspects of our lives give us a sense of who we are, an identity, a security.
​      Yet, our deepest, realest identity comes from belonging to God. From the beginning of the Bible, God tells us that we belong first to God. Our deepest identity and security is that we are sons ​ and daughters of God. Even more than that, all of us, regardless of our religion, our skin color, our status as slaves or free, our nationalities, or our sex, or sexual orientation, are all one - united - in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28.) All of us were created by the Father THROUGH Christ and FOR Christ. (Colossians 1:16.)  Every one of us has been created by the Father through the Son as a GIFT FOR the Son.
      If God sees all of us as one, united people, then we are all equal in God's eyes! No skin color, culture, or sex is superior to the other. No group which happens to be dominant should ever lord it over others. IF OUR SPIRITUAL IDENTITY IS IN GOD, there is, then, no reason to ever feel threatened by, or fearful of, others simply because their skin color, language, or culture is different, or because they, in essence, belong to a different "tribe." Yet, this is what has happened, and continues to happen, throughout all of history: people lose sight of their common spiritual heritage and identity, and regress back into being fearful, warring tribes. Anyone different automatically becomes the Enemy, the Invader, when the spiritual reality is that this Other, made also in God's Image,  is another Gift who can mirror the Face of God to us.   
     Thousands of years ago, according to the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, the Jews were slaves in Egypt. The Israelites had been in Egypt for generations, but now that they had become so numerous, the Pharaoh feared their presence. He feared that one day the Israelites would turn against the Egyptians. Gradually and stealthily, he forced them to become his slaves.
     He made the slaves build grand 'treasure cities;' barefoot slaves built the walls while the overseer kept watch on top of a tower, while the slaves made bricks from clay and straw.
     But Pharaoh was still worried that his Israelite slaves would rise up against him. So he ordered a terrible punishment - all the first-born male babies of the Israelites were to be killed. Pharaoh gave orders to the midwives that 'Every son that is born, you shall cast into the river'. It's a miracle of courage that Moses' mother hid him in a basket floating on the river until the Pharaoh's daughter found him and raised him as her own. 
      And so, even thousands of years ago, a dominant people, (the Egyptians), no longer having as many children as the minorities in their midst, fears the minority people because they are rapidly multiplying, fears that they will become the majority and overthrow them. So, dreading this "replacement," the dominant people resort to violence.
      Today, the "Egyptian replacement theory" has morphed into the equally destructive "white replacement theory." Rosa Schwartzburg, writer and editor for "The Guardian," writes on Monday, August 5, 2019:     
       “'This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.' Those were the words that appeared in a manifesto published shortly before the deadly shooting in El Paso... More than half of so-called 'alt-right killers' are motivated by the 'white replacement' theory,' which refers to the belief that white people will be systematically replaced by black and brown migrants. The killer in El Paso, who law enforcement believes authored the memo, is apparently no exception.
      "The white replacement theory is actually made up of two sub-conspiracies: 'the great replacement' theory, which originated in France, and 'the white genocide theory,' which comes from the US. Together, the theories are among the most widespread ideologies in far-right spaces, and the primary catalysts of far-right mass violence....The great replacement can generally be understood as two core beliefs. The first is that 'western' identity is under siege by massive waves of immigration from non-European/non-white countries, resulting in a replacement of white European individuals via demographics. The second is that replacement has been orchestrated by a shadowy group as part of their grand plan to rule the world – which they will do by creating a completely racially homogenous society. This group is often overtly identified as being Jews, but sometimes the antisemitism is more implicit.
      "These beliefs have proliferated in mass killer texts for the past eight years. They are generally understood as having begun with Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass shooter whose 1,500-page manifesto expressed a fear of white ethnic replacement by migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. This same fear cropped up in the manifestos of several more mass killers in Europe, before making its way to the rambling screed published by the Christchurch shooter, which was titled The Great Replacement. The Christchurch manifesto begins with: 'It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates.' It was directly inspired by Breivik – and he, in turn, inspired the El Paso shooter....
      "One of the reasons that the great replacement theory was able to take hold so firmly in the US was because of the history of white replacement conspiracies here. The US has its own theory, called the 'white genocide' conspiracy, which came about in the Reconstruction-era after the abolition of slavery and constitutes a belief that the US is on the brink of a 'race war', in which freed slaves would rise up and kill their former masters. This belief has cropped up again and again throughout the 20th century (perhaps you will remember it from the Manson family murders), and most recently has been expressed in the manifestos of white supremacist killers like Dylan Roof and Frazier Glenn Miller.
     "The gap between the two theories, however, is closing. As white replacement theory propagates online (galvanized by anti-immigrant rhetoric from far-right populists the world over, from Trump to Hungary’s Viktor Orban), so does the belief in an all-encompassing 'white, European identity' in need of saving. This is not a purely US-based conspiracy, but rather a call to arms to protect what is seen as the white race on a transnational level."
​      What is the end result - the final evil - of white supremacy? Unparalleled cruelty. Adam Sewar writes for the Oct. 3, 2018 edition of "The Atlantic":
        "The Museum of African-American History and Culture is in part a catalog of cruelty. Amid all the stories of perseverance, tragedy, and unlikely triumph are the artifacts of inhumanity and barbarism: the child-size slave shackles, the bright red robes of the wizards of the Ku Klux Klan, the recordings of civil-rights protesters being brutalized by police.
