While Waiting in the Dark

Advent is a time of immense waiting. We wait for what we cannot yet see. It is growing…coming to be, but we wait in the darkness of unknowing. The liturgy gives us a woman during this season to teach us how to trust that something is going to emerge from the darkness. The darkness is going to give way to the light. We can learn much from Mary during this Advent time, especially because the present darkness around us is so intense.

The woman is aware that her very being is shaping something, yet the design is being woven by an unseen hand. Her humanness is providing the ‘stuff,’ the DNA, the cells, the tissue, the bone, but she does not see what it is becoming. But SomeOne else has the plan. She assists the plan. She eats, sleeps, speaks, and waits.

It sounds like us, the Church, doesn’t it. We so long for all the bickering to stop. We long for the corruption to end. We want the immigrants to find a home. We want the wars to cease for lack of interest. Yet all the while our longing is weaving something. Our desires strain to be realized and like the woman, we sense that SomeOne has a plan for what shall be. Advent is our time of longing for what grows in us, among us, from us. Advent is our time to assist…it is the time of active waiting. We too will eat, sleep, and wait. We will listen to the news…watching for signs of hope, signs of what is coming to be in the dark.

And just as sure as that newness will emerge from Mary’s longing, so will the reign of God emerge from the darkness of our Advent longing. We do not know what it shall look like…we only know that its coming is as sure as that birth. We assist. We do the ordinary things with extraordinary active love, and in due time, it comes. It comes from the time of our active waiting in the fertile dark of our faith.

Come, Lord Jesus…Do not delay.

From our longing and our tears,

Weave the flesh of our peace.

Build the blocks of unity from our differences.

Shape us into a people after your own heart.

Teach us, Weaver of plans, how to assist you.

Be it done unto us according to your Word

As we wait in the dark.

When All is Said and Done…

November brings us into the close of the liturgical year and the end of Ordinary Time. The Church, in her wisdom, has been instructing us on how to be a disciple in light of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ dying and rising is ever before her eyes, and ours too.

The rhythm of our lives flows from struggle and pain to joy and celebration. No one is excepted, be they believer or non-believer. The difference is that believers and disciples have a clue as to why life is that way. It was that way for the One who came to be with us and who loves us so. Our faith in him shows us how to ‘hang on.’ The ‘seat belt’ that keeps us secure in this roller coaster of life is his gift of Easter peace. He has us tight and safe…we need not fear, though the storm rages around us and in us.

The readings explore this wild ride coming to an end. They reveal the final victory of his Kingship. He is the king who suffers with us and brings us through the storm.

 Servant King,

Your arms are stretched out wide…

No one is excluded from your wide embrace.

 There is room for the most wretched,

the most abandoned, the most hopeless.

Is there room for me?

+

Your heart is open,

like a window without shutters,

Catherine says…

Where I can climb in and hide safely anytime.

+

Your hands are wounded…so are mine.

I’ve used them to grasp, to hold with tightened fists.

Gently pry open my clenched fists

and kiss them…

So I grasp and hold on to nothing but yourself.

+

Your feet are wounded…so are mine.

They’ve taken me to places you would not go.

They’ve taken me far from you,

Until I felt lost and alone.

+

Your head so wounded, pierced and aching,

has plans for me…and in your will is my peace.

Kerygmatic Preaching in Song

 Sometimes sung theology can be an example of Kerygmatic preaching. This earliest form of preaching, before theology was developed, was centered on a relationship with Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Word, as the core of Christian identity:

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
 For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Getty and Townsend

Ongoing Formation 2

 Last month we reflected on the fact that the Liturgy is the source of our ongoing formation as disciples. This month we will focus on the very heart of the Gospel, what is called the kerygma. What is the central truth that is at the core of our lives as people of the Word?

Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (The Joy of the Gospel, 164).

For many Christians, this is just something about Jesus. They have been catechized, but they have not really been evangelized. To be evangelized is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. It is a form of friendship. This is when we become a disciple. We follow him and he becomes our teacher. For example, on the 24^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we learned how we need to forgive. We are presented with the God of unbelievable mercy, and are called to the same kind of bigness in our forgiving. To keep rehearsing old wounds is to keep self-inflicking all over again, poisoning our souls. Jesus is a wise psychologist!

