The Mysterious Coming

This year Christmas is on a Sunday. Yes, we are remembering the coming of the Christ in history, and the Church will be reminding us during this month of the final coming in majesty. The humanness and powerful images captivate our attention. Yet there is a subtle coming that can escape us if we do not intentionally heighten our awareness of it.

The risen Christ in his transformed humanness meets us in a thousand disguises. His Easter message was “Now I will no longer be with you the former way. I will be wherever you are.” This nearness, this intimacy, can be unnerving, because it is so personal. He is always at my side. He accompanies me as I fold my laundry and brush my teeth. He holds me in grief. He guards me when I sleep. This mysterious ‘coming’ is something he decided long ago. It is I who am out and about. It is I who forget and mistakenly think I am alone. The result is often anxiety, worry, fear, and sadness. These unwanted guests are in my house all too often. But there is a holy trick. They can be put to service.

 In these dark days of winter, when my mood is heavy, there can be a sly smile on my soul. Each time I notice my mood I can call out, and I can use the awareness to remember. I can remember that no matter my mood, no matter the circumstances, no matter my discomfort or outright pain, nothing can separate me from him. The mysterious ‘coming’ is my own. I am coming to a deepened awareness. My Advent is a coming in mystery…a coming to a new awareness of a new truth. Yes, he came…and he has never left.

 I sometimes think my soul is empty

like an empty house

or a kitchen table with no one around it.

But I am mistaken.

My soul is an open window

and the Spirit’s breath

often blows in to kiss my cheek.

Through my soul I am connected with all of you.

I reach all those weeping and I sit with those with no home.

I gaze across the sea at those bobbing in lifeboats

hoping to reach a safe shore.

At the table of my soul sits a distinguished Guest.

He is there each day to have a cup of coffee,

and each day I am aware of his wounded hands and feet.

He makes himself at home.

Sometimes I forget.

But I am learning to remember he is just around the corner of my mind.

The One who is always coming…

Epilogue to Francis’ Dream

 As preachers, we’ve been putting our ear to the heart of the Church, in listening to Pope Francis dream in print. He has led us back to the original spirit of the early Church…the synodal Church.  His book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, has an epilogue. We’ll now take a look at his ‘last word.’ Sometimes a thinker gives us the summation of his/her thought in an Epilogue…!

 Francis does not disappoint. He gives us two words, and they both identify us as ‘pilgrim.’ The two words are decenter and transcend. In giving us these final words, he distinguishes between someone going round and round in a labyrinth, and someone on a pilgrimage. The first can return to where one has started and remain the same. The pilgrim returns different. The pilgrim is changed.

 To decenter means to intentionally shift from concentrating on myself to becoming more and more aware of everyone around me. In our time, this means resisting the narcissistic urge. Decentering shifts our attention to union…the bonding that is everywhere in my life.

 To transcend means to refuse to give into the fixation on my powerlessness and failures. It means we refuse the luxury of despair. There is always some small thing I might do, some small thing I might give, if it be only a smile.

 To decenter and transcend. These indeed might be my daily Advent project. I might feel I only have a stable-like shelter to offer, but it transcends sleeping in the barnyard in the cold. I might feel the only strength I have is a stubborn will. Then I will put it to use daily to decenter, and delight in each person who enters my personal space. Who knows? I might be entertaining an angel unawares…! Thank you, Francis, for opening your heart to us…for dreaming out loud in print…and showing us a shepherd’s heart.

Dreaming with Pope Frances : More on Section II

 In section II of Pope Francis’ Let Us Dream: The Path To A Better Future, we ended last time in considering his concern for the voices and gifts of women. (See August Community Connections.) Remember, he is building a point of view that provides the wisdom for some important ‘Choosing.’ Get ready. Francis is building up the qualities that equip us to tackle synodality. This is where he is going. Synodality is the focus of the whole end of section II.