      "The artifacts that persist in my memory, the way a bright flash does when you close your eyes, are the photographs of lynchings. But it’s not the burned, mutilated bodies that stick with me. It’s the faces of the white men in the crowd. There’s the photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana in 1930, in which a white man can be seen grinning at the camera as he tenderly holds the hand of his wife or girlfriend. There’s the undated photo from Duluth, Minnesota, in which grinning white men stand next to the mutilated, half-naked bodies of two men lashed to a post in the street—one of the white men is straining to get into the picture, his smile cutting from ear to ear. There’s the photo of a crowd of white men huddled behind the smoldering corpse of a man burned to death; one of them is wearing a smart suit, a fedora hat, and a bright smile."
      We are living in a world of illusion if we think white supremacy is dead in this country. Those who believe whites are superior want white culture to dominate. Sandy Ovalle writes of her current fears after the mass murders at El Paso for "Sojourners." Listen carefully to her story.
      "My body ached as I flew back from El Salvador this week knowing that I would land in a country where people like me had just been killed. And my fears were not unfounded. When I landed in the U.S., a Customs and Border Patrol Officer screened my Mexican passport chanting, 'Trump, Trump, Trump is the best president we’ve ever had.' Standing in front of him in my brown body, I was afraid. In the midst of the violence our community has experienced, this chant was a form of intimidation. 
      "Some Latinx people have known — and others have suspected — this land is not safe for us, but the extent to which that suspicion has been confirmed in El Paso is terrifying. The perpetrator in this massacre was deliberate in his plan to counter the 'Hispanic invasion.' It’s tempting to believe all this has been incited by the current president’s violent rhetoric. But while that rhetoric has added much fuel to the fire, the fire has been burning for a long time. 
      "In 1848 when the U.S. took over Indigenous and Mexican lands in the Southwest, Mexican people living in those areas were given a choice to become U.S. citizens or leave. The requirement to become a U.S. citizen in order to remain in the land was a call to assimilation. To legally change one’s allegiance to a new country is one thing, but the greatest demand of becoming a citizen was — and is — to become white, to perceive the greatness of this country lies in its white homogeneity. This ideology ensures that certain groups will always be permanent outsiders and, therefore, threats. The fire has been burning for a long time."
     Let's leave white European identity behind for a moment, and return to our spiritual identity. God considers that we are all His, and therefore all one another's as well. Why do we consider others our Enemy then, groups out to invade us? Whites are supposed to have to protect "white, European identity" from WHAT, exactly? From becoming intermingled with other skin colors? From the mixing of other languages and cultures? If we are all one in Christ to begin with, why does this matter in the long run? Who has decided that this is a Bad thing? I've watched interracial couples walking together, with their  child walking between them, holding their hands. Frankly, I've found it a beautiful, edifying sight, a sign of unity, of love that can cross all borders and boundaries. A profoundly holy and Biblical sight.
      Biblical hope teaches us that when two people or two cultures meet, God, Who is Love, Who makes the two of us one, infinitely desires that we choose to blend and strengthen, rather than attempt to obliterate each other with one coming out "on top." And God gives us the grace to do so!
      I can say all of this unequivocally, operating out of my fairly secure sense of my own identity, but then it becomes so easy to develop a sense of superiority, a rush to judgement, when someone is mouthing white supremacist or "invasion" rhetoric. What happens when someone doesn't have a strong, secure, sense of identity, and is searching for one, and for a life's purpose? What happens if someone is among the Walking Wounded? It makes him or her easy prey for white supremacist rhetoric. Christian Picciolini is a former violent extremist. Thirty years ago, he was a Neo-Nazi. Today, he runs a global network, The Free Radicals Project, through which he and other ex-white nationalists counsel others to free themselves from the grip of white nationalism. Listen carefully - Here, he tells his story:
     "I was recruited when I was 14 years old, in 1987. My parents are Italian immigrants, and when they came over they struggled, had to work constantly, so I didn’t see them very much. But I grew up in a loving family. Still, I went searching for a sense of identity and community and purpose. I was standing in an alley, and a man came and recruited me. I spent eight years as part of America’s first neo-Nazi skinhead group. I didn’t have a foundation for racism; everything I wore as a suit of armor, I ended up believing, and certainly promoting and acting on. But the foundation of racism was never there for me. When I started to meet people that challenged what I believed about them, people that were black, brown, gay—they showed me compassion at a time in my life when I least deserved it. I’d kind of sealed myself off from the real world for eight years, and when I finally started to get peeks at what these people were really like, things changed.
      "I got out in 1996, and spent three years trying to self-reflect after disengaging, and trying to understand how and why I got there—really struggling with that, until around 2000, when I started … unofficially doing the work that I was doing.... 
      "I don’t necessarily look for people. They find me. I do interviews, I have a TV show, I’ve published a memoir. Anytime people see an interview or a TED Talk, they reach out to me. Because there really is nobody else to turn to. If you have a heroin addiction, there are groups for that. If you’re being abused, there are groups to turn to for that. But unfortunately, if you’re struggling with these ideas of hate, there really is nobody else."
      Piccolini explains how he helps people to leave white supremacism behind:
    "It’s a whole lot of listening. I listen for what I call potholes: things that happen to us in our journey of life that detour us, things like trauma, abuse, mental illness, poverty, joblessness. Even privilege can be a pothole that detours us. As I listen to those—rather than debate or confront them about their ideology, but creating a rapport with them—I start to fill in those potholes. I will find resources in their community to help them deal with the trauma, with whatever it is that was the motivation for them to go in that direction. Nobody’s born racist; we all found it. Then I leverage the community around them to try to engage them and support them, and try to find ways for them to crawl out of that hole. Typically what I found is, people hate other people because they hate something very specifically about themselves, or are very angry about a situation within their own environment, and that is then projected onto other people. So I’m really trying to build resilience with people." (from "A Reformed White Nationalist Says The Worst Is Yet To Come," by Yara Bayoumy and Kathy Gilsinan, in "The Atlantic," August 6, 2019.)