The October Sundays give us five pointers that serve to deepen the personal relationship we are deepening with Jesus: We need to listen for his voice; we are to be a fruitful vineyard; we are to be amazed at being ‘chosen;’ we are shown how to be present in the world; and we are presented with the ‘Golden Rule’ that fulfills the law. Time to check on our personal relationship!

 You want to be friends…?

with me…?

But that means we need to spend time…

together…

OK…!

 

The Heart of the Gospel

 Once we Dominicans realize our distinct approach to preaching as contemplative, incarnational, communal, and sacramental, we can zero in on what is known as Kerigmatic preaching. This is the way we fuse these elements together: We gaze in wonder at this Word-in-our-flesh, in the humanity of the entire human family, as he daily transforms us, just as he transforms the bread into his living presence. This is the kerygma. The early Christians worded it simply by saying, “Jesus is Lord.”

Pope Francis describes the kerygma in this way: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (The Joy of the Gospel, 164) How is it that throughout our catechesis no one ever proposed these most basic truths to us? Or if they did, the truths were ‘out there’ not ‘in here’ finding a home in my deepest heart? This is the basis for a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Kerigmatic preaching leads the listener to this personal relationship with Jesus. Most of us in our religious instruction were taught about Jesus. There is a very great difference.

Kerigmatic preaching should give the hearers the impression that this Jesus is someone the preacher knows personally. This authentic type of relationship comes from immersion in the Word, scripturally and personally. It plunges the person into ongoing conversion, the daily transformation that is most explicitly experienced in Eucharistic transformation. We do not leave the Eucharistic Liturgy the same. We are different as we seek to influence the communities in which we move and live and have our being.

We proclaim the Word in our praise-prayer (laudare), in our presence (benedicere), and in our formal verbal preaching (predicare). We are a person in relationship with Christ Jesus. We are women and men of the Word. As such, we preach always from the pulpit of our lives, even when we are in a hospital bed. This is the heart of the Gospel.

Lifelong Formation

The liturgy has only one thing in mind…shaping us up as disciples. The Church has a ‘one track mind’…to bring her children closer and closer to her Bridegroom. So September continues the mystagogy. We are being instructed on how to deepen the relationship begun in our baptism.

As we enter the first signs of autumn, we are first reminded that it’s all about choices. No, not wishful thinking…like “I wish I could lose ten pounds…” It’s about a firm act of the will. No ‘if’s’ or ‘buts.’ This is what I choose, even if I mess up now and then. I choose to follow Jesus.

Then we are reminded of the greatest challenge of all…not to wound love. By the way I think, by the way I speak, by the way I’m silent. Love is that fragile little flower…not to bruise it. Then our texts remind us that this pilgrim walk is not all about ‘me.’ Growing up is all about getting out of the ‘me’ bubble, and prayer extends me to the most important ‘Other.’

Then there is this ‘flesh’ thing. Keep in mind that the Greek word is sarx, the word for human limitations, not soma, the word for body. When Paul says he is still in the ‘flesh,’ he means he has to put up with all the time/space limitations we all have to put up with. When Jesus says we have to eat his flesh, he meant we have to deal with him in the limits of our brothers and sisters. There’s the crunch…yes, it is life-long formation. We are never quite ‘done.’

We are halfway through Ordinary Time.

Wise Mother Church does not waste it…

Week by week she gathers us around

and tells us how to keep our eyes on her Beloved.

We are to intentionally choose Him day after day…

We are to guard against wounding love…

We are to think always beyond our little selves…

And we will need to ‘stomach’ the faults and quibbles, and the limits

of our sisters and brothers, just as we hope they daily will put up with me.

Companions in life-long learning.