So, what is the bridge? The pope’s concern about the vital role women must play is but lead-in to two ideas that speak to the heart of the evening news: fraternity vs. individualism, and what he calls the “isolated conscience.”  Fraternity is “the sense of belonging to each other and to the whole of humanity…(It) is the capacity to come together and work together against a shared horizon of possibility…It’s a unity that allows people to serve as a body despite differences…preserves and respects plurality, inviting all to contribute from their distinctiveness, as a community of brothers and sisters concerned for each other. (68)

 Then Pope Francis tackles the major obstacle to this fraternity: the isolated conscience. Pointing first to the Church, Francis describes the person of isolated conscience as one in the grips of “a bad-spirit temptation to withdraw spiritually from the body to which I belong, closing us in on our own interests and viewpoints by means of suspicion and supposition…(turning) us…into beleaguered, complaining selves who disdain others, believing that we alone know the truth.” Whether revolutionary or restorationist, what marks these ideologies is rigidity. (69) When I’m asked to step out and become part of something bigger, suspicion supplies reasons to hold back, justifying this by my pointing out the faults of others. I become a master of criticism, a charitable openness to the other is replaced by clinging to the supposed superiority of one’s own ideas. (71)

 The antidote, says Francis, is self-accusation…admitting I am a sinner in need of great mercy. This can prevent polarization, the downward spiral of accusation and counteraccusation.

But engage with conflict and disagreement we must, in ways that keep us from descending into polarization. We do this by allowing for new thinking that goes beyond division. We need the art of civic dialogue that weaves together a different view on a higher plane.

 Referring to Romano Guardini, Francis challenges us to consider that the pulling apart of differences in tension really all coexist within a larger unity. The spirit of conflict turns contrapositions into contradictions, demanding we choose: thus polarization. Mediocre thinking allows this, taking us away from the possibility of a greater reality. Likewise, we can deny the tension in the two poles of a contraposition. Let be. The result is relativism…the unreal position that anything goes. Deep stuff, but it is going on before our eyes in the evening news. It is with these keen observations that Francis approaches synodality where we will join him next time.

 

Check Points for a Disciple

 We’re in the second half of Ordinary Time, and sure enough, the Church brings us back to center: the Cross. It is not by chance that the Exaltation of the Cross is a central September feast. The whole of Ordinary Time is a formation in discipleship flowing from the Cross and Resurrection. So, what are the formation points for us this month?

First, we’re reminded that we can’t be part-time disciples. We need full-time resolve. Then we are given the powerful parable of the Prodigal Son, to remind us that we are to be Reconcilers wherever our families, communities, work, or retirement take us. Then the last two Sundays make sure we understand where true riches lie…inwardly and outwardly in our public lives.

But we are not to lose sight of the Cross. Why? Because the Cross is the fullness of revelation about God and ourselves. About God, because nowhere, in any other religion, is God revealed as hanging on a tree, dying. Here the hidden God is revealed through the Word, joined to our humanity as a self-sacrificing Lover. More, we are not merely told. We are shown, by life-blood being poured out in a Spirit-burst upon the unsuspecting world. Among all the world religions, this is radical revelation.

But we too are revealed. We are tortured, tormented, broken, scourged, ridiculed, thirsty, abandoned and abused. And where is God while we struggle? There…in our midst. Look at the human form of your brother and sister. There…that’s where God is. The radical revelation is complete. The union finalized. God is not safe in heaven. God is wherever we are.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,

For by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’

It’s shocking.

It turns everything upside down.

Where is the majesty, the power, the splendor, the glory?

Head mocked for its hopes, plans, and dreams…

Hands nailed so they can’t help…

Feet fastened so they can’t come running…

Heart open like a window without shutters,

where I can run and hide anytime.

No condemnation?

No.

No condemnation.

Amen.

Continuing to Dream with Pope Francis

In June we explored Part I: A Time to See of Francis’ Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. We learned that three conditions distort our vision of these times: They are narcissism, discouragement, and pessimism. Narcissism is drowning in your own image. Discouragement is seeing only what you’ve lost, and pessimism shuts the door on the future.

 Once we’re wise to these three ‘dis-eases’ infecting our vision, and intentionally resolving to avoid them, we’re ready for Part II: A Time to Choose. Between the third step, to heal and repair, however, there is an important middle step. We need a firm set of criteria to guide us:

•      Knowing we are loved by God
•       Called to serve in solidarity
•       A healthy capacity for silent reflection, and
•      Places of refuge from the tyranny of the ‘urgent.’

Francis then takes us back to foundations: the Beatitudes and the Catholic Social Principles: the preferential option for the poor, the universal destination of goods, solidarity and subsidiarity, and above all, discernment of what we learn according to the signs of the times. This includes the important value of unfinished thinking, when we realize we really don’t know enough about something to reach an opinion. There is always the urge to make a snap rash judgment. The result is a false certitude rather than a tentative certainty. Francis reminds us to that we can always distinguish the voice of the Spirit from the voice of the evil spirit. God’s voice always opens up possibility. The evil spirit will suggest you are worthless and can do nothing.

