Risen as Crucified

After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples with his wounds, not with his body miraculously restored, as if he had never been wounded (which of course is the way we would usually like our own wounds to be healed – in such a way that we have no bodily or spiritual scars).

I would like to share with you a few thoughts on the Resurrection from James Alison’s book Raising Abel*; for Alison finds it crucial that Jesus was “risen as crucified.” The risen Jesus, he says “didn’t appear to his disciples just as someone who had been dead, but was now better and risen….In contrast to this, the risen Jesus was dead.”

The risen Jesus was dead? Doesn’t this contradict everything we have been taught about the Resurrection? Then we remember that unlike Jesus, the raised Lazarus was not dead. He had been returned to life – and so would have to die again.

Alison continues,

But that death is nothing but a vacant form for God, something whose reality has been utterly emptied out, which can only be detected in the form of its traces in the human story of someone who has overcome death.

The marks, then, of Jesus’ death were something like trophies: it was his whole human life, including his death, which was made alive and presented before the disciples as a sign that he had in fact conquered death.

The risen Jesus was dead, but this death no longer had substance – it was “nothing but a vacant form for God.” It was empty of any death-reality and filled with God.

“Whatever death is,” says Alison,” it is not something which has to structure every human life from within (as in fact it does), but rather it is an empty shell, a bark without a bite. None of us has any reason to fear being dead, something which will unquestionably happen to all of us, since that state cannot separate us effectively from the real source of life.”

“Peace be with you,” says Jesus to the disciples hidden and trembling behind locked doors on the first day of the week. Then he shows them his wounds and says once again, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19-21).

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, 
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

(1 Corinthians 1:18,25)

__________

* Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination, 28-31.

 

March 2008

---

Being Led Where We Want to Go

“I suppose she’s intelligent enough...” 
 
The voice I overheard was talking about me.
 
“…but she couldn’t even find St. John’s Mercy Hospital.”
 
I recognized the speaker, as I had given her an ill-fated ride the day before. And yes, it’s true, I have what seems to be a genetic propensity for getting lost. At least I call it genetic. (Anne Tyler, in The Accidental Tourist, called the condition “geographical dyslexia.”) On the other hand, some people think that if I just concentrated, I wouldn’t have the problem at all. And others, like the owner of the voice speaking above, simply take my inability to navigate as a sign of mental deficiency. 
 
Symptoms:

• I have been known to drive for a half hour on the interstate in the wrong direction. 

• The words, “You can’t miss it,” send me into quivers. 

• After giving up searching and telephoning for directions, I have had to admit that I had no idea where I was calling from (seriously hindering the direction-giver). 

• I find highway signs woefully inadequate, disappearing just when I need them. 

On the spiritual journey, however, there is a sense in which most of us, left to our own devices, are directionally challenged. The way is fraught with puzzling intersections and foggy back roads and trackless wastelands where we long for a GPS or a printout from Mapquest. 
 
But happily, and often in spite of ourselves, we are being led, even when the haze appears so dense or the night so obscure that we can’t see our hands before our faces. And amazingly enough, we are being guided not just to where we ought to be, but to where we want to be. 
 
The beautiful Latin verses of St. Thomas Aquinas, which we know as “Panis Angelicus,” end with this prayer:

Per tuas semitas 
Duc nos quo tendimus,
Ad lucem quam inhabitas. 

"Lead us," we pray, "along your paths…" — 

Lead us through everything: 

• through interior struggles, through joy and pain, through knowledge and unknowing…

• through prayer, in the body and blood of Christ (panis angelicus: bread of angels), to the divine life of Christ that we receive and are called to live… 

• from indifference to love, from judging to compassion, from violence to peace... 

Lead us along your paths, because our own roads tend to get us lost. 
 
"Lead us where we want to go," continues the prayer, in the direction we are already leaning, if we are paying attention to our heart's longing.
 
Lead us "to the light wherein you dwell."
 
Where we are being led is indeed where we want to be. The goodness of God leads us, not to some desolate wasteland where we will still be wandering around hunting for a highway marker, nor even to a faraway or foreign land, but to the very place for which we were made and for which our hearts long: to the Light that is God’s dwelling and our home.
_____

P.S. There are many renditions of Cesar Franck's "Panis Angelicus" on YouTube, performed by the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Placido Domingo. Unfortunately, Franck's version uses only one verse of Aquinas' hymn, omitting the words cited above. 

March 2008

---

Mercy Like the Air

“Oh, Mercy! … Wherever I turn my thoughts,
I find nothing but mercy.”
(St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogues 30)

Dear God,

Your mercy is like the air to me. I breathe mercy, I walk through mercy, I get up in the morning and go to bed at night wrapped in your mercy.

While my own hold on you is tenuous, your hold on me is solid and unbreakable. You are merciful when I am unmindful of you. You are merciful when I am clinging, not to you, but to past wrongdoing. You are merciful, even when my heart is filled with violence and vengeance.

Yet if I am unmerciful, does that not mean that I have refused to welcome your divine mercy, which is life to me? When I am unmerciful, am I not then making my own air less breathable? Am in not in danger of asphyxiation?

And so in your presence I breathe deeply, and I continue to pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.

(Psalm 103:8-12) 

February 2008

---

Bottled Tears

When I was a small child, our milk was delivered in real glass bottles — a fact which divulges my olden-days’ origins. These bottles were recycled by the dairy, and were useful in many ways. 

When at the age of four or five I would indulge in a bout of inconsolable weeping – sometimes because I had skinned a knee, other times because my feelings were hurt, but more often because something had made me mad – my father would say, “Wait a minute! Let me get a milk bottle to catch those tears.”

And off he would go to the kitchen.

Have you ever tried to have a satisfying cry while someone is holding a bottle under your chin? This is especially frustrating if you are hoping to elicit sympathy.

At the time I didn’t know about Psalm 56, where the psalmist complains to God that “people trample on me.” The situation causes him not only distress, but tears. He finds comfort, however, in God's attentiveness:

You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record? 
(56:8)

While the purpose of the milk bottle was to get me laughing or at least to distract me from whatever had made me sad or angry, the bottle in this psalm, I believe, assures us that our tears are important to God. Our sorrow is engraved in the divine heart. We can be confident that we are neither forgotten nor abandoned in our pain. I don't believe it is too strong to say that our tears are mingled with God’s own tears – for us, for the poor, for the oppressed, for the hungry and the abused – tears that will flow until that day when “mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). 

January 2008

---

Empty Sky?

The astronomers of centuries past – Ptolemaeus, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, not to mention those Persian or Babylonian sky-watchers we call the Magi – would be astonished and awed by what modern science shows us of the cosmos. (If you haven’t done it already, you might want to browse through NASA’s Image Gallery.) What a boon the Hubble Telescope has proven to be, after its rocky beginnings.

Between Sept. 24, 2003, and January 16, 2004, the Hubble focused on a patch of largely “empty” space. What appeared is known as the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field,” and it is something the mind strains to grasp – around 10,000 galaxies heretofore invisible to the human eye.

Coming back to earth, I ask what it would be like to turn our attention toward our own “empty” space — not for several months, but for a few minutes at a time, and not with a view toward analysis, but simply with a loving gaze? 

It is unfortunately true, however, that our society does not encourage the honoring of our empty space. It is both easier and more acceptable to fill up every vacant nook, every idle moment, with purposeful activity, or (still easier) with television or surfing the internet. 

Are we afraid of being swallowed up in the void? Perhaps. I believe this is a natural fear. Blaise Pascal, in his Pensées, expressed succinctly what we may feel:

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
(Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.)

The Hubble directed its focus toward the vastness of outer space and revealed thousands of galaxies. Is it possible that as we gaze peacefully into our interior space, we will find that the silence and the emptiness are filled, not with galaxies, but with God?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?...
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(Psalm 8:3-4, 9)

January 2008

---

All Shall Be Well

During breakfast, I learn from the morning paper:

• that there are about 118,000 vacancies for registered nurses in the United States;
• that the baby of a pregnant woman has died after his mother was kidnapped and set on fire;
• that soldiers in the army of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, had been known to eat the hearts of enemies they had killed;
• that the world food supply is dwindling. 

Then I remember that on Christmas we going to hear that the angels proclaimed, some 2000 years ago: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” We might well wonder what happened. 

Standing boldly against the daily news reports is the testimony of some of our wise Christian thinkers and mystics, for example:

Josef Pieper (a 20th century follower of Saint Thomas Aquinas), writes in Happiness and Contemplation.

How splendid is water, a rose, a tree, an apple, a human face—such exclamations can scarcely be spoken without also giving tongue to an assent and affirmation which extends beyond the object praised and touches upon the origin of the universe. Who among us has not suddenly looked into his child’s face, in the midst of the toils and troubles of everyday life, and at that moment “seen” that everything which is good, is loved and lovable, loved by God! Such certainties all mean, at bottom, one and the same thing: that the world is plumb and sound; that everything comes to its appointed goal; that in spite of all appearances, underlying all things is—peace, salvation, gloria; that nothing and no one is lost; that “God holds in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is.” [Plato, Laws, 715e.]

In the 14th century, Julian of Norwich hears the consoling and mysterious words:

Sin is behovely [fitting, useful], but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

And surpassing all other testimony is that of our own beloved Scriptures: 

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.  (Psalm 138:8)

Which is true? 

Is the world an irredeemable mess where sin and sorrow are the ultimate truth? 

Or is the promise of peace and goodwill on earth true? Can I believe that God will fulfill the divine purpose for me and that everything comes to its appointed goal? 

We read in the gospel that the kingdom of God is among us. But we are also told to pray for the coming of the kingdom of God. We know that Jesus is here with us — and yet we still call out, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

The problem is that we live in the mystery of the already and the not yet; and this is so both in our own personal lives and in the world around us.

Nevertheless, I believe that at times God gives us the grace to glimpse the already through the not yet. We may glimpse it in terms of goodness, like the Cenacle co-founder Saint Therese Couderc — or as love, for example, or beauty, or the perfection of all things.

At the heart of things, all is in God’s hand. Christ has not only come but has died and is risen. God is sovereign; goodness triumphs. 

Does this mean that we can ignore the evils we see around us? That we can say, for example, that since God is sovereign and goodness is triumphant, we don’t have to do anything about the state of our planet and our society? That we can concern ourselves with satisfying the ego, and let all else go?

Paul also struggled with this question: “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?”