 

Dominicans USA 2

In August, we asked a question, and offered the beginning of an answer: What is distinctive about the Dominican approach to preaching? We identified four characteristics, all of which apply to praising-proclamation, blessing- proclamation, and preaching- proclamation:

·       It flows from a contemplative gaze at the Word–made-flesh in our historic times.

·       It is incarnational rather than abstract.

·       It is communal rather than individualistic.

·       It is liturgical-sacramental rather than merely humanistic.

This month, we will tease out a bit more meaning to each of these characteristics. First, we will set the pattern: Experience-the Word-Experience. From what is happening, to the Word, and back to what is happening, in light of the Word. We begin with loving wonder, with awe.

 The Contemplative Gaze: We begin with a long, loving look at what is going on around us. We bring this to the Word…both in person, and in scripture. We listen. This must not be rushed…we wait…we hold back the questioning. Flannery O’Conner said it well: “If the Church doesn’t listen, no one will listen to the Church.”

 The Incarnational Questioning: What is going on here for real flesh-and-blood people? Enfleshed people? What are they seeing? Hearing? Feeling? Rejecting? Receiving? Avoiding? What about me? The word for flesh is sarx. It means ‘limited, imperfect, wounded, abused…’

 The Communal Questioning: What difference does this make for all of us, for setting a new tone, for fostering compassion, care, and justice? What needs to be different?

 The Liturgical-Sacramental Questioning: The liturgical is a gathering of all the above into worship, and the sacramental transforms…so the holiness shines through, for the Word permeates and changes. Real presence results…and I return to the experience where both it and I are different.

 The Dominican difference is that all the dimensions above are dynamically present.

Proclamation is not a lecture. It differs from teaching in its goal. It is more than informative, for some information is but its tool. This is about conversion. It is about transformation. Whether it is praise-proclamation in prayer, blessing-proclamation in a hospital room, or pulpit-preaching, it calls for both the proclaimer and the hearer to become different in our time and place. It is about real presence that flows from the Word who is Real Presence.

Formation for Discipleship

August in Ordinary Time brings four clear points in the formation of a disciple…so we listen up…! First, during this month, our Mother-Church puts puts before us a man and a woman who show us where it is all heading: Transfiguration of our humble humanness in Jesus, and its glorification when we set eyes on God. We will shine as does the assumed Mother of God.

 This is what the Word tells us. It is no abstract pie-in-the-sky.  It is God’s promise and our hope. With this before us, the other three Sundays of the month have clear pointers to keep us maturing in our baptismal discipleship identity. The second Sunday instructs us where to keep our eyes. If we take our eyes off the Word, we sink into the troubles of our time. Next, we are reminded that our mission, like that of Jesus, is two-fold: to proclaim the Word, and to heal…always and everywhere, and to anyone and everyone. Finally, we are faced with our constant tendency to sin and be selfish in Peter. We are reminded that despite this denial, neither Peter’s brokenness nor ours will destroy the Church. The texts might be familiar…but we are coming to know ourselves anew. We are not the same. We are slowly being transfigured….

 

You shine on Tabor

and I am almost blinded.

Me? Me, too?

Is this what you are doing

in the Eucharistic kiss?

Help me to keep my eyes on You…

when I need to walk on water.

Help me to proclaim and heal…

until I have no voice left.

And when I find in me

the denial of Peter,

help me to remember

that no one, nothing,

will destroy the Church that is You…

the Church that is us…

although all hell tries.

Amen.

 

 

USA Dominicans

The Racine Dominicans have spearheaded a revival of the Preaching Contact Persons (sisters, associates, priests, and laity) of the United States Dominican Women’s Congregations and the four Provinces of the Dominican Men. This group of nearly 30 sisters, associates, priests and laity, has met two times: in March and May, and will meet again on August 25, 2023.

 We have begun by listening deeply to one another, learning what we are each doing, and how this group, which will meet four times yearly (August, November, February, and May), can be of help to all of us. One of the helps suggested was to clarify for all of us just what is distinctive about the Dominican approach to preaching. We will discuss this in August.

 I’m going to propose a few ideas below, and invite you to send me any of yours, if you like, and I will include these thoughts when the group meets on August 25. Your thoughts are welcome…!