Because this second Part is so rich in insights, we will limit this reflection to one more topic. The pope focuses on the leading role of women. He states that women are the most affected and the most resilient in this present crisis. Beginning with a reference to the Gospels, Francis recalls that the women were not paralyzed by the tragedy of the cross. They responded, and were the first to be open to the message of the resurrection. He cites women economists who have distinct approaches to addressing financial need, focusing on areas sidelined by mainstream thinking. These women are advocating an economy that sustains, protects, and regenerates, over one that merely regulates and arbitrates. The pope goes right to the ethos of this thinking, ideas formed from direct experience. He warns against reducing women in leadership to their functions rather than their ability to challenge the assumptions of power altogether. This focus of Part II is worth reading. We will pick up other insights from Part II next time…!

The Dimensions of Faith

These weeks of Ordinary Time are full of challenge. Among these challenges are the qualities a disciple of Jesus will need. Foremost of these  is faith. Faith is a way of seeing. Either we are going to use the lens of fear and hopelessness that the culture would offer, or we are going to
look ‘odd’ because we see life differently. We view events through a lens of faith with hope in the power of One who brings life even out of death.

So, note the dimensions of faith in the texts of these August Sundays. First, we learn that faith means ‘being ready,’ for anything. It means that as long as we are ‘on the Way,’ in Jesus, we are safe even in the midst of trauma. Then we learn that faith will divide us from even family
members who choose the fear lens. We will have to stand firm. Next we discover that some folks can be ‘in Jesus’ and not know it. They cling to God while Jesus is hidden from them. Finally, we learn that faith is humble. It does not strut around. It realizes that God is the One who gives
this way of seeing life.

 
Central to this month of August is the Feast of Mary’s Assumption. She is the First of Believers, clinging to the Word of God given her in the deepest darkness. Her Assumption shows us what happens to those who are steadfast in faith. She shines, like her Transfigured Son, beautiful
beyond belief.

 

Lord, I do believe,
Help my unbelief.
The news is heavy these days.
There seems to be no way out
of the endless problems that present themselves:
political, social, medical, religious...
we feel so powerless.
Show us that at such times we need to be
like magnets on a refrigerator door,
hanging on for dear life when we don’t have eyes to see
the force that keeps us where we need to be.
You will bring us through.
Help us to be that little spot of light in the darkness
that proves the darkness has not won.
Amen.

The Goal of Ordinary Time

 We enter the ‘green’ time…the time called ‘ordinary.’ But it isn’t really ordinary at all, because we are no longer ordinary. We have renewed our baptismal new life through the Paschal celebration of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. We shine from inside out.

 We have been formed for mission and witness during these past fifty days. The Spirit has come to mark us with our seal us a disciple. So now our task in this ‘ordinary’ time is to put on, bit by bit, what a disciple will need. Ordinary time is a school of discipleship. Week by week we say, “So this is what a disciple needs…!”

 First come the big feasts: The Trinity, Corpus Christi, The Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart: Three Persons, One Body, and Two Hearts. The triune mystery lies hidden in all creation. One creature cannot be complete without another. The Body of Christ meets us everywhere, in deepest suffering, crying out to us. The hearts ask our deepest love as we live, move, breathe, and serve.

 In the five Sundays ahead of us we will be given our clues: this is what a disciple of the Word needs: his kind of peace, humbleness, presence, prayer, detachment. The basics…listen.

 I’m ready.

By your Spirit shape me.

Give me what I need.

Without your Breath I’m empty.

Sing your song in me.

Our Daily Bread?

The Easter season is a time of formation in discipleship. The risen Lord is showing us that he is going to be present…but not the way he used to be…walking, talking, eating…with the disciples. He is weening them from physical experience, and forming them for a faith-walk. He presents the intimate image of himself as Shepherd. He also describes how he will feed that constant new faithful presence. He tells the disciples that they must daily eat him. They must eat his flesh and drink his blood. At first they are shocked at this language. But soon they begin to understand a little of the mystery of how this has to do with the way they relate to one another.