He answers his own question: “By no means!” (Romans 6:1)

God’s plan does triumph, but just as we are called to be participants in the divine life, we also have a role in the divine mission. We pray for our own sinful and divided hearts to be purified. We work to end violence, injustice, poverty, homelessness, and pain. But we do not despair, either because of our own weakness and sinfulness or because of the state of the world, for once again, Jesus has come among us, has died and is risen. God has triumphed — in us as well as in creation as a whole. 

We claim as our own the vision of Isaiah, who saw that:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid...
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea. 
(Isaiah 11:6,9)

December 2007

---

The Glory Helix

We may think of the Liturgical Year as a circle, going round and round, from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to ordinary time to Lent, to Easter, etcetera, etcetera, and then starting all over again. We read in the book of Ecclesiastes:

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
‘See, this is new’?
It has already been,
in the ages before us. (1:9-10)

But in truth, “there is nothing new under the sun” is a very unusual sentiment for the Bible. Some things do go round and round of course: the earth, for example, and with it the seasons. Human nature, too, seems not to change, generation after generation. But the typical biblical view of time and history is that we are going somewhere, not stuck in a never-ending circle. In Isaiah 43 we hear: 

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old. 
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (18-19)

In this light we can think of the liturgical year in another way—as a spiral, or more properly a helix: turning, yes, but moving toward the fulfillment of all things.

So as we begin Advent, we notice that we are not quite in the same place as we were last year at the same time, just as each loop of the helix brings us to a spot which looks similar to the previous loop, but is not in reality the same.

Sometimes, though, it seems easier to go round and round, all the while complaining that there is nothing new under the sun. Because if we accept that something new is beginning, we must also accept that something old is ending. In other words, we must accept the death of something familiar to us. If we hear Jesus saying, “I am coming soon,” or if we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” then we must accept that the life we know, the only life we know, as imperfect as it may be, must come to an end in one way or another. And whether we know it or not, this is happening to us every year, on a grand scale or on a very small one. 

Beginnings imply endings, as endings imply beginnings. And beginnings always call for a move into the unknown. 

We are not in the same spot as last year. We do carry the blessing of last year with us (even if it felt like anything but a blessing). But we have had to leave last year behind, perhaps with relief, or perhaps with clinched fists. And this year we are closer to glory than we were last year, as each turn of the helix of God’s time brings us nearer to the fulfillment of all things. 

December 2007

---

Gratitude

Quotations on gratitude for Thanksgiving or any season:

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. 

- Meister Eckhart

For happiness is not what makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.

- David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart

I’ve gotten to the point in life where I am even grateful for my sins, because I have seen the good God has brought out of them.

- Sister Catherine Roberts, rc

... where sin increased, grace abounded all the more...

- Romans 5:20

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

- Cicero

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 

- Colossians 3: 12-15

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. 

The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 

(Philippians 4:4-7)

November 2007

---

Disruption? Irruption?

One day last week during daily Mass, just as the priest was about to begin the Eucharistic prayer, there was a clatter at the side door. This door opens onto the sidewalk and is always locked from the outside. 

It happens every so often that someone tries to get in that door, figures out that it is locked, and without further ado walks around to the main entrance. This time, however, the door continued to rattle and there was a clamor of voices — or at least what sounded to me like several voices. 

What was going on? Was the building on fire? Had the construction workers next door dropped a slab of concrete on a row of cars in the parking lot? Were incompetent terrorists staging an invasion?

Everything inside halted as all attention was focused on that door. Finally Father nodded to the server, who left the altar and pushed the door open, apparently undaunted by a possible invasion. And in came, not terrorists, nor a group of construction workers confessing to flattening our vehicles, but a single weary middle-aged woman using a walker. She found a nearby pew and sat down. Our priest, only slightly discombobulated, began the Eucharistic prayer. 

Lord you are holy indeed, 
the fountain of all holiness.
Let your Spirit come upon these gifts 
to make them holy, 
so that they may become for us
the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Now, I ask you: was this incident a disruption of the sacred liturgy? Or was it an irruption of the sacred in the midst of the liturgy?

My first thought was that it had been a disruption. I was annoyed. The flow of the mass had been interrupted, not to mention the fact that I generally just don’t like clatter.

My second, reflective thought was that the sacred had irrupted in our midst. I remembered the words of Jesus from the book of Revelation:

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. (3:20)

Yes, I know this was not only a standing and a knocking, but also a rattling and a calling out; but sometimes Jesus has to go to extremes to get our attention. And yes, I know that the one who entered and ate with us was a woman with a walker; but we also have these words of Jesus:

Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:40) 

O Jesus, 
Teach us to be mindful and awake,
Always waiting for you,
That we may not be heedless to your appearing. 

November 2007

---

If You Don't Mind My Saying So

Dear God,

you don’t mind my saying so,
prayer can be boring.
I sit here, like someone waiting 
in the restaurant for her date,
eyes politely averted 
from the heaping plates of other diners
(okay, I do sneak a peak now and then)
while hoping that I haven’t been stood up. 

If you don’t mind my saying so,
it seems to me that you could liven things up a bit —
without, of course, livening them with
hurricanes or deaths or sickness—
I’m sure you know what I mean,
but I thought I’d make it clear just in case. 

If you don’t mind my saying so,
just a little action once in a while would be quite nice.
I’m not asking for ladders to heaven
with angels going up and down
(okay, sometimes an angel or two would be most welcome)
or wrestling until break of day like Jacob
(anyhow you know I’ve already done my share of that). 

But if you don’t mind my saying so,
although mysterious is all well and good,
and darkness is restful when I’m tired and want to sleep,
and silence a relief from the clatter of the street,
still and all, your Mystery,
your total, deep, and holy Mystery,
can overwhelm me when I’m fearful and need a little light. 

Signed with love,
your sometimes-faithful, restless child,
who is still waiting
and knows you don’t mind my saying so.

- - - - - - -

All that is most important about us happens at a level below consciousness. So real prayer, prayer in its very essence, escapes our direct consciousness. Everything depends on our believing God is Love, utterly faithful, good and generous. Everything depends, too, on our handing ourselves over to God’s loving designs, asking for no tangible certainties.

Ruth Burrows, Essence of Prayer

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

(Psalm 130:5-6) 

October 2007

---

 

The Beachcombing Spirit

Sometimes I feel like a spiritual beachcomber. This is not necessarily bad, it seems to me, because small gems are there for the finding, if the heart's eyes are open.

On my bookcase sit the following treasures picked up during a walk along the beach not far from our Cenacle in Lantana, Florida: 

• a piece of shell edged in burgundy

• something white, curly, and lovely that I don’t recognize

• a U.S. quarter that has been tossed about by waves for so long it is almost unrecognizable

• and two pieces of bleached coral (is it a bad sign for the environment, I wonder, that coral is washing ashore?)

Spiritual gifts are as abundant as seashells, begging us to pause for a moment, stoop down, and gather them as we walk through the day. But we must not expect choirs of angels hovering above to point them out to us. If we are not attentive, we risk overlooking them. According to Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.

The world is indeed strewn with pennies (and wave-tumbled quarters) for those who have eyes to see. 

But then I recall another quotation from Annie Dillard — a caution to those of us inclined to spend our lives combing the spiritual sands. Using the image of the ocean, she asks:

Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

From the gifts to the Giver

God’s gifts are good and to be received with gratitude. Nevertheless, we are not made for the gifts, but for God. The shells and pennies, literal or spiritual, are cozy gifts, more or less comprehensible to our limited minds. God the Giver of gifts, however, is beyond our human grasp, dwelling “in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16) — and the divine light, anything but cozy, can appear to us as darkness. 

Are we just "playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat"? Or are we perhaps out of the boat, but gazing at our own feet in the sand of the beach? According to an oft-quoted expression, “We become what we contemplate." Are the eyes of our heart so focused on God’s gifts that we overlook God? Are we satisfied with becoming the shells and quarters, or do we recognize the deep longing implanted in us for union with the Divine?

So I continue to pick up treasures God leaves for me in the sand of my day—and when I remember, I give thanks.  Occasionally I even let myself be reminded by these gifts (or even by their absence) that there is Mystery behind and beyond them – and that it is this Mystery who is my purpose and my destination. 

 

Do not be deceived, my beloved.
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, 
is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, 
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

(James 1:16-17)

September 2007

---

Get Away from Yourself

On the way home from giving a day of prayer in Jacksonville, Sister Elizabeth and I pass a church. A sign outside exhorts: 

Get away from yourself.
Come to church.

“Why would I want to get away from myself?” I think. “I’m the only self I have.”

Then I remember what Huston Smith says about the early Christians. He reflects that in spite of the danger they often found themselves in, they seemed happy. They had about them a radiance that was puzzling to others. The explanation, he says, lies in the fact that “three intolerable burdens had suddenly and dramatically been lifted from believers’ shoulders”:

1. “The first of these was fear, including the fear of death…”

2. “The second burden they had been released from was guilt…”

3. “The third release the early Christians experienced was from the cramping confines of the ego.” *

The “cramping confines of the ego” 

The ego can not only cramp us, it can also be a tyrant. We may find ourselves trapped in a false self that is hungry for more of everything—more power, more esteem, more money, more diversion, more accomplishments, a more beautiful body, more, more, more… We can be deceived into thinking these are the things that give us joy. And no matter how much we acquire or accomplish, the tyrant is never satisfied.  

Any of these "mores" can usurp the place of God in our lives. Or we can yield to the "more" of trying to make of ourselves little gods — which in reality is a twisted temptation, because as it turns out, our Christian call is already to be “participants in the divine nature” (see 2 Peter 1:3-4). 

Participants in the divine nature

What an amazing thought! The false self, however, is not crazy about the idea of our being participants in the divine nature, for this wondrous gift must be accepted in a way that is alien to societal norms. 

The seductive and absurd premise of the wildly popular book, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, is one that flatters the false self. There we are told, "You are the master of the Universe… You are the perfection of Life… your whole life and everything in it has been created by You." (Notice the capital Y.)

Unlike The Secret, the Bible calls us to take on the mind of Jesus, who “did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7). Jesus, who would have had reason, we might think, to cling to equality with God, was free from the “cramping confines of the ego.” The paradox is that the false self tries to be God, while our true self, found in God and participating in the divine nature, is the very soul of humility.

