But, rather then hide our heads in the sand, and run from the pain, we need to listen to that rousing Easter cry: "Christ IS Risen, Alleluia!" Not "Christ WAS risen - once." But, "Christ IS risen, for all times and all places, until the end of time when He will come again in glory and reconcile everything in His person, unite all of creation in His own Mystical Body." Christ still rejoices; Christ still suffers; Christ still dies; Christ is still resurrected every day, in all creation and in all His people. Christ, through the working of His Holy Spirit in us, still seeks to bring resurrection, new life, through us: to heal, to reconcile, to bring home the lost, to rebuild individuals, countries, churches.
So, rather than run from the pain, we can trust God's power and run INTO the pain, hold the pain, experience pain ourselves, knowing that Christ waits for us there, for two reasons. First, Christ is calling us - yes, us - to heal wounds, unite what has fallen apart, and bring home those who have lost their way. Today, Christ chooses to work through us! And, secondly, when we listen attentively to those hurting voices, to their stories, we can also see, in faith, how Christ is already at work, bringing new life and light into the darkness and shattering of their lives.
So, what voices do we hear? Many nations are plagued with war, famine, poverty, and disease. So many people are fleeing violent countries and have literally nowhere to go where they and their families can lead safe, productive lives. One in three people in the world suffer from religious persecution, and Christians are the most persecuted group. In fact, the persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near-genocide levels. Christianity faces being wiped out from parts of the Middle East.
Nearer to home, in the U.S. there is a verbal civil war going on between Republicans and Democrats, with some fearing a coming actual civil war. Some call it a battle for the soul of America. Neither party, while abounding in Christians, holds the moral high ground. Neither party seems able to build a national community that respects all facets of morality, religious freedom, and racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. The constitutionally established balance of political power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government is being attacked. Jim Wallis, Editor of "Sojourners" magazine, says "Faith is now at stake. Democracy is now at stake. Personal integrity is now at stake."
Creation is groaning because it is also under attack, by those who lie to themselves and others and deny the reality of climate change in order to protect their vested financial interests. For instance, Journalist Beth Gardiner, author of "Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution,"observes that only 5 percent of the world's population breathes clean air, with sources like tailpipe emissions, coal-fired power plants, and Big Agriculture responsible for one out of every nine deaths. Even the great economic and job growth in the U.S. right now comes at the staggering price of this administration lifting the regulations that had been in place to protect our air, ground, and water through constant monitoring of businesses. There HAS to be a saner, more responsible way to balance job needs and our very lives.
There are powerful, hurting voices sounding in the Catholic Church. Writer Jessica Messman is grieving, questioning everything that she has believed. She says, "My mother died when I was fourteen and took my whole world with her. But this feels different. I am grieving not a single person but the pain of others- literally thousands of abuse victims....I no longer trust the rails I was riding, the institutions that I once so firmly believed in, to be my guides." As a writer to whom God has given the gift of words, she wonders "Do I have anything left to offer?" ( in "Deeper into Mystery," "America" magazine, Spring, 2019.)
Associate Professor of theological studies Cecelia Gonzales-Andrieu is also mourning. She says, "The story of the dysfunction of the Catholic Church as an institution is now the subject of multiple investigations and copious news coverage worldwide. Tragically at issue is not just the sexual abuse of minors by clergy or the exploitation of women religious or the exclusion of women from positions of authority and oversight or denying women full use of their gifts. We are now confronting all of this together....In the eyes of the world the church has lost much of its moral authority." ( in "# Mine Too," in "America" magazine, April 29, 2019.)
Jesus is tortured and dying thoughout our world today. Can we have the courage of Mary of Magdala? Mary of Magdala didn't run from the pain of Christ's torture and execution; she stayed at the foot of the cross. She found out where Christ's tomb was, and went there to clean and anoint his dead body: what courage did that take! Because she literally embraced His pain, Christ favored her by personally appearing to her. Because she loved Him, stood in solidarity with Him, she was able to hear His Voice, telling her that He was alive and sending her to be His messenger. She is known today as the Apostle to the Apostles.