The word for flesh is sarx. It means more than body, which is the word soma. It means humanness with all its limitations. But he has a risen, transformed humanness…He is no longer “limited.” So, what could he possibly mean? Ah…he is the risen head, but his Body, which we are, is still struggling in time/space, with all its “limits.” Could he mean that our “daily bread’ is the total Christ…that each time we receive him sacramentaly we also welcome each other? Could he mean that daily we must ‘eat’ one another with all those limitations, faults, and irritations? Even more amazing, could he mean that this type of ‘communion’ is going on all over the world…on the evening news, as compassion shows up in the most unexpected places? Do w know what we are asking for, when we pray “Give us this day, our daily bread…?”

 Now they see you, now they don’t.

What is this game you’re playing?

Are you ‘going to the Father?’

or

Will you be ‘with us until the end of the age?’

Or maybe the answer is, ‘Yes!’

You really have never ‘left’ have you.

You have found a way to stay with us even as you return to your Father.

And

You have found a way to feed our love quotient day by day

Each time we feed on you…

Because you bring them all, don’t you.

All my family, my friends, and yes, those I consider enemies.

They are not all to my ‘taste.’ They irritate me.

Is it really ‘all or nothing’ with you?

Can’t have the Head without the Body?

Be patient with me…

I’m still learning…

What ‘give us this day our daily bread’ might really mean.

 

Let Us Dream Part I: A Time to ‘See’

 Back in March, we reflected on the Prologue to Pope Francis’ book: Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. We explored some of the big ideas that prompted him to dream, and then write. He ends the Prologue by saying that we need to see clearly, choose well, and act right. This month we will look at Part I, A Time to See.

 So, what would Francis have us ‘see?’ First, last, and ways…real people. Not just numbers but real people, especially the people on the edges. Francis believes that the folks on the edges can convert the rest of us. Their plight jars us out of our indifference, which he calls the ‘other virus.’ Their situations will overwhelm us but need never rob us of our hope. Their plight stirs up a culture of service in contrast to a throwaway culture.

 But Francis is a realist, and he names three attitudes that will offer escapes from really ‘seeing’ someone’s situation. They are narcissism, discouragement, and pessimism. Narcissism is drowning in your own image. Discouragement is seeing only what you’ve lost, and pessimism shuts the door on the future. In a way, he believes that COVID has actually helped us ‘see’ differently. We are beginning to see that those who have been cast aside can become the agents of a new future. The common new project that then arises becomes changing the very way society itself operates. The people on the edge become the protagonists of social change.

 Myopia is selecting what I will allow myself to see. I can then turn away because it’s better not to feel anything. “So-whatism” sets in, which blocks discernment. The media often presents this challenge. It reveals a humanity getting sicker right along with our common home.

 But really seeing stirs up not merely a green energy, it arouses a social energy. Like drops on a sponge, it forms an awareness, not a self-centered ideology which is a lopsided awareness. Francis ends by declaring that sin is a rejection of the limits that love requires. Instead, he calls for an integral ecology, a ‘digging in’ to uncover the deep changes we need to face. Once we ‘see’ properly, the next challenge is to choose. Stay tuned…!

 

The Promise…

We are in the Easter glow. We have just celebrated Mercy Sunday. Once more we are invited to stand with mouths open in wonder at what the resurrection of Jesus means for each of us.

 We remember marveling in the past as we watched Star Wars when we heard the words, “Beam me up, Scotty!” Sci-fi worked its wonders when the human in the spaceship reappeared on the planet surface. We were watching a physics which we knew didn’t yet exist transport humans from one place to another. But this Easter season brings us a pledge of what does already exist.

What does the risen Jesus, seen by over five hundred people, come to tell us? He comes to give us the first glimpse of a promise.

 The risen Jesus is no ghost. He is a transformed human, wounds shining like badges of honor. He reveals a physics we know nothing of yet, a physics of what self-giving love does to the human being. He gave a glimpse of this to Peter, James, and John in the Transfiguration, when they could barely look at him for the brilliance. For just a while the veil lifted and they were shown the beauty of who they were dealing with. But then came the suffering, and that has the habit of dousing wonder and joy. But the resurrection was permanent. The veil was gone - forever. He was making them, and us, a promise. As he is so shall we be, because that is what love does. It makes you beautiful.

Is it you – really?

And it will be me…really?

Then the struggle is worth it.

I have your word for it.