Continually turned toward God

In 1864, Saint Therese Couderc, the co-founder of the Cenacle, pondered the key to peace and joy, which she saw as surrendering oneself totally to God, as Jesus did. “In a word," she wrote, "to surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.” 

Of course being “no longer concerned with self” does not mean neglecting either our bodies or our spirits, both so precious to God. We are to nourish our bodies with wholesome food and nourish our minds and our souls with knowledge and prayer. But even as we care for ourselves, we are to be “continually turned toward God,” allowing God to transform us, so that our whole being, growing in the divine compassion and mercy, reflects our union with God. This is the only way to be happy and to be free of the domination of that perfidious false self.

For freedom Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

* Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 79-81.

September 2007

---

Waiting in the Cenacle

When they had entered [Jerusalem], they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 
All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
(Acts 1:13-14 RSV)

What were Mary and the friends of Jesus doing in the Upper Room – in the Cenacle – after Jesus had ascended into heaven? We are told that they were praying.

"Is that all?" we ask.

Most of the other New Testament mysteries are mysteries of presence and of the breaking forth of something obviously new into the world. But here nothing much seems to be happening. Perhaps this is one reason the time in the Upper Room is so hard to deal with as an event – or a non-event – and why it seems easier to skip over this mystery and move on to Pentecost.

But I propose to you that something absolutely essential for the church and the world was happening there in the Upper Room. Yes, this is an in-between time: in between the great mysteries of Cross/Resurrection/Ascension and Pentecost. But all gestation periods are in-between times.

A new Annunciation

Let’s go back for a moment to the Annunciation scene in the first chapter of Luke. It took me a while to notice the similarities between Gabriel’s proclamation to Mary and the words of Jesus to his disciples just before the Ascension. Remember that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were both written by Luke. Luke is a careful writer, so it is doubtful that the resemblance is accidental.

In Luke 1, in response to Mary’s question, the angel says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…”

In Acts 1, in response to the questioning of the apostles, Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

This verbal resemblance is important, because it indicates that what is happening is similar in both cases.

But there is a difference.

One of the major distinctions between the two annunciations is this: at the time of the Annunciation, the word was spoken to one person, Mary; but the promise on the day of Ascension is made, not to one person, but to the assembled disciples of Jesus. This time, the Spirit is promised to the community. In both events, the power of the Holy Spirit will bring about an embodying, an enfleshing: in the first case, the conception of the infant Jesus; in the second case, the conception of the infant church, the mystical Body of Christ.

Since this is so, the womb is to be prepared this time, not in the body of Mary, but in the body of the community. Gathered there, supporting each other, forgiving each other, a hollowing-out is taking place, an emptying, a making room or preparing a womb for the Spirit of Jesus. (There are images in which Mary, representing the church, is depicted as pregnant.  See the alternate version of this reflection for two of them.)

The presence of Mary the Mother of Jesus is indispensable to this little community, for Mary is the only person in the world who already knows what it is like to be emptied in such a way as to receive the mystery of Christ within herself.

A time when nothing is happening.

The group gathered in the Upper Room needs this time of prayer where nothing seems to be taking place. The friends and family of Jesus no longer have his physical presence, and what they are left with, for better or for worse, is each other. They must receive the mystery of Christ into themselves; they must be prepared to incarnate the presence of Christ for each other and for the world. Because of this wondrous process, Paul can later say:

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Isn’t this our own call when we pray? We wait — if not in an actual Cenacle, in the Cenacle of our hearts — and often we feel as if little or nothing is being accomplished. However, along with the whole communion of saints, those still living and those who have gone before us, we wait and pray, allowing God to pour out love on us (whether or not we are aware of it) and to begin transforming us into the loving presence of Christ for each other and for the whole world.

August 2007

---

Violence Begets Violence

One night many years ago, an employee of my extended Alabama family came home to find his wife in bed with another man. This is a very old story in human history, but it was a new one to Dale, who summarily killed the usurper. Needless to say, the friends of the other man were not happy about his death. They went hunting for Dale, determined to take vengeance. 

Dale found a hiding spot under the big old house that was our family home place. My great aunt Missie (who was in charge of pretty much everything, including the nether regions of the house) knew he was there, as presumably did my grandmother and the other adults in the family, but all ignored the fact until the friends had given up looking, and Dale could be transported safely to jail.

In the years following, my grandmother sang a new lullaby as she rocked my little brother. The lyrics were simple and, repeated, had a certain lulling effect:

Dale, Dale,
Get out of jail,
And take me to ride on the tractor.

Violent Acts and Stealing the Liquor

The South has probably had more than its share of violence, some of it racially motivated, much of it not. It has affected people of all social classes. Besides Dale, among my family’s acquaintances were a judge killed by a member of his own family and a university professor who shot his wife. There was also the state senator whose murderer made the mistake of stealing not only his victim’s car, but his whiskey to boot. He was apprehended weaving from side to side down the highway.

Although violent acts are often the stuff of legend, and occasionally of lullabies, it remains true that violence is rarely if ever justified. This is so whether it is a question of individual retribution, the emotional abuse family members can inflict on each other, or the mass destruction of war. Violence begets violence, as it did in days gone by and as it continues to do in our country and the world today. 

Direct and Indirect Consequences

Violence begets violence directly, as it did when Dale took revenge for an act of infidelity (itself a violent act), and then when the friends sought to avenge that death. 

Violence also begets violence indirectly: 

• by teaching children that might makes right and the powerless are fair game;

• by fostering a climate where laboring for justice does not seem worth the effort, because violence is so much easier;

• by nurturing a culture where the extraordinary courage required to be a peacemaker is renamed cowardice.

They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full 
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:9)

July 2007

---

The Power of Hymns

I’ve heard many good sermons and homilies in my life. I’ve also heard a lot of boring and inept ones. But of them all, gripping and deadening alike, I confess that I remember almost nothing.

On the other hand, I remember countless hymns, every word of every verse of some of them. That probably has something to do with singing them over and over, whereas I only hear the homily once. However, I am convinced that there is more to it than that.

Wedding music to words imparts a power that lyrics are hard put to achieve on their own. This is a power: 

• that  encourages us, often without our realizing it, to let our guard down; 

• that has the potential to touch us when nothing else can; 

• and that can lead us to a holy silence.

Letting down our guard

There is something about music that encourages vulnerability — either to good (see “Thin Places”) or to evil.

As for the latter, the Anti-Defamation League says that “hate music has been instrumental in the formation of a white supremacist subculture….Hate music helps bring haters together into a shared community.” 

Are hymns dangerous? They can be, if they come out of a theology that corrupts the gospel; but it is my impression that hymns may be theologically safer on average than sermons or homilies. 

For one thing, hymns are subjected to a sifting over the decades and the centuries that most homilies don’t have the opportunity to undergo. With hymns, the weevils don’t make it through the sieve of time, because they do not resonate as truth deep in the hearts of the faithful. (There are wily exceptions, of course, which do manage to slip through.) 

Songs as recent as the late twentieth century are being submitted to this triage. Some of the worst have already been sifted out of the repertory. Thankfully, we now have fewer of the let’s-all-believe-because-the-sun-is-shining 1970s type of song. (What about when the sun is not shining, when we are laid in the dust by sorrow or pain?) And no longer do we hear the parish folk group singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” at Mass. (Yes, indeed, I really have heard this!) 

It remains to be seen what will endure from today’s praise songs or Christian rock music. 

Sometimes music can reach us when nothing else can.

Years ago, when I was preparing for a program called “Hymn-Singing and the Mystical Pilgrimage,” I ran across the following personal reflection on a web page. (I wish I could give proper credit, but the site no longer exists, and the entry was anonymous.)

In the early hours of my ordeal with brain cancer, waves of pain and large doses of morphine scrambled my thoughts. At the time, the most gracious and well meaning message from those wise and loving counselors could not penetrate the fog. Nevertheless, the following hymn is what the Spirit brought to mind and the words of which are still my comfort and strength.

The hymn was “My Jesus I Love Thee."

And paradoxically, for some people music can lead into silence, even help create a space within that is quieter than no sound at all, a space where we can more easily enter into the loving silence of God. 

On that note, and after many words, I will myself be silent.

 

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.

(Psalm 104:33-34)

July 2007

---

Hoping Against Hope

When we emerged from Ward’s Super Market into the Florida sunshine, Sister Elizabeth discovered that she had left her sunglasses inside, next to the coffee grinder. She went back to retrieve them while I sat in the car, bored, and stared through the windshield at the backside of a row of newspaper vending boxes. Bored I remained until something caught my eye. There on the Florida Times-Union box — on the back, as I mentioned, where it would not be seen at all from the street — was a neat sticker printed with the words: 

EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.

Who had put it there? Did every Times-Union vending box carry this assurance, in startling contrast to the messages found in the paper itself? Or had a hope-filled vandal struck? 

Was it pure chance that I was sitting there gazing at this mystifying communication? Or was it a reminder to me of a truth that I was neglecting? 

The sign on the newspaper box was one of those small mysteries that have no explanation (mysteries are not puzzles to be solved), but which nudge us into mindfulness. 

I thought of the words Julian of Norwich heard from Jesus:

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. 

I thought also of Romans 8: 

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  (8:28)

Events of our own lives, however, can sometimes make it very hard to believe that all manner of things will be well. Reading the newspaper, watching CNN, or surfing the internet, we may find it even harder. What about the genocide in Darfur, the war in Iraq, or global warming with all its implications? What about the victims of Hurricane Katrina who still reside in tiny FEMA trailers? What about the homeless couple who appeared at our door the other day, eager for work that we could not offer?

Christians live in hope. We are always looking not only at what we see here and now, but toward what is promised. We live in hope of the fulfillment of all things, which in some deep sense is present to us even now through the Resurrection of Jesus. We believe that time is going somewhere, not just in circles. God is leading us beyond where we are now. Our future is good.

So we contemplate the Resurrection, and we cling to hope. We continue to hope beyond all hope. For nothing in our lives is wasted. Goodness, despite all appearances, does prevail. 

. . . . . . . . . .

P.S. A friend called after reading the above reflection. She wanted to know if Sister Elizabeth found her sunglasses. So for all who feel as if you have been left hanging, I am happy to report that yes, she did find them right where she left them.  

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it 
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him.’

(Lamentations 3:19-21)

---

Prayer for Rain

A few minutes ago the sky turned gray, the wind picked up, and it looked as if we might at last get rain. Soon, however, the sun was out again. 