 Our title, Order of Preachers, really comes from a specific form of proclamation needed back in 1216. Southern France was infected with the Cathar or Albigensian heresy, named from the city of Albi, the Cathar center. A word of truth was needed to counter a word of falsehood. The Cathars were a new form of Manacheism, a heresy that taught that matter was evil. Because this false word was being publicly spoken, a truthful word needed to be publicly spoken to counter it. Because only men could speak publicly in those days, this public word of truth fell to men who could publicly preach. Even in those early days, the Dominicans knew there were three forms of proclamation: to praise, to bless, and to preach publicly (Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare). What were they going to praise, bless, and preach? The truth of the Word of God.

 Flash forward 800+ years. Women can speak publicly. There is new awareness of the truth that does justice. Our cloistered Dominicans praise; our active sisters, associates, priests, brothers, and laity, bless by their presence in various ministries;  at present our Dominican men in Orders and some of our women preach. All of us are proclaimers of the truth by our praise-prayer, our blessing-presence, and when appropriate, by our public preaching. So what is distinctive about a Dominican approach to proclamation in any of its forms (even if you are not Dominican)?

·       It flows from a contemplative gaze at the Word-made-flesh in our historic times.

·       It is incarnational rather than abstract.

·       It is communal rather than individualistic.

·       It is liturgical-sacramental rather than merely humanistic.

 Our challenge is to know what this means for us today. First, we contemplate, and then give to others the fruits of our contemplation. We cannot give what we do not have. The Dominican woman or man is in relationship with the Word. Next, that Word is found in the presence of the risen humanness of Christ Jesus. It is incarnate. It is in touch with human struggle in all its forms. Then, this human struggle is not just my personal business, it is communal, all around me; it is not just me, it is we. Finally, it is not just our human struggle but mercy meeting us there and transforming us. It is liturgical-sacramental. There is Something other than my human effort at work, and we are kept in mind of this by the transformation in the Eucharist.

 These are some beginning ideas…I welcome yours…!

Synod Next Steps

We’ve come to the end of the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod. Our last reflection closed with a challenge to explore diversity in worship. Now the working team lays out concrete steps forward.

 The first step forward is conversion and reform. Ouch! We will have to change…again…and we flinch at hearing it. We prefer to settle down…we prefer a little do-nothing-normalcy. But no. The People of God have spoken, and they express a desire to be less a Church of maintenance and conservation. They want to be a Church that goes out in mission. They believe that synod communion must lead to a permanent state of mission. (Spanish Report) Because we are a learning church, we need continuous discernment to help us read the Word of God and the signs of the times together, to move forward in the direction the Spirit is pointing us. This sounds like it was taken right out of our Dominican documents. It calls for continual conversion, both personal and communal. As a listening Dominican congregation, we’ve been walking the talk.

 What we have been attempting in the past years as a community is now being asked of the entire global Church. How do we proclaim the Gospel today…and listen deeply to where the Spirit might be pointing? What are we to do?

We are to enter a discernment process, and prepare a ‘Final Document’ that describes it and its results. The Final Documents of the seven Continental Assemblies will be the basis for what is called the Instrumentum Laboris or ‘Working Instrument’ to be completed by June of 2023. In this final part of the Continental Stage, all Assemblies are asked to be eccesial rather than episcopal. This means all the People of God are to be represented: bishops, presbyters, deacons, consecrated persons, and laymen and women, and young people. It includes people living in poverty or marginalization, those who work with them, people from other Christian denomination, those of other religions, and those with no religious affiliation. The bishops are then asked to meet, reread the responses from all these voices, and make sure these voices are present in the Final Document. By March 31, 2023, the Final Document of each of the seven Continental Assembles are due, and the Instrumentum Laboris is prepared by June to be ready for the 1^st  Rome Session. The 1^st XVI General Ordinary Assembly of Bishops takes place in October of 2023 in Rome. A 2^nd Session takes place in October of 2024. Then global Implementation begins! So that is the big picture. The smaller steps are amazing too!

