What Word will we Proclaim?

 As People of the Word we have been reflecting this past year on Pope Francis’ challenges to us on Hope. How can we proclaim a word of hope in these times? We have reflected on this great virtue, a power given us by that hidden Mystery of God we call “Father.” As the Father cannot be seen, so hope cannot yet see what it longs for. Yet we cannot be still. We preach the Word, in season and out, because if we don’t it burns within us, needing to get out to those around us. As Dominicans we learn in our formation that our first preaching is from the pulpit of our lives. Our lives speak. We bring a presence to the kitchen, the phone, and online. This is the first Word others hear. Then some among us write, speak, teach, or preach liturgically at liturgy.

Pope Francis shocked the world with his Laudato si, where he called us all to recognize that we are one with all of creation, and need to care for it. Now he has again challenged the world with Fratelli tutti, where he zeros in on the one creature that can change whatever is amiss: ourselves. The title, Fratelli tutti, means “Brothers and Sisters All.” Simply, he is telling the world that nothing will change unless we look at one another anew. We are indeed all related. Yet we abuse, rob, demean, and kill one another. This letter, not only to Catholic Christians, but to the world, simply states that we need to regard each other as brother and sister, no matter what our differences. This will change everything and make anything possible.

Is Francis a wild dreamer? Is his vision utopian? Some say so. But a greater number of us are recognizing that he is merely calling us to what the Kin-dom of God promises. So, this year we will take up his challenge. We will reflect on what he is calling us to in the midst of this time when much is in flux within our Dominican community. Perhaps his insights will help guide our next steps. In his Introduction, Francis admits he is inspired by the example of Francis of Assisi, who met with Sultan Makil-el-Kamil in Egypt during the Crusades. He himself met with the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Together they signed a statement emphasizing that “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties, and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters.” COVID-19 has exposed our false securities. Our national governments have not been able to work together. So now, as members of “a single human family,” we need new systems to solve global problems that affect us all.

So, we will dream together. Together we just might also discover clues for the next direction of our Racine Dominican Community.

You are a Hidden God

A new Year has dawned, and in the midst of the pandemic’s hold we know healing is out there, hidden in the laboratories struggling to produce the help the world needs. So much is hidden in our day-to-day lives.

Could this be the reason the Word who pressed our humanity to itself chose thirty years of hiddenness? It’s certainly not the way we would plan a redemption. Thirty years, and the only detail we have is when the child got ‘lost’ and caused his parents unbelievable pain?

Perhaps there is more here than we might think as we hurry on through this little snatch of ordinary time to the great season of lent. But, to think of it, these hidden years of the life of Jesus have much to tell us. The liturgical readings of January might serve us well if we look for ‘hidden treasure.’

The ordinary is just so…ordinary. We take it for granted. We just do it. We do our laundry, we shop, we open mail, we brush our teeth, we make supper…and so on. But didn’t the Word do just these same things for thirty years? What a colossal waste of precious time! So we might think.

Could this humble hiddenness be telling us something about what we take for granted? Could it be calling us to pay more attention to what we consider to be so…ordinary? What would happen to our little hidden lives if we did our ordinary little things with a knowing little smile on our faces, filling them with love and gratitude? What would happen to our mental health? To our attitudes…to our sense of the presence that is always with us, doing those humdrum ordinary things with us and feeling right at home? Give it some thought. Yes, truly, you are a hidden God, and we are your beloved hidden people.

With me always, you said.

But I forget.

I have all this stuff to do, you know…

The rent to pay and getting the car serviced…

Doing the laundry and cleaning…and…and…

“Martha, Martha,” you say, “…you are troubled about so many things.”

“only one thing is necessary.”

“I am with you doing all the ordinary things…

…smile!”

Advent Heartache

 

We have entered the season of Advent. Its color is purple, but not the penitential purple of lent. It is the magenta or sapphire blue purple of longing. Advent is about the heartache of hope’s longing to find the One my heart loves. 

The human family knows deep-down what it wants. It longs for peace. It longs for collaboration. It longs for healing. It longs for the communion that authentic relationship brings. ‘Advent’ means to come or coming to. So the obvious question is “When?” When will these things come, and who will bring them?  

Various religious traditions have various answers. The answer given down through the ages in the Christian community called Church has been that only God can bring these things, and God will do this in the broad expanse of time: in the past, in the present, and in the future. But to answer this longing, God will have to enter time. God will have to endure its limitations, be bound by its step-by-step process, suffer its ongoing development. And God did just that. God entered time and wrapped God’s own word in flesh. God asked a young girl to give the Word a body, and when she said yes, God pressed human DNA to God’s Self, never to be parted. 

So, the phases of time sometimes become a blur during Advent. God came in the past; God is coming in the present; and God will come in the future. We ponder all of them. The texts of Advent will take us back to when the Word became flesh in Mary’s womb. The texts will point us to the future when the great risen King will come to judge the world. But most challenging of all, will be those texts that awaken us to the realization that he comes daily, every twenty-four hours, when we least expect him, when we might just miss him. So the people of God are filled with longing to see him in the day-to-day, and are filled with the heartache that comes from knowing we often miss him, and miss ministering to him. He wears a thousand disguises. He favors wearing the faces of the lowly ones, those who interrupt our lives, those who bother us with their defenseless need.  