​      Chris Picciolini's life began to change when he started to meet people - black, brown, and gay - who, through their words and actions, challenged the stereotypes that he'd believed about them. They were honest about who they were. They showed him compassion when he needed it. As the Gospels remind us, Jesus interacted with people one on one, in loving, personal relationships, and that was the how and why of people's conversion experiences.  Nothing more or less can work in our own lives, or our nation's life,  whether it is our meeting one on one with those who desire to change, or our meeting one on one with people who can change us. 
    Simply calling oneself a "Christian," identifying with the tribe, knowing the rules, doesn't teach us our deepest identity - that of being brother and sister to every human being because we all belong to God. Only prayer, only a one to one encounter and relationship with the healing, revivifying, resurrected Jesus the Christ, can remove the last, sinful vestiges of racism, sexism  and xenophobia from our hearts and souls - and lead to our resurrection from the death of sinful divisiveness.  Change can never happen in people's souls if their fragile or iron-walled identity that they have personally constructed without God's input places them in a superior position to everyone else. Howard Thurman, great teacher, philosopher, theologian, and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., recounts this story. Listen carefully:
      "In the fall of 1935 I was serving as chairman of a delegation sent on a pilgrimage of friendship from the students of America to the students of India, Burma, and Ceylon. [On this trip Thurman also met and visited with Gandhi.] It was at a meeting in Ceylon that the whole crucial issue was pointed up to me in a way that I can never forget. . . . I was invited by the principal to have coffee. . . .
      He said to me, 'What are you doing over here? I know what the newspapers say . . . but that is not my question. What are you doing over here? This is what I mean.
      “'More than three hundred years ago your forefathers were taken from the western coast of Africa as slaves. The people who dealt in the slave traffic were Christians. One of your famous Christian hymn writers, Sir John Newton, made his money from the sale of slaves to the New World. He is the man who wrote ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds’ and ‘Amazing Grace’—there may be others, but these are the only ones I know. The name of one of the famous British slave vessels was ‘Jesus.’
      “'The men who bought the slaves were Christians. Christian ministers, quoting the Christian apostle Paul, gave the sanction of religion to the system of slavery. Some seventy years or more ago you were freed by a man [Abraham Lincoln] who was not a professing Christian, but was rather the spearhead of certain political, social, and economic forces, the significance of which he himself did not understand. During all the period since then you have lived in a Christian nation in which you are segregated, lynched, and burned.      Even in the church, I understand, there is segregation. One of my students who went to your country sent me a clipping telling about a Christian church in which the regular Sunday worship was interrupted so that many could join a mob against one of your fellows. When he had been caught and done to death, they came back to resume their worship of their Christian God.
      “I am a Hindu. I do not understand. Here you are in my country, staying deep within the Christian faith and tradition. I do not wish to seem rude to you. But, sir, I think you are a traitor to all the darker peoples of the earth. I am wondering what you, an intelligent man, can say in defense of your position?'”
(from Thurman's classic, "Jesus and the Disinherited.")
      Thurman prayed over this astute Hindu's challenging comments, and finally understood that Jesus, persecuted and executed as a criminal, has come to spiritually and physically free all oppressed peoples:
      "The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. 'In him was life; and the life was the light of men.'  Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.” (from "Jesus and the Disinherited.")
      If we are white, perhaps we think we've never known what it is to be oppressed, or to endure discrimination, or to fear being genuinely ourselves in front of others. Yet, this is not completely true. Enslaved to unhealthy habits or addictions or sins, we all know what it is to be unfree. Enslaved to holding or voicing the opinions of others in order to be accepted, we know what it is to be unfree. Enslaved to cultural rules about what it means to be masculine or feminine, beautiful or handsome, we know what it means to be unfree. Enslaved to familial or cultural prejudices, we know what it means to be unfree.   Once we can dig deep into our psyches and discover the ways we are unfree and the ways we keep others from being free or from feeling they belong, we can begin to face any latent racism or xenophobia in ourselves. We can come in prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." We can accept Christ's Amazing Grace. We can be secure in our identity and help others to be secure in theirs. Because giving people a true sense of identity, of secure belonging in Christ, is giving them the freedom to be themselves. 
      When we know our true identity in Christ, when we realize and accept that we are equal to others, we can finally really listen to those who are different without feeling threatened by their differences or threatening them. We can finally hear their stories, and also tell our stories. The genuine identity in us rises up to meet the genuine identity in them. We are both truly free because we give each other the right to belong. Thurman puts it this way:
     "There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls."
       Biblical hope teaches us that God, Who is Love, desires that when two people or two cultures meet, they choose to "marry," become one, yet remain themselves, blend and strengthen, rather than sinfully attempt to overcome or obliterate each other. Our one on one encounters with Christ and in Christ can help us as individuals and as a nation to overcome white supremacy. 
      When, one on one, we meet and greet others of different races or cultures or sexual orientations, we can do the following: 1) meet in genuine caring and solicitude in our mutual spiritual identity as sons and daughters of God, 2) meet in humble encounter with each other's stories, 3) give each other a secure sense of freedom and belonging. We can prayerfully remember that St. Paul tells us the following: It is He, Christ, Who is our Peace, Who made the two of us one, breaking down the barriers that kept us apart....We are made one in the Blood of Christ. 
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Lord, Open My Lips