A severe drought is oppressing Florida. Here at our house what is left of the grass (which in the spirit of conservation we don’t water) crunches underfoot. Recently planted ligustrum (which we do water occasionally) is struggling to survive. It has been many weeks since the resurrection fern on our live oaks has been green. And the trees which not so long ago were showy with fresh spring leaves now appear dusty.

I have been praying for rain, but every day the sky is clear, except when a contrary wind brings us smoke from the gigantic wildfire in South Georgia or one of the multiple smaller fires in Florida. (Click for update.) Then people who have respiratory problems struggle to breathe, and we seal with masking tape the large space between our warped double front doors. (I can only imagine what it must be like for those closer to the fires.)

When we do have real clouds, I go outside and raise my arms toward the sky, hoping somehow to draw down their moisture.

I share with you two prayers for rain, the first from the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and the second, for spiritual rain, from Gerard Manley Hopkins. You will find them just below the picture of the dry resurrection ferns.

Prayer for Rain
O GOD, in whom we live and move and have our being, grant us rain in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal gifts we may seek with more confidence those that are eternal. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

- The Rural Life Prayerbook 

Thou art indeed just, Lord 

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum properatur? &c. (Jerem. xii 1) 

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must 
Disappointment all I endeavour end? 
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost 
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust 
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, 
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes 
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes 
Them; birds build--but not I build; no, but strain, 
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. 
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. 

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

May 2007

---

Answered Prayer

One of the favorite themes of Josh (not his real name), an ex-Christian with whom I have been corresponding, is prayer — or rather the uselessness thereof. 

Lately he wrote about a friend who has fallen on hard times, so hard, in fact, that food is scarce. He decided that it would be wrong to help him out, because as a Christian, he needs to do what Jesus instructed, namely, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). 

Josh interprets this passage to mean, “Don’t tell anyone about your need, or it won’t be secret. If you ask people for help, you are not doing what Jesus said to do.” Then he adds, “Do you think God would work a miracle and provide food if he does this?” 

Now most of Josh’s rants against Christianity I ignore, especially since they arrive in my mailbox several-fold per day, but this was such a twisted understanding of what Jesus said that I felt I couldn’t let it go by unanswered. So I replied: "It's important to realize that God often answers prayer through us, sometimes even when we are not aware of it." He responded in a large font, to emphasize, I suppose, the justice of his point:

They ought to do what their fearless leader said to do: pray in secret and don't let people know what you need.

I wrote back, in what I hoped was a calm-sized font:

If you read it in context, you will see that in the passage from Matthew about praying in secret, Jesus is cautioning against religious ostentation for human praise. He never says we should keep our needs secret or that we shouldn't ask for help. But are you thinking of prayer as just asking for things and then receiving them (or not receiving them)? That is one form of prayer, but that is not the essence of what prayer is. The essence of prayer is presence.

Josh, however, did not seem interested in the concept of prayer as presence. He was too focused on disproving the validity of prayer of any kind. 

God as vending machine  

Like a lot of people, Josh views God as a vending machine. If you drop in your prayer and don’t get back what you asked for, then you’ve been cheated, which goes to prove that the promises of the Bible are not true, prayer is a sham, Jesus is a fraud, and God probably doesn’t exist. 

Can we ask for what we want?  

So what is prayer, if it’s not just asking for something and getting it — or not getting it? Of course there is nothing wrong with asking God for what we want. Jesus says more than once in the gospels, “What do you want me to do for you?” I believe God treasures our prayer of petition, whether it is for ourselves or for other people. Indeed, God treasures whatever we do to acknowledge the divine presence and to be present to the One who loves us. 

A biblical example of unanswered prayer  

But let’s look at an example of "unanswered" prayer from the Bible. Paul tells us in his second letter to the church at Corinth (12:1-10) that following an extraordinary religious experience, he was given a “thorn in the flesh.” What was this thorn in the flesh? Some people have thought it was a physical problem such as an illness; others have said it was probably something emotional; or perhaps persecution or temptations or difficult people he had to deal with. But whatever it was, he prayed for it to be taken away. And he prayed, he says, three times — which really means over and over. 

Paul, saint though he was, did not get what he asked for. Nevertheless, he seems to feel that his prayer has been amply answered. Why? 

The answer Paul hears is, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness" (12:9). God has given him something more precious than what he asked for. God has given him assurance of the divine presence, assurance that he is valuable to God, assurance that God’s grace and power are at work in him, even in what Paul himself considers weakness. 

Our Heart's Desire  

Second, I suspect that Paul learns through this experience what is really important to him. Psalm 37 says, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The problem is that we don’t always know what we truly want in our heart of hearts. 

I believe that when we persevere in prayer, the Spirit of Jesus will teach us what our heart’s desire really is. It may not take long for us to learn. It may take us a lifetime. We will learn that the deepest desire of our heart is God. That is how each one of us is made, whether we know it or not. 

We will receive the desire of our heart, and we will know, like Paul, that our prayer has been answered. Whatever else we desire and pray for, we will desire and pray for it in the Spirit of Jesus who always says, your will be done.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart… Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices. 
(Psalm 37:4,7 NRSV)

April 2007

---

The Folly of the Resurrection

We know about the folly of the cross. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul says that “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1:18 ).  

The foolishness continues with the raising of Jesus from the dead. It seems that each year around Lent and Easter books or television shows purporting to prove the absurdity of the Christian faith — and not incidentally making their authors or producers a bundle of money as well — appear on the scene. (See Rachel Zoll’s article, “Easter Prime Marketing Time for Skeptics.”) 

I’ve found some rather sad and bitter web pages as well, published by people mocking the Paschal mystery. A self-professed atheist named Ed Kagin writes:  Wouldn't it have been nice if the risen savior of the world had appeared in all his glory to the Roman Senate where literate rational humanists could have recorded an accurate account of this miracle?” 

He seems to think politicians would have been more reliable witnesses than Mary Magdalene. 

Are the witnesses credible?

That the first witnesses to the resurrection were women seemed to bother some of the disciples, too. They refused to believe until they had seen Jesus for themselves, perhaps because everybody knew you couldn’t trust the testimony of a woman. 

Actually, the fact that we are told the women were there is probably an indication of the historicity of the story, because no one trying to concoct a plausible story would have put women in as witnesses. N. T. Wright, in his monumental book called The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003), says:

“If they could have invented stories of fine, upstanding, reliable male witnesses being first at the tomb, they would have done it” (608). 

The presence of men would have been considered much more convincing. However, since there is a good chance that the Christian community already knew the women had been there, that’s the way the story had to be told. (Paul, however, does take the easy way out in writing to the Christians of Greek city of Corinth, conveniently neglecting to name the women in the otherwise magnificent fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians.) 

No vengeance? No retributive justice?

So we have female witnesses, therefore not credible. And what is perhaps even more conducive to the charge of nonsense, Jesus comes back to the very people who had denied him and deserted him when he was most in need. Back to all of us sinners he comes, with no effort or desire to get even. How foolish can you get, by the standards of worldly wisdom? Why come back to them — to us — at all? Shouldn't the risen Christ have declared victory accompanied by invading troops of angels? Shouldn't he at least have demanded an apology?  

Christianity's Reason for Existing

Why did Christianity arise, and why did it take the shape it did? The early Christians themselves reply: We exist because of Jesus' resurrection. … There is no evidence for a form of early Christianity in which the resurrection was not a central belief. Nor was this belief, as it were, bolted on to Christianity at the edge. It was the central driving force, informing the whole movement.

N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is 

It is this folly of the cross and resurrection that makes us who we are and calls us into the very life of the resurrected Christ. For as Paul says, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15:17-22)

April 2007

---

At the Heart of God

I have just ordered a copy of Gerald Vann’s The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God, a small spiritual classic published in 1947; but Amazon.com can't promise delivery for another month or month and a half. I am eager to get hold of this little book because of a sentence that has stayed with me from the first time I read it nearly thirty years ago. Whether or not I am remembering it correctly, these are the words I recall: 

The cross is at the heart of God.

Does God Have a Heart?

For better or for worse, early Christian theology was strongly influenced by Greek philosophy. One (for me) infamous notion inherited from the philosophers is the impassibility of God. The belief that God is not capable of suffering was axiomatic for many Christian thinkers in the early centuries of the Church. It was later embraced by Thomas Aquinas, and it can still be found in the work of some contemporary theologians – this in spite of the biblical witness of a passionate God, a God who is afflicted in all our affliction (Isaiah 63:9, see RSV) and who grieves when we are unfaithful (Hosea 11:7-9).

If you believe that God cannot suffer, then it follows, as Thomas Aquinas says, that “Christ’s Passion did not pertain to his divinity” (Summa Theologica, III, Q 46, A 12). In this view, Jesus did suffer on the cross, but only in his humanity. If we carry this schema a step further, we are faced with a disturbing scenario: God the Father in no distress as he witnessed the Son in agony.

Suffering was viewed as a sign of imperfection. 

However, we would probably argue — we who are made in the image of God — that the inability to suffer would itself constitute a grave flaw. It would certainly be a flaw in a human being. We know from our own experience that human maturity requires not only the ability to feel our own pain, but also the capacity for compassion, a word that literally means “suffering with.” 

And from where does the ability to be compassionate come? Human beings receive this gift, like all good gifts, from God, whose own "compassion is over all that he has made" (Psalm 145:9). 

If Jesus who died and was raised reveals God to us, who is the God whom he makes known? 

Jesus reveals a God who is compassionate toward us like the best of fathers (Psalm 103:13), who loves us even more than a mother loves her child (Isaiah 49:15). Karl Rahner, speaking of the Incarnation, says that God's Word who is Christ says to us: 

I am there. I am with you… I weep your tears. I am your joy… I am in your fear, because I have suffered it myself. I am in your death… I am your life.

Kleines Kirchenjahr (Muenchen: Ars sacra, 1954).

We dwell in God. We are infused throughout our being with God who permeates every atom and electron and quark of our being. 

The divine compassion assures us that whatever we do and experience, whether joyful or sorrowful, all is held and valued in the heart of God.

The divine omnipotence assures us that just as the pain and sorrow of Jesus were not wasted, neither will our own pain and sorrow be wasted. 

The cross of Christ is at the heart of God. Our human life is in the heart of God.

+ + +

Then the Lord said [to Moses], ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.

Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey

(Exodus 3:7-8)

March 2007

---

Beloved of God

I went outside the other day to uncover the plants after the latest freeze. In case you don’t know, when a drastic dip in the temperature is predicted, residents of the deep South are warned about protecting the four p’s. That means people, pets, plants, and pipes. Protecting plants usually involves running out the night of the freeze and draping cloths over vulnerable vegetation, with the result that the yard and the neighborhood are filled with ghostly shapes. 

Anyhow, as I was piling the cloths one by one over my arm, a man on a bicycle stopped. He had a plastic crate strapped to the back of the bike and the indefinable look about him that those who have been homeless for a long time seem to acquire. We began chatting amiably about the plants and the weather. Then the conversation shifted.

“Night before last I went over to Butler Plaza,” he began. 

Butler Plaza is a huge strip mall emblematic of urban sprawl.

“About two o’clock,” he continued, “I went to sleep under a bush.” 

That was the night it stormed and turned frigid.

“Now I have this cold.”

“No wonder,” I said.

“I’m on my way to get some cough medicine."

There was a pause. 

"I live in a tent in the woods, and I have blankets there.”

“But you didn’t have any at Butler Plaza,” I added reasonably. Perhaps I did him an injustice, but I imagined him not so much deciding it would be convenient to spend the night under a bush, but passing out there, dead drunk, with a storm coming on and no cover. 

Once more he turned the conversation to the plants. “Maybe you should leave them covered tonight,” he suggested.

“It’s not supposed to freeze tonight. But,” I added, “take care of yourself. You’re more important than the plants.”

“I’m just a bum.”

“No, no, no,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say.

The conversation soon drew to a close, and off he rode. 

When I told Sr. Elizabeth about his saying he was just a bum, she replied, without a moment's hesitation, “Beloved of God.”

That is what I should have said to him, of course. I should have told him the truth. You are not a bum. You are beloved of God. 

When you stop to pass the time of day with someone working in the garden, you are beloved of God. When you show concern for the living things in the garden, you are beloved of God. And when you drink yourself blind and pass out under a bush at the mall, you are, still and always, beloved of God.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.

(1 John 3:1)

March 2007

---

Quotes for the Beginning of Lent

How Shall I Go to God?

It is with our sins that we go to God, for we have nothing else to go with that we can call our own. This is one of the lessons that we are so slow to learn; yet without learning this we cannot take one right step in that which we call a religious life... 

Yes; pardon, peace, life, are all of them gifts, Divine gifts, brought down from heaven by the Son of God, presented personally to each needy sinner by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are not to be bought, but received; as [people] receive the sunshine, complete and sure and free… They are not to be claimed on the ground of fitness or goodness, but of need and unworthiness, of poverty and emptiness.

Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), “How Shall I Go to God?”

Mercy

“Oh, Mercy! … Wherever I turn my thoughts, I find nothing but mercy.” 

(St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogues 30). 

And in this life mercy and forgiveness are our path and keep leading us on to grace.…
[F]or through the working of grace our fearful failing is transformed into abundant, eternal comfort, and through the working of grace our shameful falling is transformed into high, noble rising, and through the working of grace our sorrowful dying is transformed into holy, blessed life.

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love,
translated by Elizabeth Spearing
(London: Penguin, 1998), LT, 50, 48.

Now I find myself quite devoid of virtues, I can even say that I see none in me, and it seems to me that if the Good God called me to give an account of my deeds to him, I would find myself with empty hands, having no other recourse than his great Mercy. And with that I hope, I have confidence, and I abandon myself to his good pleasure with a calmness and a peace which nothing disturbs and which it seems to me that he alone can give.

Saint Thérèse Couderc, Letter to Mother de Larochenégly, August 7, 1867

My Weakness

My own failures are many. My capacity for weakness on days seems undiminished. I am an embarrassment to myself and yet I am loved so wonderfully. There is perhaps one difference that my experiences with God have given me. I no longer weep tears of shame. I cry tears of joy and wonder. I am amazed by God and His power to love me. He makes all things work together for good. I'm not much of a challenge to His genius and creativity.

Graham Cooke, “Making the Most of Failure” 

February 2007

---

Enoch Choices

One day a number of years ago, I fell asleep during my prayer. As I was sleeping, I heard a voice. Now wait… I want to be very clear that I don’t “hear voices” or see visions or anything extraordinary like that. I knew this was a dream voice. It spoke only two words:

“Enoch choices.”

I immediately woke up.

“Enoch choices?” I repeated. “What on earth does that mean?” 

So, remembering that Enoch was mentioned in the Bible, I decided to look him up, and what I found was not one, but two Enochs. The first was the son of Cain (that child of Adam and Eve who committed the first murder), and the second was the descendant of Abel (the son who was murdered).

Concerning the first Enoch Genesis says that his father “built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch” (4:17). 

So Enoch had a city named after him, a sure way, you would think, to have your name remembered. The possibilities boggle the mind. There could be an Enoch City Hall, Enoch Theater, Enoch Public Library, Enoch Post Office, and on and on. 

However, there is a second Enoch who appears briefly in the next chapter of Genesis. This Enoch figures in the genealogy beginning with Adam and ending with the sons of Noah. He was the father of Methuselah, known for longevity. But what is most remarkable about this Enoch is stated in one verse:

“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him” (5:24).

What happened to Enoch? The verse is very mysterious. Unlike the first Enoch, whose name would today have been emblazoned in neon throughout his city, this Enoch seems to have disappeared. It is about this Enoch that the book of Hebrews says, “By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and ‘he was not found, because God had taken him.’” (11:5). 

The first Enoch had a city named after him. The second disappeared into God. Here were the choices. Was I going to build a city for myself, construct a monument to my own name, focus on my own glory? Or was I going to walk with God and fade from view, so that the glory and the name were God’s not mine? As John the Baptist said when his disciples complained that people now were turning to Jesus instead of to John: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

The 20th century mystic Raïssa Maritain wrote, “…we have, under the action of grace and through the travail of the soul, to leave our bounded heart for the boundless heart of God. This is truly dying to ourselves” (Raïssa’s Journal). Isn’t this what the second Enoch did, when he walked with God and was found no more? 

From time to time over the years, those two words, “Enoch choices,” come back to me, to remind me, to challenge me, and sometimes to convict me. 

So don’t think you can avoid anything by falling asleep during your prayer. 

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, 
but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

(Psalm 115:1)

February 2007

---

Why Do We Gather?

This Journal reflection is somewhat longer than usual, and may be found in a printer-friendly format by clicking on the following link: "Why Do We Gather? Religious Community and the Transforming Journey." 

This essay was accepted for publication in Review for Religious. However, when it came out this January, it had been edited so severely (without my knowledge or permission) that it was almost unrecognizable. According to Sister Elizabeth's calculation, only 27 of the 87 sentences were my own. Even the intent had been modified.  I thought that some of you might like to read the original.

January 2007

---

Heroic Faith

For those who believe, no proof is necessary.
For those who do not believe, no proof is possible.

This quotation has been in my mind lately, and I am wondering where it is from.  I did an internet search and found it attributed variously to Stuart Chase, Ignatius of Loyola, the Talmud, Edgar Cayce, Benjamin Disraeli, Franz Werfel, G. K. Chesterton, William James, a medium named Derek Acorah, and others of whom I had never heard. Elsewhere it is called a "traditional saying."

I suspect the citation is so widely attributed because it is so widely quoted; and that it is so widely quoted because it rings true in the minds of so many people.

I have myself had some recent indications of its validity:

While preparing a talk called "No More Weeping," I ran across a book by James L. Hallenbeck called Palliative Care Perspectives. In Chapter 7 he deals with the topic of altered states of consciousness preceding death, or pre-death visions.  “Most commonly seen,” he says, “are deceased relatives.” Sometimes, though, it is angels who appear, and  these are usually welcomed by the dying person.  

However, he adds, “George, a devout atheist patient of mine, was an exception to this rule. When angels appeared in his room, he screamed, ‘Get out of here, there is no God!’” 

  For those who believe , no proof is necessary.
For those who do not believe, no proof is possible.

Another reminder has been my year-and-a-half-long e-mail dialogue with a former Christian, encountered first through my accidental posting on an ex-christian website. (To learn how I could accidentally post to a forum, see "Being Scorned." See also "In God’s Grip" for more about the dialogue.)  

Josh (not his real name) is obsessed with the Bible.  In spite of everything, he is still a fundamentalist in his approach; and taking every word literally, he perceives only a human book filled with violence, contradictions, and errors.  For him, it would be hypocrisy at best and idiocy at worst to revere the Bible as containing God’s word while at the same time declining to accept every law in the book of Leviticus as mandatory for Christians.  He speaks of “God's alleged love.”

For those who believe, no proof is necessary.
For those who do not believe, no proof is possible.

Heroic Faith 

Nevertheless, it seems to me that in practice the distinction between those who believe and those who do not is often far more ambiguous than our quotation would lead us to believe.  Faith and doubt can coexist in the same person.  Like the father of the epileptic child whom Jesus healed, we may cry out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24 ).

The question is perhaps less whether or not I have faith, as whether or not I live out of faith.  Do I live from the faith dwelling in me or from the unbelief which also resides in me?   

If our lives do flow from faith, it does not mean that we will never feel bereft of God.  There may be days or weeks or months when we wonder why we ever believed in the first place; when life strips away our hope; when we seem to be spiritually naked, with no defense against the cold forces of despair or cynicism. 

It is easy to think of heroic faith in terms of those who never doubt, who go to their martyrdom singing hymns and praising God with a full and joyful heart.  I suspect, however, that heroic faith belongs more properly to those who, when their heart is empty, choose to take the next step – whether that step is to the cross or simply out of bed in the morning.  They mine the resources to take that step from the remnant of faith and hope remaining.  Or if not even a remnant seems to be left, then they find that faith remembered or faith longed-for must be the mustard-seed that suffices. 

For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 

(Romans 1:11-12)

January 2007

---

Astonished

I returned from a retreat in Pensacola a few days before Christmas and opened my e-mail to find the gift of a poem sent by our Sister Margaret Byrne.  The poem is “Messenger,”* by Mary Oliver. “My work,” she begins, “is loving the world”:

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
    keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
    astonished.

Pensacola is yet another hurricane-ravaged city, still recovering from Ivan which hit in 2004.  More than two years later, the devastation is still visible in some neighborhoods.  Many trees are dead or nearly defoliated.  The house Sister Rosalie and I stayed in was heavily damaged by the storm, but has been recently repaired.  The two houses on either side of us there on the bay were virtually destroyed.  One is being rebuilt from the ground up. The other is best described by the reaction of a deliveryman who came to our door and exclaimed,

“That house is nothing but garbage!” 

