The Cross?

We have moved from the short Ordinary Time, with its pondering the Incarnation, to the season of Lent, and what we call the Pascal Mystery. But wait…let’s not let go of the Incarnation so quickly. It has three steps, all of them down: the Baby, then the Cross, then the Bread. As Jack Shea wrote, “Like a baritone in a bar, he never goes home.” Drunk with love, Catherine says.

We enter the season of the cross. Have you ever wondered why we had to be saved this way? With that Baby, all grown up, hanging on a cross? Be attentive to the sequence of the readings. We are given a preview of how it will all end: the transfiguration. Then we are told he thirsts, not for water, really, but for us. Next, we learn that we really are quite blind to what is going on, and finally, that like Lazarus, we need to be brought back from the dead.

 So Love sets out in search for us. He goes looking for wherever we are. And where are we? Human trafficked during the Super Bowl. Demeaned and exposed on the Porno-screen. Tortured in Ukraine. Buried in rubble in Seria. This is where we are. This is today’s cross. The crucified is no stranger. He swallows death, the poison pill, and dies. But Love like his cannot die. Instead he does away with death, and safe in this Shepherd’s arms, so shall we.

 I don’t like to look at you…

 hanging there, all bloody.

 I don’t like to watch the news either.

 For there you are again, in all your disguises.

 What will we invent next, to wound you?

 So, they all went home Good Friday night.

 Surely, this is no way to save a world…

 or is it?

 And the Father said, “Watch Me!”

 In the darkness of our winters

 we too wait…to be brought back from the dead.

The Key: Listening to the Scriptures

We’ve reflected on the image of ‘Enlarge the space of your tent,’ faced the hesitations voiced by respondents, and identified the ‘pillar’ of the effort in the common dignity of the baptized, as we have considered the insights of this theological working document for the continental  stage of the synod process. This set the context for…you guessed it…touching base with the sacred scriptures. What do we learn?

 The document goes straight back to the tent image, and offers the sense of exile as a start. There is the call for discernment. The many local reports envision a Church as an expansive, but not homogeneous dwelling, capable of sheltering all, but open, letting in and out, and moving toward embracing the Divine and all of humanity.

 Enlarging the tent means welcoming others into it, and making room for diversity. This means ‘dying’ in a way out of love to my selfish preferences, and finding myself again in Christ, in his openness and love. This is going to be asked of us as an entire Church. “Unless the grain of wheat dies…”  (Jn. 12:24).

 The fruitfulness of the Church depends on accepting this death. It is not an annihilation, but an emptying in order to be filled. The selfishness must go, to be replaced by the Christ and his Spirit. The result is richer relationships and deeper ties to God and each other. We open ourselves to grace and transfiguration. “Have among you the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus…Who…emptied himself…” (Phil.2:5-7). This is a liturgical and Eucharistic act.

 It is only under this condition, that we, the members of the Church, each and all together, will be able to cooperate with the Spirit of God in fulfilling the mission assigned by Jesus to his Church.

Get ready. It is to this mission we will go next.

White Martyrdom

 We are into the short ‘Ordinary’ Time. The readings are a call to faith in the Word, come to make us whole. Faith is like wearing 3-D glasses. It allows us to see beyond where our reason can go. The Incarnational Mystery has been presented to us. The Word…in whom all things came to be…has married us. We have a bridegroom we cannot see…except in the faces of our brothers and sisters and in our own face in the mirror. Our senses aren’t any help. We have to rely on our 3-D faith-lenses.

The Christmas season presented Mary to us as the model of ‘pondering.’ She pondered what was happening to her. She is an expert in using her 3-D faith-glasses. She believes. She signed a blank check. She never gave in to her doubts…and make no mistake, she was tempted as are we. But she hung on by her fingernails in tough times. She was like a magnet on a refrigerator door. Try to pull it off. Feel the resistance. It knows where it wants to be. So do we. But the storms get pretty wild sometimes.

Faith at times demands a white martyrdom. There is no blood. There is just struggle. It’s like we’re frozen inside. Nothing seems able to move. We fell like a lump. The doubts swarm about us like bees coming in for the sting. The suggestion is that we are just idiots. There is nothing there…we are beating the air. Prayer is a waste of time. No One is listening. Be not deceived. Nothing can produce only nothing. But, there IS something…! Lots of something…! So…hang on…!

 The Greek word for ‘believe’ as it appears in the Gospels carries a meaning we miss in English. To believe means to adhere to, to cling, as glue does. Maybe that is what the prayer of faith is. We just hang on to God…like glue. Maybe it’s just a form of holy stubbornness.

 This faith thing can be like winter…

Cold, frozen, and dark.

Whistle in the dark,

and stick out your defiant tongue

when doubt comes at you like a cold blast.

Someone once said it well:

‘In the midst of this winter

I discovered in me and invincible summer.’

You are my safety.

I will wait for you all my life.

The Authentic Pillar of a Synodal Church

 Last month we began our reflection on a document called, The Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synodal Process: “Enlarge the space of your tent.” This expression comes from Isaiah 54:2. We let this tent image speak to us: the tent itself, its ropes and its pegs, as referring to the Church.

 This month we will consider what the General Secretariate of the Synod considers the very pillar or foundation of a truly Synodal Church: a deep re-appropriation of the common dignity of all the baptized. This new awareness and ownership is the theological foundation of a unity that is capable of resisting homogenization, Why? Because we might tempted to think, “OK, so now we are going to do away with hierarchy, priests, and bishops, and everybody is going to do everything.” On the contrary. Not homogenization, but a unity that enables us to promote and make good use of the variety of charisms that the Spirit pours out on the faithful. It is the recognition of differing gifts that create true Church unity.

The Secretariate has been reading the reports sent by Churches across the world. These reports give voice to the joys, hopes, sufferings and wounds of all of us. They also reveal a Church we would like to see, a Church that is inclusive, open and welcoming, a Church that is enthusiastic to respond in active participation, a Church that is not just priests and bishops. Even in this first phase, the process bore immediate missionary fruit…the open and honest expression of opinion, and the meeting with groups outside the Church.

 The early reports also revealed immense challenges. These stem from a distrust of the synod process itself and the fear it will change some of Christ’s teachings, to pushing the Church into democratic-type mechanisms. Then there is the view that the Church is a rigid institution, unwilling to change; the outcomes of the synod process are thus already determined. The resistance of some priests and bishops was expressed, and the passivity of a laity that feared to express itself openly. There is a widespread perception of separation between the priesthood and the people of God. The exhaustion of priests was expressed, and at times, the priest was viewed as an obstacle to the participation of the laity. An open wound remains from abuse by members of the clergy, spiritual, sexual, economic, or of conscience. There was a strong call for greater transparency, accountability, and co-responsibility. Bloody conflicts, whether political or tribal, remain, and give counter-witness to the unity of the Church.

 The foundational reference to Baptism where we all share a common dignity and vocation, needs to be a felt identity. This brings into focus the key to the synodal process itself and the actual realized mission of the Church. Walking together as a synodal Church is the way to become a missionary Church. This includes ecumenical encounter. The reports present the synodal process as an experience of novelty and freshness, the return from a collective exile. If the entire People of God is not synodal, no one can really feel fully at home.