8/4/2019

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       Do you know what one of the new runaway, back-to-school bestsellers is? Bullet-proof/bullet-resistant backpacks. Yet, though a label on one brand, Guard Dog, claims it can stop a bullet from a .44 Magnum handgun, it won’t stop a high-velocity rifle. How much good would these bullet-proof items have done for kids in El Paso, Texas, or at any mass shooting site, where the weapons of choice are high velocity assault rifles like AK-47s? 
      Oh, you can also buy bullet-proof hoodies.
​      Most backpacks cost between $120.00 and $200.00, some higher. Hoodies range in price roughly between $150.00 and $500.00. What if you have more than one child? I guess safety items for their well-loved children and teens are for the upper middle class and rich, rather than for the poor. Imagine starting your school shopping by laying aside hundreds of dollars first for bulletproof equipment.
      I can't imagine the fears these days that beset the minds, hearts, and souls of parents of children/teens/young adults who attend school. But, then, I also face my own fears any time I leave the safety and security of my home to go to the store, the movie theatre, or even to church. There are no safe places in this country any more, even one's work place.  The country seems to be de-volving into a culture of increased violence and death. Our media grow increasingly violent in the graphic images they use.  Mental health issues are not addressed; insurance policies don't carry enough visits to counselors to make a difference. And there is a whole culture of violent insults, racism, white supremacy, and bullying, as well as partisan infighting and stalemates emanating from our own politicians. 
      I also daily face my own fears for this entire planet every time I read another article about the devastations wrought by climate change, a reality which many of our politicians deny, suppressing the truth. As mass shootings are escalating, so are "climate events" escalating. And the effects of climate change are directly hurting and will hurt, our children, those whom we love so much and want to protect. Eco Watch recently reported on these events in Australia, for example:
      "Australia has seen fatalities within the last decade due to extreme weather and heat waves.
      "There are absolutely people dying climate-related deaths, [especially due to] heat stress right now," said Misha Coleman, executive director of Global Health Alliance Australia, to the Guardian. 'During the Black Saturday fires [in Victoria in 2009] for example, we know that people were directly killed by the fires, but there were nearly 400 additional deaths in those hot days from heat stress and heatstroke.'
      "It has also seen a cognitive effect on children who experienced extreme weather events in utero. For example, children born to women who were pregnant during the 2011 flooding in Brisbane had, on average, lower IQs, smaller vocabularies and less imagination than their peers at age two.
      "As the world deals with higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses, the nutritional values of staple crops will decline, leading to stunting, anemia and malnutrition in children, within 10 to 20 years, according to the Guardian.
 "'What's the future for our children?" said Coleman to the Guardian. "These events are more common, more frequent and not going to become less so in a short amount of time.'"
      Need I address the world's growing fears of nuclear war, activated by countries withdrawing from treaties, the increasingly belligerent exchanges between world leaders, and actions performed that seem to almost provoke war? 
      And yet, despite, or maybe because of, these daily events, these daily assaults on our minds and emotions,  there is a terrible malaise, a terrible lethargy,  in our country, a learned helplessness, almost. People withdraw into social media, sports games on tv, rock or country or jazz concerts, the arms of family and friends, anything to escape the terrible, ongoing tension that is causing depression and anxiety in everyone. 
      What is the answer? Are we meant to do nothing, and rely only on prayer? I recently read such a poignant FB conversation between two young mothers, sharing their fears about their children soon going back to school, where they could be prey for shooters. One mother ended the conversation with "I guess all we can do is pray." Surely we all know that when a situation is beyond us, we need to leave it in God's Hands, because God will make a way where there is no way. But, is this what God wants us to be doing now, in this time, this place, these situations? Prayer is so necessary, but does God want and expect us ONLY to pray? Or does God also expect us to follow Jesus the prophet, who not only prayed to his Father, but also spoke and acted to perform works of teaching, healing and justice.
      We who are practicing Christians have grown up hearing and reading the stories of the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels. Jesus walking around the sea of Galilee, healing the blind man, raising a young girl from the dead, discussing the finer points of the Law with Scribes and Pharisees, ignoring the law of "no work" on the sabbath to raise a donkey from the ditch. Jesus, accepting women as equal to men, ministering not only to Jews but to people who were his culture's enemies, like the Samaritan woman and the Roman centurion. Jesus saying he came to bring good news to the poor, to free the imprisoned. We can imagine the constant crowds surrounding him, pleading for help. "You have to know about Jesus our Savior," we've been taught. So our prayer life has become knowing our Scriptures, going to church services, saying rosaries, performing works of personal charity. 
      But - according to Sister Joan Chittister, what if we would see Jesus suddenly turning away from the eager, hurting crowds to say personally to each one of us "And you, what will you do for these - simply stand there, looking on?" (from "The Time Is Now.") Jesus isn't talking to us about those first century crowds, now comfortably remote.  He's propelling us into the present, into the NOW, into the hurting crowds, the excruciating situations, facing our country and the world that we live in.
       We can't live authentic spiritual lives unless we are immersed in the life of Jesus, and living as Jesus lived, not only Jesus the Healer but Jesus the Prophet. Prayer and good works aren't enough. Jesus not only healed; Jesus also spoke and gave witness to the Will of God for the world. Giving persistent, courageous witness to God's Will for the world is the work of the prophet.
      The world accepts Christians praying  and receiving the sacraments and doing acceptable "good works." But the world rarely accepts the prophet, who speaks uncomfortable truths and calls for social transformation. Yet, that is God's Will for the World: for it to be transformed into a safe, nurturing place for all people, offering salvation for all people. Sister Joan says, "The fully Christian life is a blend of both. To opt for sacramental spirituality devoid of prophetic spirituality is to ignore half the Jesus message, half the Christian mandate, half the Christian life....The only question is, Will we take up what we know is our moral and spiritual responsibility: to make the world a better place for all, to bring to life the fullness of creation for all? To help bring about equality, safety, security, and compassion for all?"
      We aren't being prophets when we stay silent out in society and only  talk to God about the injustices and corruptions that are making us angry and fearful.
      Morning Prayer in the Breviary begins, "Lord, open my lips."
     That means three things.
      First, "LORD, open my lips." Lord, let me speak only what God desires me to speak, and be faithful to the Truth of the Word of God." 
       Secondly, "Lord, open MY lips." Lord, give ME the courage to open my lips to courageously speak Your Truth, wherever You send me.
​      And, third, Lord, OPEN MY LIPS!" Lord, I'm tired of standing still, doing nothing. Help me to speak out, to preach it, to teach it, the truth about what You desire for Your people, regardless of the consequences. Teach me how to live prophetic spirituality, which is "living out our faith on the streets of the world, rather than just talking about it." (Chittister).