This is true, the house is mostly rubble, flanked by huge piles of debris.  The deliveryman was astonished, but not, I imagine, in the way Oliver intends in her poem — with rejoicing and gratitude.

What do we do with the sorrows and horrors of the world as we stand before the manger this Christmas season?  Can we stand still and learn to be astonished?  And what do we make of our astonishment when faced with storms, war, poverty, cruelty, disease, and death?  Or is it possible that we are no longer capable of astonishment, either at suffering or at the numinous, when the song of the angels is so regularly drowned out by news reports of violence and corruption or by bombardments of the terminally trivial?

It is tempting to forget that the cross is always implicit in the nativity scene.  The gifts of the Magi, for example, are more than a welcome source of revenue for a young couple with a baby.  Gold was the kingly gift; frankincense an offering for God; and myrrh… ah, there’s the rub.  Myrrh was used for embalming. This kingly, godly child was going to die — like every child born into the world, but with a difference.  His death would be an execution, premature, shameful, and expressing the love of God who emptied himself for us.

Nevertheless, if the cross seems to hang over the manger, as it does in this woodcut of the Nativity by Durer, so does the promise of the Resurrection.  Since we know the rest of the story, we also know that Jesus was raised from the dead and brings us into his own divine life. 

Our work, like the work of the poet, like the work of Jesus Christ, is “loving the world" (see John 3:16). So this Christmas season, fidgety and distracted though I am, I try to stand still before the mystery of the Incarnation and let myself be astonished:

     astonished at the mercy shown me in God become flesh; and astonished at the mercy I am called to show others;

     astonished at the presence of God — Emmanuel, “God-with-us” — in the most ordinary parts of life: “The phoebe, the delphinium / The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture” (Oliver, “Messenger”) — and in the birth of a baby in the midst of the pain and rubble of human existence;

     astonished at all I don’t understand about life, human or divine (or human and divine);

astonished at my own powerlessness; and astonished to hear God say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9); 

astonished at the evil that seems to triumph in our world; and astonished that despite all appearances to the contrary, goodness is victorious. 

_____

* "Messenger," from Thirst (Beacon Press 2006).

_____

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
(John 3:16-17)

December 2007

---

Come, Lord Jesus

Right after D-Day, our Sister Elizabeth — not yet Sister, but Lieutenant Hillmann — was stationed at a hospital in Bristol. Among her patients was a horribly burned soldier, barely out of childhood when he went off to war. He was burned every place on his body except for his face and the palms of his hands (suggesting that he had covered his face with his hands when the tank burst into flames). Not only that, but his burns were infested with maggots.

He kept getting worse, and he knew he was going to die. One day he asked Lieutenant Hillmann if she would write to his mother when he died.

“Tell her not to worry. It’s all right. I know I’ll be in heaven, because I’ve been a good boy.”

Very much at peace, he died soon after. 

As Advent begins, we look not just toward the birth of Christ, but toward the Second Coming of Christ in glory. Jesus tells us that we know neither the day nor the hour, but urges us to be always ready. Perhaps he will return tonight or during lunch tomorrow. On the other hand, perhaps we will meet Christ in glory at the moment of our physical death, when time will be no more and all our words and concepts of God will be revealed in their inadequacy. 

The young soldier was ready for glory. But what about those of us whose hearts are less simple — those of us who cannot claim with confidence that we have been “good boys” or “good girls”? Should we fear that day? Should we fear the Second Coming Christ in glory — or, if he seems to tarry, the day of our death?

The gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent has words of encouragement for that time when the cosmic events related to the Second Coming occur:

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)

What are we to do besides standing up and raising our heads? After all, we do not have the purest of hearts. Our thoughts and actions are far from blameless. 

First, we can throw ourselves on the mercy of God. 

Jesus manifested this mercy in his earthly life; he showed us the same abundant mercy in his resurrection appearances; and we can be sure that in spite of whatever unsettling events may come to pass, his Second Coming will be charged with the power and tenderness of God’s mercy.

Second, we can offer for ourselves and for others the prayer of the second reading from the first Sunday of Advent: 

May the Lord make you increase 
and abound in love
for one another and for all,…
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness 
before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus 
with all his holy ones. Amen.
(1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 NAB)

And we can view the moment of his coming with joyful anticipation, for — wonder beyond all wonders — the highest ambition of the Christian life will be fulfilled: we shall be like Jesus; and this means that we shall be like God. 

We recall that the snake in Genesis promised Eve that she and Adam would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. The serpent, however, had no authority to make that promise. He couldn’t deliver. 

But God does have the authority to make the promise. This time, the desire to become like God is no longer a power grab, but a holy longing.  It is the desire to be who we are created to be.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
(1 John 3:2) 

The dying soldier was blessed with a childlike and trusting spirit. But we too, whether trusting or doubting, steadfast or faltering, are God’s children, even now. And so we pray with assurance, Come, Lord Jesus!

December 2006

---

Thin Places

“I’ve never had a religious experience,” she told me. 

The young woman speaking was a good friend of mine from graduate school. She was intelligent and very gifted, working on her PhD and singing in a well-known choral group. Not only had she not had a “religious experience,” but, as I already knew, she didn’t believe in God.

She went on, “The closest I’ve come to a religious experience was singing Brahms’ German Requiem. I could imagine it might be something like that.” 

If I had known then what I know now about the experience of God, I would have said to her that what she was recounting was probably indeed a religious experience. She just had not recognized it. In fact, we often don’t recognize the divine presence. Sometimes we go blithely on our way, never knowing that the Holy has touched us. Other times we may sense that something important has happened, or we may glimpse the mysterious depth of the moment, without being able to acknowledge that God was there. 

The Celtic tradition speaks of “thin places,” where the veil between the temporal world and the eternal seems permeable, or “thin.” These have been called thresholds, or liminal places.

While the term properly refers to actual geographical places that are “thin,” I don’t believe we have to travel to Ireland or Rome or Jerusalem to find them. I suspect there are thin places that come into being when a location is infused with prayer. For example, I can’t count the number of times people have mentioned the peace they feel when they come through the front door of our Cenacles. It is not that the Cenacle community is any more holy than other people, but rather that the house has been steeped in prayer and worship — not only the prayer of the Cenacle Sisters, but also the prayer of our retreatants and guests. 

Just so, the prayer corner in your living room, the chair in your bedroom, or the bench in the backyard where you pray regularly may lose its quality of ordinariness. What was previously an unexceptional spot may become a sort of thin place, bringing you more easily into awareness of the divine than most other places. Sitting there becomes a daily pilgrimage from the periphery of life toward the center.

Still other thin places, I believe, are not geographical at all, but are hosted within us. For me, music can open up a thin place. This is not automatic, of course, because any sense of God’s nearness is gift. But there seems to be something about music which carries within itself the possibility of liminality for people who are attentive. Even more remarkable, music can at times surprise into awareness those who would not normally be looking for the divine. 

This gift of a threshold experience may have been what my friend was experiencing through the music of Brahms. She who did not believe in God tasted the reality of the divine, even though she could not name the reality she knew then as God.

 

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. 

It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 

Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 

No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. 

(Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

October 2006

---

Our Help Is in the Name of the Lord

The space shuttle has landed safely (September 21), but with the discovery of mysterious dark objects that seemed to have fallen from it, I was reminded once again of human frailty and human fallibility. One day earlier this month, I jotted down several incidents suggestive of the uncertainty inherent in earthly life:

In the van on the way to Midway airport in Chicago , I spied a sign reading “Accident Investigation Site.” Now this was not a makeshift notice put up helter-skelter after a crash, but a permanent highway sign. Not far beyond the sign was the site itself, where one could pull or push one’s bashed vehicle off the road. Was the highway department letting us know that accidents were the normal expectation in this location, so that they were consecrating a place in perpetuity on the expressway for investigating them?  

We drove on past, and before long, a truck pulled up alongside us on the right. Written in large letters on its side was the word “Oremus” — let us pray. Yes, indeed, pray so as not to be a beneficiary of the Accident Investigation Site. 

In the airport, two announcements over the public address system caught my attention:

• “A cap has been left at the security checkpoint. Please check your head to see if you are wearing your cap.”
  
• “John Smith [or some such ordinary-sounding individual], please return to security. Your bag needs to be inspected.”  
  If Mr. Smith had really been carrying explosives in his bag, I wondered, would he heed the call to return? At that point he might have decided it would be just as well to initiate the first terrorist attack of an American men’s room. 

Last, but perhaps not least, were the safety instructions by the Southwest Airlines cabin attendant. She concluded: “If you are traveling with a child put your own mask on first, and then put the mask on your child. If you are traveling with two children, it’s time to decide which one you like best!”  

All in all: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8).

September 2006

---

One Year Since Katrina

We hold in prayer all who continue to suffer—whether in body, mind, or spirit—from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

The following is a prayer for the hurricane season by Maurice Schexnayder (1895-1981), the second Bishop of Lafayette, Louisiana:

O God, Master of this passing world, 
hear the humble voices of your children. 
The sea of Galilee obeyed your order and returned to its former quietude; 
You are still the Master of land and sea.  

We live in the shadow of danger 
over which we have no control; 
the Gulf, like a provoked and angry giant, 
can awake from its seeming lethargy, 
overstep its conventional boundaries, 
invade our land and spread chaos and disaster.

During this hurricane season 
we turn to You, O loving Father.  
Spare us from past tragedies 
whose memories are still so vivid 
and whose wounds seem to refuse to heal 
with passing time. 

O Virgin Mary, Star of the Sea, 
Our Beloved Mother, we ask you 
to plead with your Son in our behalf, 
so that spared from the calamities 
common to this area and animated 
with a true spirit of gratitude, 
we will walk in the footsteps of your Divine Son
to reach the heavenly Jerusalem 
where a stormless eternity awaits us.  
Amen.

August 2006

---

Singing is for Lovers

I’ve just downloaded from iTunes a recording of Marilyn Horne singing the Lord’s Prayer. Listening to it is enough to send shivers down your spine, and its beauty bears witness to what St. Augustine said: cantare amantis est — singing belongs to the lover. 