 

The Two Trees

 Lent is more than half over. We are approaching Holy Week. The trees are starting to burst with buds. So, let’s reflect on trees…two of them.

 The first is made of two crossbeams. It’s called the cross. It’s an instrument of execution, one of the most painful invented by humans. The victim slowly bleeds to death while suffocating. The weight of the torso so pulls the body downward that the lungs cannot fill with air.

 Why are we reflecting on such a hideous image? Because our God, in the person of the Word-in-our-flesh, chose deliberately to suffer death this way. Not by firing squad, not by beheading.

 Now why, you say, would the God of heaven and earth chose such a thing? Because history reveals that we do the most dastardly things to one another. This God-who-is-unconditional-love, is making a statement. This God has a final Word for us: “No matter what you do to one another, no matter how full of despair you are, no matter… I will be there loving you, and my love will win over all the sin you can invent.”

 It all began in a garden. There were two trees. One was the Tree of Life, the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said not to eat of the fruit…maybe it was not ripe? It would ‘kill’ them. They were tempted and ate it anyway. Their relationship with God died, and they hid feeling the nakedness of themselves without the garment of God’s affection. All of history unfolded, wracked with sorrow, evil, abuse, war, and despair. The ‘fruit’ had indeed poisoned humans.

 So God started over with an antidote. There was a garden. There was a second tree in the form of a cross. God’s beloved Word was the fruit on this tree. The Word was hushed to whispers, so his Body spoke…blood pouring out. Now we are told, “Take and eat…this is my Body given for you…I am the healing of your poison…I am the Life to wipe away your death…” The cross is Love’s answer to our sin. Catherine of Siena heard God saying it this way in her Dialogue:

 Imagine a circle traced on the ground,

and in its center a tree sprouting…

Think of the soul as a tree made for love and living only by love….

The circle in which this tree’s root, the soul’s love, must grow

is true knowledge of herself, knowledge that is joined to me,

who like the circle have either beginning nor end.

 

Dialogue, 10.

 

A Pause…

 We’re going to take pause this month in our reflections on Francis’ Let Us Dream text. Several of you have been online for the Synodal Sessions for Religious Life sponsored by the National Catholic Reporter and the Global Sisters’ Forum. (I’ve seen your dear faces on-screen!) I’m going to pick up two significant questions that came from the March 31 session.

 1.     Isn’t the Synodal Listening Process just moving the Church to be a Democracy where the majority rules?

No. The Church is not a democracy in the sense the Greeks proposed it as a form of government. The Church is s Spirit-ocracy. It is a community permeated by the Holy Spirit where the charisms or Gifts of the Spirit are shining everywhere for those with eyes to see. Two of these communal gifts are infallibility and indefectibility. The first guides the Church to eventually discern the fuller truth on an issue, and the latter guides the Church to eventually discern how to shake off the sin that daily infects the Church. This is because the risen Christ in his Spirit is the heart of the Church and tolerates no error or sin. The Synod is tuning the Church to listen to these charisms in the whole Body of the Church in a global way for the first time. Make no mistake: that listening is going to bring forth both great wisdom and a lot of bias. The Spirit’s presence helps us to discern the ego/bias when it appears: blaming, complaining, shaming; worry, whining, and withdrawal. Guess what the Spirit will keep, and what the Spirit will guide us to put aside? Yes…wisdom. This is more than democracy…this is Spirit-ocracy at work.

 2.     Will there be a breakthrough in regard to the leadership gifts of women, e.g the Female Diaconate?

Maybe so. But in my view we need to take care of some unfinished business. The Church has not been able to produce a solid Theology of the Woman for our time. What is the role of woman in the cultures of the world, and in the Church? Until this question is addressed, we women continue to think we will become heard and visible if we imitate what men are doing. The norm is still the male. No…we need to come into our own, and we need women to do it…theologically trained women. I believe this is calling to Dominican women today for clarification and articulation.

 More on Let Us Dream next month…!

 

Dreaming Can Give Hope a Concrete Vision

With reflections on Pope Francis’ Laudato si and Fratelli tutti behind us, (See past issues of Community Connections) we again put our ears to the heart of the Church. We begin to listen to what Francis is dreaming about for the Church and the world. I suspect we will be hearing some of this dreaming taking real shape as the Synodal Movement unfolds.