We shake each other from our unawareness. The texts try to arouse us to pay attention. And all the while the One we seek has long ago pressed us to his cheek. But our Advent is necessary, because we have been busy about many things, so distracted, in fact, that we haven’t noticed his nearness, if we’re honest. So Advent’s longing heartache is all about a new noticing…he’s here. 

He came, you say, “Way back in history…” 

or 

No, he will be coming in majesty “…better be ready!” 

but 

now, today, in mystery? 

How do I ‘solve’ these surprises? 

Ah! 

With the heart’s eyes…they will catch him in all his disguises.

All shall be well….?

 

What makes it possible, when all is chaos around us, when war is present, when the virus persists, when corruption abounds…to cling firmly in faith? We are told we are to trust. What makes it possible for us to do this?

The sacred texts this month will speak of perseverance to the very end. We will be remembering our loved ones who have gone on into a type of life beyond our present experience. In the face of the losses that death inflicts upon us, what will prevent us from scattering like a flock of frightened sheep?

One thing only…the assurance given us by the enduring presence of the Word. We are told to grab hold of him, to hide our frightened faces in his tunic, near to his heart. We are told to take refuge in the reality of a mystery many of us spend a good part of our lives trying to absorb.

He will be with us, he says, until the end of the age. “You in me, and I in you,” he says. What would happen in my life if this day, this week, this month, I took that with utter seriousness? Yes, you feel it too…first, we would calm down. It’s called the peace of assurance. It’s his Easter gift. We can’t create it. It’s what his presence brings. All the outer noise dims. His presence is pure power. Wherever he is, there is a stillness, a sacred quiet. This is my call during this final month of the liturgical year. Walking amidst the chaos and remembering those who have entered eternal life, I am to school myself in the fact of his presence. In this faith-fact I am to walk.

My fear would send me into a panic attack…No, you say?

Instead, “Come to me…I am always at home…with you,” you say.

“Live on in me…come home.”

Hope’s Fragrant Breath

We all know the intoxicating smell of autumn leaves. Pope Francis uses fragrance to tell us that hope too has a tell-tale ‘breath.’ Where the Spirit is, there is delightful fragrance, and the Holy Spirit, says Francis, is hope’s breath.

How is this so? The Holy Spirit, like some lingering fragrance in the air, keeps before us the steady content of our hope. Without this presence, it would be dark indeed, and the stench of our sin would overwhelm us. But the Spirit promises new life.

 We don’t have to look far to see the effects of our sinfulness. In our selfish woundedness, we pollute the very land and water we have been given as gift. Yet, like the oil and wine poured into the wounds of the robbers’ victim, the Holy Spirit comes to save us from ourselves. We groan, but our groaning is that of a woman in labor, for the Spirit draws new life from our groaning. The Spirit makes sure we see beyond our sinfulness. From our destructive greed the Spirit draws new life. Death and destruction will not have the last word. Even as we are still surrounded by the signs of our abuse, there are also signs of hope’s promise. Life conquers death, and drawn by the fragrance of that memory, we carry on. The Spirit, like a fire in the night, keeps us on course.

 

 

Hope…in the Coming Election

 As women and men of the Word we have been reflecting on what Pope Francis has said about hope in our lives. What faces us in the coming weeks is no exception. The stakes are high, and at such times, Satan often struts around as an angel of light. Dominicans above all cannot allow themselves to be duped at a time like this.

 It seems the media is presenting us with the news that some priests are telling their people that Catholics will sin mortally if they vote for pro-choice candidates. Sadly, these misinformed clergy are using their influence to misguide, and have not read or heeded the directives of their own bishops. These directives are found on the USCCB website. If you don’t have time to read the entire Voter’s Guide, check out #7 and #35. The latter was drawn from a principle given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (formerly Pope Benedict XVI) which is important enough to quote in full:

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons (emphasis added), it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.

(Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 2004.)

 ‘Proportionate reasons’ means evaluating the overall possibilities for good or evil ensuing from such a vote. We need to pray for these priests, and if possible direct them to the Guidelines of their bishops so they cease using their influence to cause scandal and misguide the consciences of others.

 

 

 

Whistling in the Dark

We’re into the seventh month with no end in sight. It’s hard to believe we’ve been living with this virus for six months. But those are the facts. We wonder when it’s going to end. Liturgically we are at that mid-point between the events of the Great Paschal Mystery and Advent. It’s the time of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and right alongside, several feasts of Mary, the Mother of God: her Birthday on September 8; her name’s day on the 12th, her sorrows on the 15thand that ancient feast of Our Lady of Ransom on the 24th. 

What is this Great Mother we call the Church thinking? First of all, who on earth wants to exalt the cross, that instrument of torture? And then, what does this humble woman have to do with the cross? I think a lot. Mary is always ourselves –fast forwarded. Yes, she is what we shall be after struggling through the agony and darkness of faith. She is us...come to fullness after hanging on for dear life by our fingernails. She stands there...Star of the Sea, and calls to us to get out of the boat and walk on water. 