 Each of the seven continental groups prepares a Document for the Continental Stage (DCS). Then these little steps take place back at home base: (for us, the US/Canada DCS)

·       The DCS goes to every diocesan bishop, who arranges a discernment process on 3 questions: “Which experiences resonate with your people, are new or illuminating?” “What tensions or questions emerge?” What emerges as a call to action you can share with other Churches globally?”

·       These responses are shared with the US/Canada Continental Assembly by a process.

·       The sharing process favored is that of the ‘spiritual conversation’ (similar to our ‘contemplative dialogue.’)

·       The Final Document (about 20 pages) is drafted from this process on the three questions.

·       The seven Continental Final Documents are submitted by March 31, 2023, to be woven into the Instrumentum Laboris.

·       This one document is the document the bishops will work with in the 2023 and 2024 October Rome sessions, woven from the seven DCS Final Documents.

 Fasten your seat belts…! We are in for quite a ride…! The Spirit may be pictured as a Dove, but it is also Wind, Fire, Water, Oil, Wine, and Blood. We may be looking at the ‘something new’ we have been praying for, unfold before our very eyes.

 

Living into the Mystery

 The Paschal Mystery and the big Feasts are now behind us. We have entered the ‘green’ season. What does the wise Church want to teach us? Where does she want to lead us? This is called ‘Ordinary Time’ because now we will be entering deeply into the Mysteries we have celebrated. We will be ‘unpacking’ them, and making wonderful discoveries. But you say, “I’ve read these readings before!” Ah…but the ‘you’ reading them now is a different you. You have journeyed further, and the journey has been teaching you.

 There are five Sundays in July of 2023. The first Sunday will remind you of your Calling. The second Sunday will face you with a choice for your daily living: the Spirit’s breath or the letter of the law? Then in the next three Sundays, we will be challenged to go deeper into the seed of suffering, the way good and evil are so mixed together, and how little things really count. Finally, we will be reminded to keep our focus: keep your eyes on the pearl. He is the Mystery!

Your love is wide and deep and all around me.

Help me to see wider and deeper and what surrounds me.

No, I haven’t been this way before –

Because the me that is new has not been here before.

The Wonderful Exchange

We are in the glow of the Easter season. Spring is bursting out all over, and in this North Temperate Zone, nature is dancing with liturgical time.

 What are we celebrating? New life, you say? Ah…but why is that so…? Keep watching for the mystery hidden in the readings. They are giving evidence of a wonderful exchange! Keep watch for it in the evening news too, for it is at work there.

 In very common language, you might call it a ‘new deal.’ Again, in very common language you might say it this way: We really blew it. We messed things up big time. God had this plan for humanity, and we wrecked it. Now, God, being Love, is not going to settle for us using our freedom to wreck things. God has a Plan B. It goes like this:

 “How about a new deal. You give me your DNA. With your DNA I can have a body. If I have a body, I, who am eternal, can die, OK? If I enter death, I am a poison pill. Death will be destroyed. It no longer is final. Then, in exchange, I will give you my eternal life. Then you can live safely with me forever, even though you wrecked things, OK?”

 Then, Mary, who spoke for humanity, said, “Yes!” In contrast to Eve, she said, “Yes! Of course I will give you a body. Of course I will do as you ask…of course, I’m in…it’s a deal!”

 Now this is certainly not how the scripture tells it…but this is the wonderful exchange. We give God our ‘stuff’, who in the Word takes on our humanness. Now Love, who has a body, can suffer death to break its hold on us. In return we are given life that is unending…eternal…a wonderful exchange. In theological language, this is called the New Covenant, the new deal, the new arrangement.

 This is the Good News. We who have been made disciples by our baptism, now tell the good news to invite others to become disciples. We are women and men of the good Word, the word of life, the word of the truth that does justice.

You never give up on us, do You…

Does your Love even have a Plan C…?

You give even your very self, in your Son…

And what do you ask in return?

Myself.

So take what is Yours.

I know a good deal when I see one…

A wondrous exchange…