      The prophet understands the power of holy tongues that speak with the Power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit teaches us the Truth about what in our culture leads to spiritual death, and helps us to Choose Life. Daniel Berrigan once said, "The prophet is one who speaks the truth to a culture of lies."  The prophet is that clear-eyed person who truly looks at what is going on in the U.S. culture and in the world and says both "no" and "yes."
​      "The prophet is the person who says no to everything that is not of God.
      "No to the abuse of women.
      "No to the rejection of the stranger.
​      "No to crimes against immigrants.
      "No to the rape of the trees.
      "No to the pollution of the skies.
      "No to the poisoning of the oceans.
     "No to the despicable destruction of humankind for the sake of more wealth, more power, more control for a few.
      "No to death....
      "And while saying no, the prophet also says yes.
      "Yes to equal rights for all.
      "Yes to alleviating suffering.
      "Yes to embracing the different.
      "Yes to who God made you.
      "Yes to life." (from "The Time is Now.")
​      Living as Jesus lived means putting on the mind and heart of Jesus the Christ. Jesus, the prophet, coming from a long line of Jewish prophets, always allied his mind and heart and will with the mind and heart and will of his heavenly Father - and then spoke out, even when this led to his rejection. In his August 2 meditation, Bishop Robert Barron says,
      "Friends, today in Matthew’s account of the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth, Christ refers to himself as a prophet.
      "In the Old Testament tradition, the prophet is a religious visionary and truth-teller. The great Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said that the prophet is someone who feels the feelings of God and then speaks out of that experience. He stubbornly reads the world through the lens of the word of God and speaks the divine truth. And this mission implies opposition, confrontation, and critique, since the keepers of worldly order are frequently looking through other lenses and listening to other words.
     "But Jesus is much more than one more prophet in a long line of prophets, one more speaker of the divine truth, one more reader of the divine word. Jesus is the Word made flesh; he is the Divine Truth in person."
      Jesus was rejected because people thought they knew him, and so said "Is this the carpenter's son?" People will reject us; they will say "What right does he or she have to speak out about these things? Who gives him/her authority?" 
But Jesus was speaking out for his Father, as we will be speaking out for our Father.
     If we are immersed, as Jesus the Christ, the Divine Truth, was, in knowing the mind, heart, and will of God our Father, we will speak with the power of God's own spiritual authority. We will see through the lies and cover-ups of those who speak and do evil. We will speak up for  and act for the people whom Jesus always spoke up for and acted for - the poor, naked, hungry, the leper, the widow, the orphan, the stranger.
      Sr. Joan, that clear-eyed prophet, knows that the prophet's role is to speak about justice and peace. She speaks of what she sees as the challenges of the prophet in the country and world today:
​      "Immigrants in dire straits are locked out of the United States. Members of Congress barely speak to their counterparts across the aisle, let alone feel required to respond to their needs. Long-standing international alliances are fracturing. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has raised its ugly head again after years of negotiation - even in countries long considered too small and remote to be a threat to anyone.... Alt-right and far-left political positions are dividing people everywhere, threatening local and global peace. A secure and stable national future for a global community can no longer be taken for granted....In our world, profit increases at a great rate and goes to those who are already secure, though wages at the bottom, where insecurity is a constant companion, seldom change. The working poor get a 'minimum wage,' never a living wage."
      We have a choice. Do we embrace the status quo, run away from conflict, or stay and embrace the spirituality of the prophet, ready to march into spiritual combat? Sr. Joan suggests one path for modern prophets to take: to join a like-minded community, those who are focusing on the issue or issues that most enflame your heart. (Hopefully, I've mentioned some.) Together you can learn the facts about the issues in order to present them fully and fairly. "The role of the prophetic community is to enable groups to study the issues, to become proficient in them, to take a specific, a particular stand for justice. 
      "Prophetic communities do a great deal more than pray. They study; they teach; they organize others; they add something of the things of God to the situation. They don't just complain about the poor; they do something to feed them....They lobby their legislators and leaders, their pastors and public agencies. They commit to doing something to change their world as well as to talk about it. 
       Prophets are patient and live in hope, for the present and the future. Chittister says, "The prophetic tradition is clear: We are not here simply to succeed today. The prophet will persist for as long as it takes to make the present what God intends it to be as well as to prepare the future to maintain it. We are here to seed the present with godliness so that others may someday reap the best of what we sowed...".the country, the world, needs you. God needs you, too." 
      In his August 2 meditation, Fr. Richard Rohr tells the story of a black woman  who finally was healed of her spiritual fears and self-doubts when she forced herself to encounter her greatest physical fear: a thunderstorm, and lightning:
      "Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871) was born into a free family in Pennsylvania. After a mystical encounter, she divorced her husband and became an itinerant preacher. She discovered the Shakers and eventually founded the first black Shaker community in Philadelphia. Jackson’s spiritual awakening was catalyzed by what Joy Bostic describes as an 'emotional and spiritual crisis' when Jackson faced her deep fear of lightning. Jackson wrote in her journal that, as she was praying in despair for the storm to end: 'The cloud bursted, the heavens was clear, and the mountain was gone. . . . And I rose from my knees, ran down stairs, opened the door to let the lightning in the house.'” (Rebecca Jackson, Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress, ed. Jean McMahon Humez (University of Massachusetts Press: 1981), 72.)
​      Jackson encountered the loving power of God in the storm, a power that transformed her so that she could freely share God with others. Her biographer Joy Bostic describes Jackson's spiritual transformation:
     "Within this mystical space, Jackson experiences intimacy with the divine and is overcome with feelings of peace and protection. . . . The obstacles and burdens that previously seemed to stand in her way vanish. . . . In fact, she writes, 'at every clap of thunder I leaped from the floor praising the God of my salvation.'  . . This ecstatic encounter consoles and frees her soul. The love and joy she feels wells up into a yearning that everyone in the world could experience that same love . . . particularly those whom Jackson believes have injured or wronged her. ."
      Sr. Joan Chittister speaks to each of us today - NOW. She says "the country, the world, needs you. God needs you, too." 
      And so, I ask you -
      Can you rise from your knees where you kneel praying over your despair about this world, and run down your stairs, and open the door of your soul to the healing, transforming Storm that is the Power, Majesty, and Love of God? Can you let God's Lightning, His Holy Spirit, into YOUR spiritual house? Can you open yourself to discovering God's peace and spiritual protection within that will be with you as you actively choose  to be a prophet? Can you allow the deep experience of the storm of God within to paradoxically free you, console you, even as you embrace the possibility of anger, criticism, shunning, and rejection from others?
      Let the lightning come. And then, ask
      LORD, open my lips.
      Lord, open MY lips.
      Lord, OPEN MY LIPS!!!
    