But, you say, Mary of Magdala was a Hero! You and I perhaps feel more like James the Less, the Youngest, the apostle who was one of the Twelve, but remained so obscure that no one wrote down who he was or his life story. We know he was with Jesus at the key points of His life, but there are no words or deeds of his in Scripture beyond the fact that he followed Jesus. And, Who was Jesus? Knowing Who Jesus was and is remains key to knowing who we are.
Bishop Robert Barron, in his Daily Scripture reflection for May 3, says,
"Friends, today we read the wonderful and mysterious passage from the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel. The disciples are gathered around Jesus at the Last Supper, abiding in intimacy with him, asking questions and seeking wisdom.
"Then listen to Jesus’ words: 'If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.' Paul refers to Jesus as the 'icon of the invisible God.' What both Jesus and Paul are saying is that Jesus’ words are the Father’s words and his deeds are the Father’s deeds.
"Philip, one of the first disciples chosen, still doesn’t get this. He says, 'Master, show us the Father.' What he missed was the humility of the Logos: 'The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.' Neither the words nor the deeds of Jesus are 'his own.' They are received from the Father."
Do you know what struck me most forcefully when I read this? If Christ truly calls us to be His messengers, calls us to be Christ-like, then this is how we are to feel, think, and act! Christ calls us to be Icons of the Invisible God! Our words and deeds, like Christ's, are to be the Father's words and deeds. We are to be humble, acknowledging that we are not out for ourselves, or our own glory. When people see us, we are to be windows, reflecting not ourselves but the glory of the Father's Love shining from within us.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, we can rest in the Father's Will, asking to leave our own egos behind so that day, by day, we can say with greater purity and clarity, "The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father Who dwells in me is doing his works." It doesn't matter if we are Heroes like Mary of Magdala or Peter or Paul. It's fine to live a quiet, obscure life like James the Lesser. What matters is that we are Icons of the Invisible God.
When we are opening our hearts to greater and greater depths, we cease drowning out the world's sorrows with our I Phones and I Tunes. We live our lives attuned to the Father's Will, so that we embrace our own responsibilities, joys, and sorrows, but also leave room in our hearts for God's little ones who are helpless. We engage with the greater currents of world, country, and church history, knowing that much rests on our own shoulders, our own prayers, our own attitudes, our own words and acts. The Gospels are filled with a multitude of stories of Christ's resurrection appearances. In each story, Christ talks to people as individuals, challenges them as individuals, calls them as individuals to become unique signs, Icons, of Him in this world. So He is calling you!
We can deepen our faith by listening attentively to these stories of the hurting and see how the resurrected Christ is already at work in them. Each one is a passionate individual, ignited by his/her own God-given visions and understandings.
In Iraq, Archbishops, priests, and laity struggle courageously to survive, overcome, rebuild. Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Bashar Warda still struggles to raise international awareness of the plight of Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq. He was in Washington in December 20128 to witness the signing of legislation that would send more U.S. humanitarian aid directly to nongovernmental organizations and church-based communities struggling to rebuild, thereby by-passing Iraq's central government. Ordinary civilians, with profound spiritual resiliency, want to stay where their families, friends, and churches are. Warda says, "The Christians who remain to rebuild must accept life here as a vocation." The Holy Spirit is still stirring here, bringing new, resurrected life out of the chaos and destruction of war and persecution.....(from Kevin Clarke, "After Isis," in "America" magazine, April 29, 2019.)
Regarding the battle for the soul of our country, Jim Wallis urges us to keep battling: "While politics has famously been described by some as 'the art of the possible,' we need to push candidates and politicians to speak with prophetic imagination about what is possible, even as we also need to push them to back up their vision with details, solutions, and a commitment to follow through.
"As Christians committed to social justice, we are not called to merely put our fingers up in the air to detect which way the wind is blowing, as so many politicians and candidates do. We are instead called to change the wind." ("Sojourners" editorial, May 2019.)