My mother also liked to sing, but was not what you would call a Marilyn Horne. She barely opened her mouth in church, knowing that sometimes she wasn’t quite on pitch. In the bosom of the family, though, you never knew when she would burst into song. 

On the highway in the family car—usually in the middle of nowhere and without any provocation that we could discern—there would issue from the front passenger seat the first words of "Dwelling in Beulah Land": 

"Far away the noise of strife upon my ears is falling."

The volume would increase until she reached the chorus—by now joined by the rest of the family, my father, my brother, and me:

I’m living on the mountain, 
underneath a cloudless sky.
I’m drinking at the fountain 
that never shall run dry.
O yes! I’m feasting on the manna 
from a bountiful supply,
For I am dwelling in Beulah Land!

(C. Austin Miles, 1911)

I don’t recall ever getting beyond the first verse. Indeed, I don’t think we knew the words beyond the first verse; and I don’t know where my mother learned even the first verse of a gospel-style song like "Dwelling in Beulah Land." Our Presbyterian Church tended to stick to the more classical chorales and other “dignified” hymns (although at Sunday evening worship we could and did slip into more devotional songs); and the church of her childhood, in an effort to remain faithful to the tradition of the Bible, sang only psalms. 

At home, too, Mama’s musical enthusiasms were irrepressible. She sometimes accompanied housework with operatic-style recitatives describing what was going on in the house at the moment. One day the mailman happened to step onto the front porch just as she launched into a melody delivered both fortissimo and appassionato. He managed to drop the mail in the slot before beating a hasty retreat down the steps as if pursued by who knows what unseen visitant.

Cantare amantis est, said Augustine. Singing belongs to the lover. My mother was a lover: of her family, of her God—and of laughter. She delighted in retelling the story of the startled postman stumbling from the porch. 

Although I am not convinced that everyone who sings is filled with love, I do believe that when we sing, we tend to make ourselves vulnerable, taking a risk, as does anyone who loves.  There is a kind of letting go in singing, whether we are divas like Marilyn Horne, or congregational singers, or those who sing only in the shower. Even the most staid adult becomes a bit childlike by opening his or her mouth in song.

But most people probably do not realize how powerful music is. I think that singing — or even just listening to music—can make us more reachable, for good or for ill. The Anti-Defamation League says that hate music:

"...is one of the most significant ways neo-Nazis attempt to attract young people into their movement; this source of recruitment is possibly the most important factor in the ability of neo-Nazi groups to expand or even maintain their membership." 

So even our musical letting go requires a bit of caution. Does the music we choose open us to goodness and love or to something less? The question is important because, after all, we are created for love. In this light I like to pray with St. Thomas Aquinas the beautiful prayer of the second verse of "Panis angelicus": 

Duc nos quo tendimus,
ad lucem quam inhabitas.

Lead us, we sing, where we are inclined to go anyhow, to the light wherein you dwell. Anything else would be such a serious violation of who we are and who we are made to be that an eagle might as well try to become a beetle. 
 
We are made for love; and singing belongs to the lover.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. 

And be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

(Colossians 3:14-16)

August 2006

---

I Will Be There

Like anyone who uses the internet as a tool, I am sometimes asked to identify myself on websites I visit. When it's a matter of ordering a book from Amazon.com, I obviously have to give my real name and address. I don't even mind signing in with the New York Times or the Washington Post. 

On others sites I can find my privacy antennae quivering. Occasionally, therefore, I use only my initials and last name (as I did when I inadvertently ended up on an ex-christian site last year [see the entry, Being Scorned]). Or I type in my middle name without a last name; or, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, a name I made up in high school when I had aspirations of being a poet and thought a pen name would lift me to the ranks of the literary immortals. (I won't reveal that one to you.)

Human beings sometimes request personal identification from God as well (that is, when we are not just assuming we already know all there is to know about the divine). For example, when Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he asks for God's name. 

Moses says, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" (Exodus 3:13).

Now God, being God, is not required to give out personal information--or as far as that goes, to answer any questions at all. Nevertheless, God, being God, treats Moses with respect and does give Moses a response of sorts, although it is probably not the response he hopes for.

"Ehyeh asher ehyeh," replies God. 

What in the world does that mean? No one really knows. "I am who I am" is probably the most frequent translation, but some contend that it is not the most accurate. The phrase can also read, "I will be who I will be," or "I will be what I will be," or, as Johannes Metz writes in Suffering unto God, "I will be for you who I will be."

According to Martin Buber, the answer God gives is the answer we need to hear:

Not "I am that I am" as alleged by the metaphysicians—God does not make theological statements—but the answer which his creatures need, and which benefits them: "I shall be there as I there shall be" [Exod. 3:14]. That is: you need not conjure me, for I am here, I am with you; but you cannot conjure me, for I am with you time and again in the form in which I choose to be with you time and again... 

"The Faith of Judaism," The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, edited by Asher D. Biemann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 103.

You cannot conjure me, God says. No matter how often you go to church; no matter how many prayers you say or the assiduousness of your scripture study; no matter how long you sit in silence with your legs crossed or with your feet flat on the floor; no matter how many charitable deeds you perform; no matter how shining your virtues or upright your life: none of this suffices to conjure me up or make me present. 

The good news is that you have no need to conjure me anyhow, for I am there. 

Our own actions can be either welcoming or contemptuous of the blessing of divine presence; but God's presence is a gift and a given, not the reward for prayer well prayed or a life well lived. Indeed, it is God's loving presence that motivates us to prayer, to worship, to silence, to virtue, to good deeds—not the other way around.

But notice this: God says to Moses, "I will be for you as I will be," or "I shall be there as I there shall be," not necessarily as you would have me to be. I am there whether you want me to be there or not. And I am there the way I desire to be there. "Ehyeh asher ehyeh."

You are not in control of my presence. I promise to be there whether you ask me to be or not, but "I shall be there as I there shall be." Not always as you want me to be or expect me to be or think you need me to be. Perhaps not in the way I seemed present to you yesterday or will seem to you tomorrow. But I will be there.

And what is more: what I will be for you is what I Am in truth, not an illusion, not an imitation of godhood or a figment of your imagination—though you may at times mistake one of these for me, and though, with your limited human awareness, you will never be able to grasp the fullness of divinity.

I will be for you who I Am and always Have Been—and who I always Will Be, world without end. I will be there for you, I your heart's desire, what you have always desired, whether you knew it or not. 

So we pray, 
You who are there for me as you will be, may I also be there for you as you graciously will me to be.

O God,
that at all times you may find me
as you desire me
and where you would have me to be;
that you may lay hold of me fully
both by the Within and the Without of myself.
Grant that I may never break this double thread of my life. 
Amen.
(Prayer by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

July 2006

---

Receiving a Gift

Gifts come in all shapes.

A few days ago the back doorbell rang. I went to answer it, but no one was there. Then as I stood there it rang again — with no one pushing it. That in itself was no mystery. Sometimes a particularly vigorous finger on the button will make the bell stick, so that it keeps ringing over and over until someone unsticks it. Still, I did hesitate to open the door, in case someone was hiding behind one of the cars or just around the corner of the building, ready to pounce on me as soon as the door was opened.

So I peered around as far as I could see through the little window in the back door. All of a sudden my eye landed on something new in the driveway: a blue and gray concrete block. What was that doing there? Then I thought, oh, just a silly prank. Some kids left the block, rang the doorbell, and ran off. 

But I obviously couldn’t leave the block where it was, so out I stomped, heedless of anyone who might be lurking with criminal intent. I bent down to pick up the block—which refused to budge. I tried again, and this time my flabby muscles managed to shift it far enough from the middle of the driveway that it no longer posed a hazard to people or cars. I returned, annoyed, to the house.

Several days later, Carol , the formerly homeless, mentally ill woman (see "Being Scorned" and "Rocking and Bobbing"), came by, and the mystery was solved.

“Did you like the pretty brick I brought you?”

“How did you get it here?” asked Sister Elizabeth.

“On my bike,” she said. “I carried it with one hand and rode with the other.” 

The concrete block that I had barely been able to move and that we didn’t know how to dispose of, a worthless hunk of debris just a moment before, had taken on new value. It was a gift! 

It is not always apparent at first glance that an object or an event is a gift. And it requires especially sensitive eyes to perceive that a vexation may really be a blessing bestowed on us with love.

. . . . .

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

"All is grace."
"Tout est grâce." (Thérèse of Lisieux)

 July 2006

---

Post-Katrina

Sister Elizabeth and I recently returned from New Orleans, our first visit there since Hurricane Katrina. 

Our own house, the Cenacle Retreat House on the lakefront in Metairie, was spared major damage. Unlike other parts of town — Lakeview and St. Bernard Parish in particular— most buildings in our neighborhood look unchanged — except that the street is lined with FEMA trailers, so you know the houses were flooded and are unlivable. 

One day Sisters Rosalie, Elizabeth, and I drove to Pass Christian, Mississippi, where Sister Rosalie’s family home was located before Katrina. The house was completely destroyed by the storm surge. Now when you walk where the house used to be, you see not only beach poppies and Easter lilies sprouting in the sandy soil, but also spoons and forks and pieces of broken china. The Pass Christian town center is made up primarily of trailers housing banks, library, and city government. 

For a good part of the next day I felt like weeping, and my stomach was upset — a delayed reaction to the hundreds of miles of devastation we had seen the day before. I can only try to imagine what it is like for the people who live with it every day, for whom wreckage is the new normalcy. 

Listening to some of them, I had the impression of a citizenry that had survived a war, with the resulting damage to property and wounds to the psyche.

While we were there, the Times-Picayune printed an article about modern-day “carpetbaggers,” who, after first looting the damaged houses in New Orleans, are now back, stealing shutters, doors, and other historic architectural elements.  And this week the National Guard has been called back in, following the murders of five teenagers and an adult.

Where is goodness amid the destruction?

We had just gotten out of the car at the empty lot where Sister Rosalie’s family home had been when a man stopped to ask us if we needed help.“

No,” we said, pointing to Sister, “she’s just come to see the old homestead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” was his reply, full of understanding and sympathy.

Simple acts of kindness have abounded, although the crimes, true to the pattern of the news media, have received more attention.

Less than two months after the storm, Daniel P. Aldrich, writing on the Jewish web site, aish.com, said: 

In explaining what happened to us, I have sought to show my children that our losses provided us with a chance to experience chesed — kindness — from others...