Water in scripture is pure chaos. Many of us are doing just that. Our faith upholds us and we keep walking.Not only are we walking,we are whistling in the dark. No matter how dark it gets, we have an assurance. We have Someone walking with us...holding us, in fact...and carrying us at times. That faith enables us to walk on water...the chaos of Covid-19. It is, for now, the cross that has us hanging. But while we wait, there is that assurance. So,there is that little secret smile. So,we whistle in the dark.

 Are you there?

 Do you have hold of us never to let go? 

 Sometimes it gets so dark we think the Son is never going to come up. 

But faith tells us otherwise. 

You ran to the cross. 

You said you had to ‘enter into your glory.’ 

Was it because the cross revealed your immense love?

 Was it because you knew the cross would tell us all was made right?

 Was it because you wanted us to know you would be there, when it is dark? 

So through our tears there is that knowing smile... 

You are our assurance.

Hope has a Content

 

Sometimes what surrounds us in the News gets so heavy we are seriously tempted to despair of things ever getting any better. We all know this space. Yet Pope Francis stands there with us, but calls us to look elsewhere. All of us live in this present world, and it is broken, wounded, corrupted, abused, and blind. Not a happy picture. This is real. But something else is real too. The more permanent reality is the content of our hope.

We are talking about real stuff here, not just pie-in-the-sky. By stuff I mean tangible realities all around us that give substance to our hope. Deepest of all are the promises of our God, that life comes out of death, and that there will be a new creation. God does not lie. Yet we say, we must wait for the future for these to be fulfilled, right? Right maybe that they be fulfilled in their fullness, but in the meantime, we simply need to open our eyes. What are the signs of the content of our hope already at work right now?

Let’s start with ourselves. We are a bundle of possibilities. Every morning we have a new 24 hours before us. We will create, as we put our feet on the floor, what will actually fill those next 24 hours. Contacts, calls, choices, reflections, quiet, grief, joy, surprises, actions…like a canvas, the day awaits our artistry. With God’s assurances humming in our hearts, we will turn possibilities to actualities. This is going on all around the world among all peoples. What can we do today to create better government? Better health care for everyone? Eradicate homelessness? Protect the environment? How can we comfort the grieving? Speak a good word? Watch the flowers bloom…they silently speak of hope’s content here and now. Watch the sunrise…it announces another day for caring, loving, helping. The Mystery deep within us is singing of hope. In stillness we can hear it. In living it we can make it visible…right now, today.

“…never forget: hope does not disappoint.”

We all know we aren’t supposed to boast. Pope Francis reminds us that boasting usually makes us quite obnoxious to those around us. Yet there is one exception: we can boast all we want about the steadfastness of our hope. In fact, sometimes we need to do this when things look pretty grim.

 Without blinking an eye we can boast about how every corner of our life is permeated with grace…no matter how we feel. This realization can fill us with gratitude and quiet joy. This can bring us deep peace and with that peace comes freedom. Why so? The steadfastness of hope gives us an assurance that nothing can take away. This gives us a wonderful freedom. Nothing we do or don’t do can change this steady hope. It doesn’t come from us and we can’t turn it off. It is God’s assurance, and it is as steady as a rock. So we smile a little knowing smile, and whistle as we pass the cemetery.

 A sure and fast way to remind ourselves of this faith-fact is to ask ourselves: “Does God love me?” The answer comes quickly…yes, I’m sure of it. So, when I am sad…God loves me. When I feel alone…God loves me. When I wish someone could just give me a big hug…God loves me. This is truly something to boast about, Paul reminds us and so does Francis. This boasting never divides us from others, discredits or marginalizes them. It excludes no one; it teaches us to open our hearts to console and support; and remember…it never disappoints.

 

Shining Like the Sun

August comes, the August of the 2020 Pandemic. Liturgically, wise Mother-Church keeps before us during this month the brilliance of the Paschal promise: as your Lord and Lady have been transformed and shine now as the sun, so shall it be with you. In the Word, fused forever to our humble flesh, we have that pledge.

 The feasts of the Transfiguration and Assumption of Mary bring this pledge before our eyes. The brilliance of the transformed Jesus stuns Peter, James, and John. They don’t know what to make of it. They only know they don’t want it to end. But it does end. There is the agony of the Passion to go through, but they don’t understand that either. Nor do we. Yet the pledge is the same. It is an assured hope given us by God, and where the Head went the Body will follow. That’s us.

 Then, as if to underline the pledge, we watch it happen to one of our own. Mary has no burial place, because there is nothing in the tomb where they placed her. The body that held the Word, the flesh that gave him the ability to suffer and die, shines with the love and faith that filled her in time/space. Perhaps it is that very love and faith, hope, and love that effects our transformation too. If so, then we can do no better than to attend to the word during this month, for it seeks to grow that same love quotient in each of us. Inch by inch, day by day, it transforms us – yes, even in the midst of the August 2020 global pandemic.

 We know not what we shall be…

Live the truth in love, you said.

So in your Spirit help us to hang on in faith,

and teach our souls to sing their little song of hope.

Amen.