Mourning the collapse of creation, Randy Woodley, an Indigenous Christian, says that Christians can't leave environmental protection and regrowth in the hands of well-meaning secular environmentalists because they can sometimes simply use the earth without deeply loving the earth as sacred creation. He says that Christians can learn from Indigenous peoples who understand that "Instead of a relationship where nature is below us, we should be stewarding with, or co-sustaining all creation."
He says that Indigenous peoples and all Christians understand that "Creation exists because of a Creator. Life is intrinsically valuable because it is a gift from the Creator, and therefore, it is sacred, meaning that sacred purpose is crucial to our existence. The role of human beings is unique, and humans relate to the rest of creation uniquely. This includes restoring harmony through gratitude, reciprocity, and ceremony between the Creator, humans, and all other parts of creation....Harmony....is about how life operates and the only way that life can continue, if life is to be lived as the Creator intends." The Holy Spirit is stirring, bringing new resurrected life in the midst of horror and despair over the ravages of global climate change....(Randy Woodley, "The Fullness Thereof," "Sojourners" magazine, May 2019)
Jessica Messman, still disoriented by her grief over sexual abuse in the church, has found new hope in meditating on C.S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed," the Anglican theologian's honest, raw revelation of his anger as he grieved the death of his beloved wife. She says, "'A Grief Observed' remains powerful precisely because Lewis does not come to lovely conclusions about his God or his religion or his suffering. He asks many more questions than he answers. He rants, questions, weeps, and feels terrible, deservedly sorry for himself and for the woman he loved so much and has now lost. And, in doing so, he renders in prose what it really feels like to grieve."
In confronting her anger and grief, Messman realizes that she cannot evade this suffering; like Lewis, she can only walk through the raging fire. And her vocation to write is still with her. "...While I've called so much into question, I still experience art as another path to God....Art is not bread, and it won't save us, but it can be another kind of food that helps people to thrive, if not survive. And I think that means that artists, imbued by the creator with the ability and desire to create, have an obligation to do so.....If I am going to continue as an artist, as a person of faith, I need to rebuild my imagination, or at least expand it significantly." The Holy Spirit is still at work, teaching Messman how to rebuild her shattered life, her solid yet evolving vocation....
Cecelia Gonzales-Andrieu, disillusioned by the Church's treatment of women, turns to the community of other Catholic women and listens and shares with them why they all continue to stay in the Catholic Church instead of dropping out like a lot of other "Dones." Her community gives her hope! She offers these insights, among others, that she believes can heal the church:
"Be church....Shannon Green, who works with college students asks, "What makes good church? We need to refocus on church as People of God, as radical hospitality, as pilgrims, as humble, vulnerable disciples who lay down our lives in radical friendship for our neighbor."
"Honor the Incarnation. The theologian Nancy Pineda-Madrid points out that the church today needs critical self-awareness. While the church is infused by God's grace, it also commits sin. "I remain Catholic," she says, "because, as a theologian, I have spent my life seriously studying this tradition and, in the process, have gained an ever-increasing appreciation of its enormous treasure. What we believe is extraordinary: we believe in the incarnation of the divine in human flesh, which is the greatest expression of God's love for every human being. Wrestling with our beliefs will transform us and our world."
Show up and act: One of Andreiu's friends, a religious sister, shared her grief and said, "my first loyalty is to Jesus Christ and to being a faithful disciple during these difficult times. I can only answer for my own actions, my own beliefs, my own response to the needs and the people I encounter each day. So I will continue to 'show up' as a Catholic and affirm my identity and my vocation." The Holy Spirit is alive in these faithful women, giving them hope that each in her own life can help heal, unify, and rebuild the Church.