This month we will just look at seven major themes that come from Let us Dream: The Path to A Better Future by Pope Francis in conversation with Austen Ivereigh. They will challenge us just be reading them. Next month we will start unpacking what they might mean as we enter a time of becoming a new kind of Church as the Synodal Movement is launched.

 1.    To come out of this crisis better, we have to see clearly, choose well, and act right. Let’s talk about how. Let us dare to dream.

 2.    We must redesign the economy so that it can offer every person access to a dignified existence while protecting and regenerating the natural world.

 3.    What is the greatest fruit of a personal crisis? I’d say patience, sprinkled with a healthy sense of humor, which allows us to endure and make space for change to happen.

 4.    When I speak of change I mean that those people who are now on the edges become the means of changing society.

 5.     We do not possess the truth so much as the truth possesses us, constantly attracting us by means of beauty and goodness.

 6.    Sin is a rejection of the limits that love requires.

7.     Our greatest power is not in the respect that others have for us, but the service we can offer others.

These themes will offer us much to ponder in the months ahead…!

 

Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

As women and men of the Word, as Dominicans, we’ve put our ears to the heartbeat of the Church’s ‘Sweet Christ on earth,’ to use Catherine of Siena’s reference to the Holy Father.  We’ve been listening to what Francis has been writing to the whole world.

 We’re going to review where we’ve been this month, and then look ahead to where we will listen next. First, a review of Francis’ synodal approach to the world in Fratelli tutti:

I.               “Dark Clouds Over a Closed World” Francis is no Pollyanna. In this first chapter he tells it like it is from the illusion of communication to information without wisdom and more.

II.             “A Stranger on the Road” Using the parable of The Good Samaritan, Francis tells us there are no final ‘borders’ among neighbors.

III.          “Envisaging and Engendering an Open World” Here Francis points to our inadequate understanding of universal love and calls us to the value of Solidarity.

IV.          “A Heart Open to the World” Francis points out the geographical limits of borders, and calls us instead to a universal horizon, starting with our own region.

V.             “A Better Kind of Politics” Pointing out the benefits and limits of liberal approaches, Francis calls us instead to the sacrifices, integration, and unity of a ‘political’ love that puts fruitfulness above results.

VI.          “Dialogue and Friendship in Society” Francis here calls for a new culture that recovers the value of kindness.

VII.        “Paths of Renewed Encounter” Starting with the reclaiming of truth, Francis calls for an art and architecture of peace built on authentic forgiveness while safeguarding memory and denying violence.

VIII.      “Religions at the Service of Fraternity” Francis puts religion, and his own Christianity, at the service of all of the above. At its best, then, religion fosters an open world.

 What better follow-up then, to an invitation such as the Holy Father has issued, than to dream together of a better future.  So, as Dominican proclaimers of the word, we will do just that. The highly recommended text will be Francis’ own Let Us Dream: The Path To A Better Future, 2020. As we approach our coming Chapter of Elections, we will reflect on its three sections: “A Time to See,” “A Time to Choose,” “A Time to Act.” Fasten your seatbelts.

The Ultimate Foundation

We arrive this month at the final chapter of Pope Francis’ Fatelli tutti, his addendum, really, to his Laudato si. For following that document on care for the earth, Francis then opens to us the way to realize it: we need to do it together.

Chapter eight is titled, “Religions at the Service of Fraternity.” The focus is that religions, when they are true to their values, establish the ultimate foundation for human life. They tell us who we are. They affirm our identity as one community of children of God. (#271-280) Thus any persecution of authentic religion is an affront to all religions.

 Francis warns that religious terrorism comes from teachings taken out of context, breeding hatred, contempt, and the negation of others. The result is distortion. (#282) The real sources of such contempt arise from hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression, and pride. The texts are then twisted to lend legitimacy to violent behavior.

 The Parliament of World Religios has just taken place, hosting on line over 8,000 persons of various faith traditions. This is the eighth such Parliament. If Teilhard de Chardin is right, we are seeing hope unfold before our eyes. He wrote that when the religions of the world begin to really dialogue with one another, there will be another significant leap in the evolution of human culture. This pope appears to be a prophet of this hope. He is calling us to be all we can be, inviting us to midwife something new. The mystery is breaking through: in the equity movements, in the climate concern, in the call to a more synodal church. Do we not see it? Can we begin to proclaim it?

 

What…? Politics…?