      I'll end this post where I began it, with the terrible and terrifying issue of gun violence, an issue with many causes, and a group of politicians who refuse to consider any political helps like expanding background checks, producing consistent gun control laws across the states, and banning assault weapons, the kinds that many bullet-proof vests cannot protect our children from. In the October 2, 2017 (2017!) issue of "America" magazine, Fr. James Martin wrote a prayer to God about gun violence, a prayer which is a perfect example of prophetic spirituality:
Almighty God,
I come before you,
once again,
after another shooting.
I am sad, God.
So I ask you
to receive into your loving care the souls of those who were killed,
to care for those who were wounded or hurt in any way,
to console the family members and friends of those who died or were wounded,
to strengthen the hands of the rescue workers, medical professionals and caregivers
I pray too for the shooter, as I must as a Christian.
All this makes me inexpressibly sad, God.
But I know that the sadness I feel is your sadness.
It is the same sadness your son expressed
when he wept over the death of
his friend Lazarus.
I know that the sadness I feel is your sadness.
I am tired, God.
I’m tired of the unwillingness to see this as an important issue.
I’m tired of those in power who work to prevent any real change.
I’m tired of those who say that gun violence can’t be reduced.
All this makes me tired.
But I know that the tiredness I feel is your tiredness.
It’s the same tiredness that Jesus felt after his own struggles against injustice
that led him to fall asleep on the boat with his disciples.
I am angry, God.
I’m angry at the seeming powerlessness of our community to prevent this.
I’m angry at the selfish financial interests who block change.
I’m angry that these shootings happen at all.
But I know that this anger is your anger
It’s the same anger Jesus felt when he overturned the tables in the Temple,
angry that anyone would be taken advantage of in any way.

Help me see in these feelings as the way that you move me to act.
Help me see in these emotions your own desire for change.
Help me see in these feelings your moving me to act.
Help me see in these reactions your pushing me to do something.
Because I know this is the way you move people to action.
And I know that you desire action.
For Jesus did not stand by while people were being hurt.
He plunged into their lives.
So help me to answer these questions:
How can I help?
How can I fight against gun violence?
How can I urge my political leaders to enact change?
How can I help people understand that this is
an issue about life?
I am sad over the loss of life,
tired of excuses for the loss of life,
and angry that we are paralyzed by the loss of life.
Turn my sadness into compassion. Turn my tiredness into advocacy.
So
Turn my sadness into compassion.
Turn my tiredness into advocacy.
Turn my paralysis into the freedom to act.
Help me
to be compassionate,
to advocate
and to act,
as your son did,
Almighty God.
​
THANK YOU, FR. MARTIN. AMEN - LET IT BE SO FOR ALL OF US!


      
 
 
     



     
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God and You: Make It Real!

7/30/2019

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      If we want to be Real about our relationships, we know that humility plays a huge role in creating bonds that are fulfilling, intimate, and long-lasting.
      We have to be humble to admit that we are not self-sufficient, that we need love to grow, that we aren't complete unless we have many loving people in our lives.
      We have to be humble to admit to the truth that we don't know all the sides to every question or situation, and that, in an argument, we need to be able to listen to the other person's truth. Truth also requires honesty, the ability to share our inmost thoughts and feelings in a relationship that is a nest, a safe place.
      We have to be humble to realize that, even though our egos want what they want when they want it, no relationship gives instant gratification.  Only persistent work at communication over a long period of time brings us relationships filled with security and peace. 
      And, we have to be humble to admit that only faithfulness, not straying away to other loves, can build deep, trusting relationships that are a foretaste of heaven.
      More than any other of our relationships, our relationship with God requires humility. Only having a humble heart opens us to acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient, that we are loved by a God Whose Presence in our lives is necessary for our very existence. We live immersed in God and God lives in the depths of us.  At every moment of our lives, God is sustaining us with love. James Finley, (photo below) husband, father, writer, and psychotherapist, gives us this image: Imagine if, at the count of three, God stopped loving you into your chair. At the count of three, your chair would be empty! To know and accept this is the deepest Wisdom.
 