A woman friend, Cheryl Calire, who with her husband runs a home for pregnant, unwed girls in Buffalo, N.Y., (the St. Gianna Molla Home) and is there for every delivery, rejoicing, posted this quote on Facebook:
" ...So few hear the cry of the poor or respond to the plight of the disadvantaged. If we are going to be true children of our Father, his values must become our own, his lost sheep must become our quest. Let's help others around us who are in need find that when they call to God, they are not forgotten. Let's be his delivery system of grace." ~from Daily Verse.
As the saints remind us, it's not the "size" of the ministry we do, it's the amount of love we do it with. If we live compassionately - with passion - we will embrace the Passion of the Lord as it is being played out in the lives of the people around us, and by delving deep into their pain - which is His Pain - we will rediscover the Power of His Resurrection, glimpsed in the new life each person can find in Him through us. And, it can happen in an instant...
A personal story.....I try to remember to wear a cross every day. Sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes I feel like I'm just "showing off." But in this increasingly paganized culture, I believe in the value of being a sign. Maybe I should say an Icon.
Paul and I were in Wegman's the other day. We traveled into the baking aisle and a young man stopped us. "You'll help me,"he said. Just like that. "You're a believer, aren't you," he said, looking at the Franciscan cross around my neck.
"Yes," I said, noticing his own cross.
We exchanged names. His was Danny.
"I'm going through radiation and chemo," Danny said, explaining that he was suffering mental fuzziness. We could see that he'd had facial surgery, and Paul discussed his cancer with him for a few minutes. He was so young.... I felt tears welling up because of the memories he brought back of our own children's bouts with cancer, chemo, and radiation. His mental disorientation and tiredness were so familiar, too familiar.
Danny asked Paul what the best salt would be to use in a mouthwash. Paul pointed it out to him after looking at his instructions. Paul asked Danny if he'd like a blessing and he was overcome, almost cried. "This is God," he said. "Whenever I need something, God sends people into my life to help me."
I was overcome by his faith and courage and told him so. Later, as Danny wandered another aisle, I brought him back to the Baking aisle for baking soda, and traced a cross on his forehead.
It took hundreds of years for Notre Dame Cathedral to be built. Many, many of those humble artisans would never see this great work of art completed, but they labored on, humbly conscious that they were only small stones being built into the mighty edifice which was Christ's Body. Those who start rebuilding this cathedral today will probably never live to see the results of the rebuilding. This is our life story too. We are believers, disciples, Christ-bearers, Icons of Christ, called to go out into a hurting world with complete faith that God wants to heal, unite, reconcile, rebuild other lives and the world itself through us. Even when we won't see the final results while we live on this earth!
Like the individual believers whose lives I have described, even in the midst of our own personal chaos and the chaos of other's lives, we can still be passionate about our faith, passionate about our individual vocation, passionate about others, willing to be flooded with the hope of the radiant Holy Spirit.
Like Mary of Magdala, we can choose to mourn ourselves, wade into pain instead of running away from it, and so be ready to hear Christ's Voice, announcing the great joy and promise of His Resurrection in His Life and our own lives, and personally calling us to our own unique vocation and ministry.
We can strive to be alive and awake to God's Voice in the sorrows, boredoms, joys, and responsibilities of our daily lives.
We can strive to actively "change the wind" to the Wind of the Holy Spirit in our country.
We can strive to enlarge our hearts to bear the burdens of our unknown brothers and sisters across the globe.
We can mourn for and embrace our globe, our Mother Earth who is suffering and helpless.
We can strive to Be Church. Offer radical hospitality humbly to others, in touch with our own vulnerability.
We can strive to Honor the Incarnation, our extraordinary belief in the incarnation of the Divine in human flesh, which is the greatest expression of God's love for every human being. And we shouldn't be afraid to wrestle with God as Jessica Messman and C.S. Lewis also so wisely and honestly point out.
And we can strive to Always Show Up. Our first loyalty is to Jesus! Can we strive every day to empty ourselves further, grow humbler, so that instead of seeking our own glory, we too can become Icons of the invisible God? Can we finally say with our lives and our words, "The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father Who dwells in me is doing His works"?
May our lives and words always proclaim "Christ IS Risen, Alleluia!"