 Pope Francis has a vision. He shared it with us partially in his first encyclical, Laudato si. There he invited all of us to reposition ourselves in the midst of our wonderful environment. Because we belong to it, and it belongs to us, we need to care for it. Then he opened the lens further with his encyclical Fratelli tutti. Here we have seen he invites us to look at ourselves…for if we are not in right relations with all in our global family, we will never be able to care for the earth. We have reflected on the sorry state of things (Chapter 1). Then he grounded us in scripture with the Good Samaritan parable, asking us to check what role we play (Chapter 2). Next he shocked us into imagining ‘an open world’ (Chapter 3). And in Chapter 4 he dared us to open our hearts to the whole world.

 What next? Well, in Chapter 5 he dares to talk about the forbidden topic: politics. He doesn’t shy away from it, nor must we. He calls for a ‘better kind’ of politics, one that puts the common good of all first. And there’s the rub. No more putting short-term advantage first; no more looking only to self- interest or the good of my group only. Shockingly, he calls for “a world authority regulated by law” that would have the power to provide for the common good, eliminate hunger and poverty, and defend fundamental human rights” (172). As if that was not shocking enough, he then calls for the reform of the United Nations, and the reform of economic institutions and international finance so that the family of nations has real teeth to get something done.

 Talk about a vision…! The better kind of politics Francis is calling for must be capable of reforming and coordinating institutions for long-term common good. Its major goal should be the total elimination of world hunger. He decries the waste of food worldwide while millions go hungry (189). No one must be excluded, no one must have fewer rights because of gender or birthplace (121). All of this flows from a change of heart…a new way nations see one another, a global ethic in the service of a future shaped by interdependence and a shared responsibility in the whole human family (127). It is coming…all of us in our own way, need to help midwife it…!

 

Hope as Heartache

 The season of longing is here. We know what heartache is. We so long for COVID to end. We long for its restrictions to be lifted. We long for the chaos at the border to be addressed. We long for Tegrey to get the food its people need…that the religious terrorism that now rules Afghanistan be gone…that Haiti have order…that our congress can once again really function…that the scars of our racism give way to a new order.

 We stand with Mary as she longs to see the face of the mysterious baby that has come to make its home in her. We see our own baptismal call in the stark figure of John and he issues his wake-up call to set things right. We settle in with the barren trees and the leafless bushes and the cold of winter, and we wait. Love lights its lamp of faith and waits in hope.

 Hope is expectant. It is built on the assurance that counts on promise. A promise has been made. We can count on it. We can count on the One who has given his word. The darkness of the absence of God will not last. We wait…and whistle in the dark.

 Hope is light. It dances. It might even giggle. It knows something it cannot yet see, so there is that knowing little smile while it goes about the day-to-day. Was Mary humming while she did her laundry and baked her bread…?

 

I know you’re there.

 I see you up to your usual game of hide-and-seek.

 You hide and I seek.

 I am filled with longing.

 My heart aches for justice…

 I hope for healing for all of humanity…

 May my longing empty me out

 Making room for what you want to give.

 Clean out my stable-soul.

Bring in fresh straw so we can hide and play peek-a-boo,

 And you can again wrap me around your little baby finger.

A Not So ‘Ordinary’ Time

 With the Feast of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, we bask for a week in the glow of Christmas. Then with the Baptism of John, we enter the public life of Jesus, and a quite lengthy Ordinary Time this year. Ash Wednesday is not until March 2, so we have about eight weeks to watch Someone who is going to model for us how to be authentically human.

 If we listen with our hearts to the scriptures we will observe this Human One, this Son of Man, doing a lot of the things we find ourselves doing. He talks with people, travels, eats, sleeps, puts up with difficulties, and with difficult people. It’s not what he does but how he does it that we need check out. He is constantly aware of who he is. He is Abba’s Beloved. This gives him a context to view everything going on around him.

 Maybe that’s the clue for us as we listen to the readings of these weeks. Christmas has told us who we are…we too are the Beloved. What would happen if we thought of that and smiled each time we looked in the mirror…no matter what we are seeing there? Then we too will talk with others, move about from place to place, put up with our own difficulties, and difficulties with others. Sound familiar? Yes, we too have our ‘ordinary’ time.

 Yes, it is Ordinary, this time…

But You were not ‘ordinary’ nor am I.

You are the Father’s Beloved, and (can I believe it?) so am I.