Aldrich added that the experience of Katrina “has reinforced our belief in the innate goodness and kindness not only of Jews but of the American people as a whole”; and he goes on to tell about an incident in Atlanta, when he was trying to buy gas and having trouble with his credit card. 

As a nearby woman heard my wife and me talking with the sales clerk about leaving New Orleans, she walked up, smiled, and said, "I want to give you this." In her hand was a winning lottery ticket and her collected earnings. … This was one of the myriad of kindnesses showered upon us by strangers, friends, and family alike.

Goodness is found, too, in the courage of people carrying on with life amid the pain. In the neighborhood of the Cenacle, residents tend their lawns, mowing around the FEMA trailers. In Pass Christian, the townspeople rejoice over the opening of their new trailer library. 

Life goes on.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 

Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;

all your waves and your billows
have gone over me. 

. . . . .

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God. 

(Psalm 42:6-7, 11)

June 2006

---

Why Pray "Come"?

Come, thou Holy Spirit, come,
and from thy celestial home
shed a ray of light divine!

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte caelitus
lucis tuae radium. 

Why do we say “Come”? Isn’t the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ always with us? If the Spirit of God were not present in us, we wouldn’t even exist. The grace of God sustains us at every moment, and according to Meister Eckhart, “Grace comes only with the Holy Spirit; it carries the Holy Spirit on its back.” 

So why do we pray, “Come”?

It goes without saying that we are in the realm of Mystery here, as we are whenever we speak of God, and in truth whenever we get up in the morning or go to bed at night. And we have only human language to talk about that Mystery. So when we say the Spirit of God is present, we don’t mean present in the way we mean that another human being is present. And when we say God is near, we don’t mean near in the way that this chair is near and that door is farther away. When we talk about God being near or far, we are talking about our human experience, and we are using human words to express something that can’t really be expressed. 

One thing we are praying for when we say, “Come,” is our own openness to the powerful and mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit. The prayer itself expresses a willingness for God to take over our hearts and our lives. Come, Holy Spirit, I am open to receive you (or at least, I want to be open to welcome you). Come, Holy Spirit, I need you, and I desire to desire only what you desire. Come, Holy Spirit, do with me whatever pleases you.

And, if you will, shed a ray of light on the dimness of vision and dullness of heart that hide you from me. Accomplish in me what I cannot do for myself. Send a ray of light divine: take away my murkiness of heart, so that I may know and love God. So that I do not remain immured in my own obscurity, my own fog of self. Teach me to see without seeing, in your clarity, even if that light seems to me like darkness.

Sister Rose Hoover, rc

 

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies;
But take the dimness of my soul away.

George Croly, “Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart,”
Psalms and Hymns for Public Worship (London: 1854).

June 2006

---

Who Are These, Clothed in White Robes?

Fashion is fickle.  I went to STYLE.COM to find out what I  should be anxious about this year (unlike the lilies of the field, who neither toil nor spin).  I learned that my lips should be scarlet, and that it would be advisable to get a designer bag for my cell phone.  What is more, for “instant It-girl status” (whatever an “It-girl” is), all I have to do is wear a 1960s-style baby-doll dress.  Next year, of course, this same look will only go to show how outmoded I am.

On the other hand, the Bible does indicate some spiritual clothes that never go out of style.  These are symbolized by the white garment which the neophytes, the new Catholics, received during the Easter Triduum. 

We read in Galatians 3:27,

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Being clothed with Christ is an amazing thought; and if we carry the image of the garment one step further, it becomes even more astonishing.  Psalm 104 tells us that God is “wrapped in light as with a garment,” and it seems that a garment of light is not only fitting garb for the divine, but also for us.  In the Eastern rite Catholic churches (and the Orthodox churches), when the newly baptized receive the white garment, these words are sung:

Grant me a Robe of Light,
You who are robed in Light as with a garment,
O Christ our God, so rich in mercy.

See http://www.saintelias.com/ca/mysteries/baptism.php

Here are some of the results of putting on this robe of light — which is another way of saying that we have put on Christ.

First, all those differences that tend to cause division become unimportant when we are clothed with Christ:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  (Galatians 3: 27-28)

Next, there are some very practical effects, including some rather awesome responsibilities, connected with this apparel.

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3: 12-14)

And in the long run, we allow our mortal bodies to be clothed with immortality:

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  (1 Cor 15:53)

If this new garment is not just made of white cloth, but is in truth a robe of light, it would seem to be a rather exalted form of dress for us lowly human beings.  I imagine all of us, whether new Catholics or seasoned Christians, have already learned to our sorrow that we do not lead perfect lives after baptism. 

But — oh, wonder of wonders! — Jesus does not wait until we are perfected to offer the robe.  He gives it to us, and then calls us to grow into it.

The process of growing into that garment of light is called sanctification.  

Now in a very important sense, we are already holy: each of us is God’s child — one of God’s holy ones.  But sanctification means becoming more and more like Christ in our hearts, in our minds, and in our daily lives, more and more one with the compassion, mercy and love of God.  

Can we wear the robe of light, taking on the mind and heart of Christ, while we are promoting war, or ignoring the plight of the poor, or saying nasty things about our next-door neighbor? We must choose to live so that to encounter us is to touch the hem of Christ’s garment; so that by grace our presence will be the healing presence of Christ for our fractured world. 

“Who are these robed in white?” we ask, like the elder in the book of Revelation, “and where have they come from?” 

These are God’s people.  We have come from here and from all over.  We have put on Christ and are growing in holiness — often failing, but always forgiven, always praying to become more and more the presence of Christ for the world, so that to meet us is to meet Christ. 

May 2006

---

 

What Does the Resurrection Mean for Us?

What does the Resurrection of Jesus mean for us?  And why does it mean something for our own lives and not just the life of one holy God-man?

First, the Resurrection shows us that Goodness is in control of the universe.

Huston Smith puts it this way:

“Jesus’s resurrection was not about the fate of a worthy man.  It concerned the status of goodness in the universe, offering evidence that goodness has power—indeed, ultimate power.  Jesus was goodness incarnate, and in his resurrection his goodness triumphed….The resurrection reversed the cosmic position in which the cross had placed Jesus’s goodness.” (The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition [HarperSanFrancisco, 2005], 75-6)

It is crucial to remember this when we face the obvious evil in our world.  The awareness that goodness is ultimately in control keeps us from losing hope; and hope itself helps us to notice the good and not to get mired in discouragement at the in-your-face presence of evil.

 The resurrection shows us that there is no violence in God.  

According to theologian James Alison, 

“At the resurrection, what the apostolic group began to understand was that there is no violence in God, no wrath, no desire for retribution, no need for vengeance or satisfaction” ("Befriending a Vengeful God," Encounter, October 24, 2004).

·     How de we know that there is no violence or vengeance in God?  For one thing, Jesus came right back to the people who had denied him and run off in his hour of need—and he didn’t come back to get even.  He came into the room where the apostles were quivering in fear and said to them, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19 ).  

The early Christians took very seriously the belief that there is no room in God’s love for violence.  One of the ways in which this was evident was that they tended to refuse military service.

The Resurrection shows the tender mercy of God toward us.  

Instead of taking revenge on us for our own denials and betrayals, God forgives us and turns our falling into new life—life renewed for our earthly journey, and life everlasting after death.

“For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:10) 

The gifts of the Resurrection carry with them a marvelous responsibility.  For through the tender mercy of God who forgives us our sins; through the love of God in whom there is no violence; through the power of God whose goodness triumphs over evil—we, puny creatures that we are, are called to let ourselves be transformed into the good and merciful and peaceful presence of Christ for the world.

In John 20:21, Jesus says a second time (they probably needed to hear it again) “Peace be with you.”  But then he adds, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 

 

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth 
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, 
in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, 
not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, 
but that which is through faith in Christ, 
the righteousness from God that depends on faith;

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, 
and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

(Philippians 3:7-12 RSV)

May 2006

---

The Shadow of the Cross -
The Shadow of Thy Wings

Shade is treasured in the sunshine state.  When Sister Elizabeth, a New Yorker, moved to Gainesville, she was worried about the branches of large trees hanging over our roof.  

“Trees are hanging over almost everyone’s roof,” I pointed out, “and even over businesses.  That’s how buildings in north Florida are kept cool in the summer.” 

She finally accepted the blessing of the shade, and even grew accustomed to the occasional thud over our heads during a storm.

As we approach the Easter Triduum, I find myself singing about another kind of shade.  The last stanza of the hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” by Elizabeth C. Clephane, begins, “I take, O cross, thy shadow, for my abiding place.”

The shadow of the cross seems quite a different matter from the cool shade of our magnificent live oaks.  Shade is something to be grateful for — but then there are the shadows that loom over our lives, making everything dreary.  Why would I want to abide in the shadow of an instrument of death — in the shadow of the gallows, the electric chair, the gas chamber, nuclear weapons?  This sounds too much like the evening news. 

In the shadow of the cross, we are reminded that the poor and weak still suffer injustice and oppression, and the innocent are put to death. 

But wait.  In the shadow of the cross, we also learn that when evil has done its worst, when love seems to have perished, there is still hope.  We are reminded that we are loved with a love that is passionate, life-giving, all-encompassing, and unconditional — a love unto death, yes, but also unto glorious life without end.

Because the Son of God loved us so much, we find that the shadow of the cross provides rest from the cold grip of fear, shelter from the scorching heat of ego, and healing from the sense of exile that may oppress us.  We can rest in this shade. 

We notice that the comfort of the shade found beneath the cross begins to remind us of an Old Testament metaphor: the shadow of God’s wings:

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
   for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
   until the destroying storms pass by. (Ps 57:1)

This is the image of God as mother bird, protecting her offspring.  As strange as it may seem, in Christ, the shadow of the cross has become the shadow of God’s wings, the place where we are most at home.

You have been my help,
   and in the shadow of your wings 
I sing for joy. (Ps 63:7)

April 2006

---

Back to Archives Index

---

Cenacle Journal

Sisters of the Cenacle

Caught Up in God (Cenacle Journal Archives arranged according to categories.  Also videos and podcasts)

Vocation Quest:  Are you called to be a Catholic Sister?

Unable to Grasp God's Essence...: photography in praise of God who is the Good, the True, the Beautiful

Virtual Chapel

 

  May we hear from you?

 

Except where noted, all Cenacle Journal entries are by Sister Rose Hoover
© 1998-2009, Religious of the Cenacle

Most scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
Copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.