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      Finley also says, "Closer to us than we are to ourselves, God is too close to see. God is the heart of our heart, the hope of our hopes, the love of our love, the ground of our being.
     "Where must we go to see God? Nowhere! What can we do to have God? Nothing! All we can do, at least for a moment (an eternal moment) is to abandon all doing and be who we are in God and open ourselves to God’s life within us. It is then that we will at once see God and ourselves in a unity of divine love."
(from the website of the Center for Action and Contemplation, under the theme of "Heaven Now," "The Gate of Heaven," posted by Finley on May 2, 2019.)
      Humility in our relationship with God also opens us to the Truth that we don't know everything, we don't know all the sides to every situation. Only the Truth of God's Word can enlighten our hearts - the Word of Scripture, and the words and actions of Jesus the Word. How often do we read Scripture prayerfully, letting God's Word, God's Voice, penetrate our consciousness? Are we disciples of Jesus, following him daily?
      A truthful relationship with God can also open us to the Truth about ourselves. How Real and Transparent are we with God about what we are thinking and how we are feeling? Sure, God knows everything about us, but knowing that  is different from willingly sharing who we are with God. We can choose to make everything we are thinking and feeling a prayer to God by saying, "God, please give me Your truth, wisdom, and insight, because this is what I am thinking, these are the angry, rebellious, unkind feelings I am having, about this person/situation." If then we are quiet, open, and listen, God will give us new insights into the situations and persons who are filling us with such anguish, anger, and frustration.
      Further, we know that, in certain situations, we need to have an honest conversation with someone, one that could be filled with tension. Now we need to pray, asking God, "Please give me the wisdom, insight, and love to choose and use the right words. I need to be courageous and honest, and stand up for Truth, but I don't want to alienate others either."
​      Persistence is also key to our relationship with God. If we are Real, we can humbly admit that sometimes we are ready to give up on God because we pray and pray but it seems as if God doesn't answer our prayers, or we get an answer, and it's not the one we want. It seems as if God has become silent in our relationship. And, self-involved as we are, we want Instant Gratification! But, it is not true that God turns a deaf ear. God is always listening  always acting.  The Truth of Scripture and the meditations of seasoned Pray- ers like Pope Francis can help us to build up trust in God and God's way of answering prayers. 
      Pope Francis teaches us that prayer is not a "magic wand." Our prayers of petition aren't meant to change God; they are meant to change us. As we pray for ourselves or for another, holding who they are in our hearts, God's insights can help us understand them and their needs better, and teach us patience. First, we trust that God loves them even more than we do; then we end our prayers by placing them trustfully in God's hands. And, we need persistence and boldness in prayer; only then can God mold us, and transform us and our loved ones, making us "new." Persist in communicating honestly with God in prayer, the Pope says, even if what we ask for requires our lifetime!
     The Parable of the Unjust Judge, in the Gospel of Luke,  can also be called the Parable of the Persistent Widow. In the parable, the bold persistence of a widow forces the unjust judge to grant her request for justice, “so that she will not eventually wear [him] out.” (​Lk 18: 1-8).
​      In discussing the Parable, Pope Francis says, “Widows, together with orphans and foreigners, were the most vulnerable groups of society. The rights secured to them by the Law could be easily trampled upon because, being alone and helpless, it was difficult for them to avail themselves: A poor widow, there, alone, no one to defend her, she could be ignored, even denied justice; thus also with the orphan, the foreigner, the migrant…at that time this was a very great problem.”
     The Holy Father said the widow in the parable used the only weapon she had: Her persistence is presenting her request for justice, “and this persistence achieved its goal. If the widow can bend the will of the Unjust Judge, then God, who is “a good and just Father,” will “do justice to those who cry out to him day and night.”
      “All of us experience moments of fatigue and discouragement, especially when our prayers seem ineffective,” Pope Francis said. “But Jesus assures us: unlike the unjust judge, God promptly answers his children, although this does not mean he does it in the time and manner that we would like. Prayer is not a magic wand!” – continued the Pope – “It helps to preserve our faith in God, and to trust in Him even when we do not comprehend His will. In this, Jesus himself – who prayed so much! – is the example.”
     Pope Francis gives the example of Our Lord’s honest prayer at Gethsemane, where he prayed for the Father to “deliver him from the bitter cup of the passion.”
       “But his prayer is permeated by faith in the Father, and Jesus trusts without restraint in His will: But – says Jesus – not as I will, but as you will,” Pope Francis explained.
      “The goal of the prayer is of secondary importance; what matters above all is the relationship with the Father,” – the Pope continued – “This is what makes the prayer transform the desire and shape it according to the will of God, whatever it may be, because the person who prays first of all aspires to union with God, who is Merciful Love.”
      "We’ve all experienced this — how many times have we knocked and found a closed door?”  Francis asked. “In those moments, Jesus recommends that we insist and not give up. Prayer always transforms the reality — always. If the things around us don’t change, at least we change, our heart changes. Jesus has promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to every man and every woman who prays."
      If it is hard to remain faithful in human relationships, it is also hard to remain faithful to God through the discipline of constant prayer, constant communication, constant acknowledgement that God is our All in All. Always, when we are faithful in loving God, God asks us to be faithful in loving others. Here our very actions in our relationships with others is our prayer. 
      A great example of holy faithfulness in our relationships are the loving actions of  Blessed Fr. Stanley Rother  (Born: 3/27/1935, ordained: 5/25/1963, Martyred: 7/28/1981) 
      A young priest from Oklahoma, he went to serve in Guatemala, where he served and lived among a native tribe who are descendants of the Mayans. He learned both Spanish and their native dialect so he could celebrate Mass in their native language.  He was loved by the poor people, and, coming from a farming background, he helped them practically in many ways, including devising an irrigation system and even treating them medically. The repressive, right-wing Guatemalan Government was ordering priests to be murdered because they were standing up for the rights of the people. Rother knew his life was in danger. But he stayed, faithful to the last, because he believed God wanted him there to be God's merciful Face, Voice, Hands, and Feet.  
      On the morning of July 28, 1981, gunmen broke into Rother’s rectory and he was shot to death. He was one of ten priests killed in Guatemala that year.
     “The reality is that we are in danger. But we don’t know when or what form the government will use to further repress the Church…. Given the situation, I am not ready to leave here just yet… But if it is my destiny that I should give my life here, then so be it.... I don’t want to desert these people, and that is what will be said, even after all these years. There is still a lot of good that can be done under the circumstances.”—Blessed Stanley Rother
      Fr. Rother's example can steady and inspire us when things can tough, at home, or at the office, or parish, or in relationships, and when we feel like leaving, even though, when we are honest with ourselves, we know we should stay. He can also inspire us when we contemplate the injustices in our society and know it's time to courageously stand up for the rights of others.
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      The Big Question is, How "REAL" is your relationship with God, your prayer-life with God? How  much of your heart have you given over to God? Realize that it takes a lifetime to humbly and honestly pull the last weeds of egotism and self-interest out of our hearts and then fill those empty spaces  with God. It takes a lifetime to have the courage and humility to fully live the most all-encompassing, challenging, surprising, fulfilling relationship of our lives, the relationship with our Divine Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Good Shepherd and Redeemer, our Sanctifier and Life-Giver. God fills all our hungers, all our needs, with God's Self Alone.
      Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman (December 29, 1937 – March 30, 1990) was a majestic Pray-er in the American Catholic Church. The U.S. bishops endorsed the sainthood cause of Sister Thea Bowman on Nov. 14, 2018, during their fall assembly in Baltimore. The granddaughter of slaves, she was the only African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and she transcended racism to leave a lasting mark on U.S. Catholic life in the late 20th century. 
​ 
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Sr. Thea said these wonderful words of praise of God:
 “God is present in everything. In the universe, in creation, in me and all that happens to me, in my brothers and sisters, in the church, and in the Eucharist—everywhere....
"God is bread when you’re hungry, water when you’re thirsty, a harbor from the storm. God’s father to the fatherless, a mother to the motherless. God’s my sister, my brother, my leader, my guide, my teacher, my comforter, my friend. God’s the way-maker and burden-bearer, a heart-fixer and a mind-regulator. God’s my doctor who never lost a patient, my lawyer who never lost a case, my captain who never lost a battle. God’s my all in all, my everything.
      "God’s my rock, my sword, my shield, my lily of the valley, my pearl of great price. God’s a god of peace and a god of war. Counselor, Emmanuel, Redeemer, Savior, Prince of Peace, Son of God, Mary’s little baby, wonderful Word of God." (from “Thea Bowman: A Gift to the Church,” Modern Spiritual Masters: Writings on Contemplation and Compassion, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Orbis Books: 2008), 133.)
      St. Elizabeth Seton said it so well: "The gate of heaven is low, only the humble can enter it." Do we think we have it all together in our relationship with God, or do we humbly realize that this most important relationship of ours needs daily tending and growth?  If you want to have a REAL relationship with God, remember these important aspects of this relationship that need the discipline of daily prayer:

1) Be Open to Love. God is the One Who chose you to exist and keeps you in existence - out of overwhelming, all-encompassing Love. Can you humbly accept the reality that you are not self-sufficient, that you need God, Who is Love Itself? God Who is our All in All, our Everything?

2) Be Open to Truth. Jesus says, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Can you humbly admit that only God Who is Truth can enlighten your mind and heart to understand Truth, all sides of the Truth? That you need to prayerfully read, know, and understand the Truth of Scripture, and be a disciple of the Truth Who is Jesus the Word, his words and actions? Can you humbly ask God to accept the Truth of all your thoughts and feelings, even the negative ones, and ask Him to enlighten you further with wisdom and insight in your relationships and tense situations and arguments with others?

3) Be Open to Trustful Persistence: God expects you to communicate your petitions over and over, with trustful persistence, as the widow boldly petitioned the Unjust Judge. That Judge listened to the woman, and granted her request. God is not unjust - God is our Loving Father. Can we humbly trust that God hears our prayers and responds, even if it takes a long time or our prayers are answered in unexpected, maybe even unwanted ways? Can we allow our prayers to enlarge and deepen our hearts, and believe that our prayers can also help to transform others?

4) Be Open to Faithfulness: Our God is a faithful God to us, to our ancestors, to all who will come after us. God asks us to be faithful in our relationship with Him through the discipline of prayer, which is daily loving communication with Him,  and faithful in our relationships with others, which is also a discipline of communication and caring. 

​      If we live in this way, open to God Who is All-Love, open to God Who is our Way, Truth, and Life, open to being trustfully persistent in prayer, open to being faithful in our relationship with God and in all our other important relationships which God has placed in our lives, then we will experience a foretaste of Heaven. As James Finley says, "Where must we go to see God? Nowhere! What can we do to have God? Nothing! All we can do, at least for a moment (an eternal moment) is to abandon all doing and be who we are in God and open ourselves to God’s life within us. It is then that we will at once see God and ourselves in a unity of divine love."



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    Mary C. Weisenburger

    BIOGRAPHY
    I've loved to write since I was twelve years old. The smells of fresh paper and ink galvanized me! Now I'm galvanized by the sight of a keyboard. Short stories were fun; then I wrote poetry at Sacred Heart Academy, and Rosary Hill College.  By the time I attended Christ the King Seminary, my friend Kathy Sutter and I co-wrote two musicals, "ACTS" and "Hadassah", and Kath began the Alden Christian Theater Society.  My husband, Paul, is a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, New York, whom I met through our mutual loves of words and music - in singing, acting and writing.  We have five children ( all into music, drama, dancing, and writing), eleven grand-children, and numerous siblings and cousins.  One of our sons died two years ago; his loss confronted me with how precious the gifts of relationships and time are. My great loves are reading, especially murder mysteries, writing (I'm currently writing a murder mystery), doing crossword puzzles, traveling, and most especially visiting our family and friends throughout the Diocese and country. 

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