Too Good to be True...

They just didn’t get it. He comes, he says, “Peace be with you…” yet they are terrified. But wait just a minute. We have 2000 years of acquaintance with the idea of resurrection. They had no idea of what happened to a human being after death. No wonder they were incredulous and full of fear.

Then he asks if they have anything to eat, and they calm down. He deals with them gently, according to their human need. He did the same with Mary Magdalen, with the two on the way to Emmaus, and with Thomas. “You need to put your hand here and your fingers into my wounds, Thomas? OK, here I am…do what you need to do.” He meets them where they are.

In our day, and in our times, he is the same: yesterday, today, and forever. He still meets us where we are. So what really happens to a human being in resurrection? Scripture assures us that as he is, so shall we be. What happened to the physical part of Jesus, and what will happen to the physical part of ourselves?

For one thing we know the no matter goes out of existence. Einstein assures us that it simply changes form. We know that shifting an electron or proton on the periodic table creates a new element. So what happens to our DNA, our double helix, our michocondria, our cell structure in resurrection when eternal life touches it and brings it to the peak of its possibility? What is the peak of its possibility? After all, there’s arthritis, and glaucoma, and palsy, and Altzheimers…and all the rest.

What if, just what if we go through a metamorphosis, a change something like the butter-fly? What if the original recipe of our DNA reassembles and becomes transparent of the love energy, the compassion, the forgiveness that we developed before we died? What if the physical becomes a window into the beauty of the heart? Why didn’t the apostles recognize Jesus? Then suddenly they did recognize him. Did he change, or did they change? How did it come to pass that “their eyes were opened?” Is that what happens with us too?

Is Easter a preview of coming attractions for us? Is Jesus giving us a final revelation, and it is about “what we shall be?” No wonder that when he showed them how we would all end up, they were incredulous. Yes, indeed, almost too good to be true. And you?

Risen Lord,

Your light-some beauty would blind me

If in your kindness you didn’t mute it.

You feed me with yourself and with each sacred banquet I become more what I eat.

Meet me where I am and call me forth to all I can be. Open my eyes so I can see the wonder of your new life peeking through the lattice-work of my time and space.

Who are we...after the 800th Anniversary?

We’re a community of vowed religious women, right? Right, and we are surrounded by associates who want us to challenge them to be everything they can be in their life-styles. Right?

Our communal life-style is shaped by three gospel counsels: living simply so that others can simply live; loving to white-hot intensity with open hands; and binding ourselves to develop an ever-deepening listening heart. Right?

But other religious women’s communities do the same; and other communities have associates who draw strength and guidance from these women who live these counsels. So who are we as a community of Dominican women religious, who have associates? Who are we just having celebrated 800 years of Dominican identity? What is the distinctive mark we bring to the wider Church as we turn our faces to the future?

I’m going to suggest that we stand among the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Mercy’s, the Redemptorists…carrying our own distinctive foot-washing towel. It has a monogram on the corner. It is “OP.” What are its threads? Why is it an “OP” towel, when all the others have towels too…but with different monograms and different weaves?

Our weave is indeed distinctive. There is none quite like it. Yes, we all have towels, because it’s all about mission in the end; it’s all about service. But there is no weave quite like the Dominican weave.

There are four distinctive threads, and no other religious community weaves them in quite the same way: there is common life, common prayer, study, and finally mission flowing from the linking of the other three. Those in formation call these the “four pillars.” I’m going to use the more flexible metaphor of “threads.” We’ll consider these in future reflections.

Why do I favor a more “flexible” metaphor, even though “pillar” is very firm and secure? Because flexibility is one of our most distinctive Dominican characteristics. We live our lives bending and flexing like dancers. Nothing in Dominican life binds under pain of sin. What? How in heaven’s name are you going to keep these Dominicans in line? How are you going to get them to do what they ought to do? Dominic wanted to put the weaving shuttle in our own hands. The Joyful Friar reminds us who we are as beggars, lovers, and listeners by our vows. Then he expects us to make responsible adult choices. He believed that living with a penalty hanging over your head kept you fear-motivated, and he was a joyful lover, and love drives out fear.

So we begin with flexibility. We are dancers, who bend and sway, bow and turn. We are the weavers of our own Dominican religious life. We dance to the Spirit’s music holding the shuttle in our own hands.

How Our "Saving" Takes Place

As lent blooms into Easter, we are very aware that we are being saved by God’s love. This is a fact. It’s right before our very eyes. The truth of the fact is one thing, but how it happens is another. We are not used to asking the how question, because it is asking for the explanation of functioning rather than the simple description of a fact of truth.

So let’s take a stab at it…let’s explore how we are saved by a magnificent Love. First, Love bends down. Bending is a function. Here is this poor Cinderella-soul, which finds itself in a drudgery state not of her choosing. Love bends down to her, and she “turns” at Love’s touch, her drudgery gone, and transformed into a princess in a party dress and at a “dance.” Locked in Love’s embrace, she follows Love’s lead on the dancefloor of her life. When she becomes “oh-so-tired-to-death,” Love sweeps her into its arms and carries her across the threshold into the safety of his Father’s “castle.”

Notice that even before bending down, Love sees her in her condition, and Loves her. Love starts everything off. Unable to get herself out of the condition she has inherited, Love bends to her. Love involves itself in her very wretchedness. Love bonds itself to her by touch. This transforms her. She becomes new, someone more than she was before, a new creation, clothed in a garment fit for a wedding. Love continues to involve itself in the dance of her life, holding her close. She dances “the night of her fears” away, held firmly by Love. As time passes toward the midnight of her life, she grows old in the dance. Love is ready. And when she collapses into Love’s arms, she leaves the dancefloor and is carried to “safety.”

Our saving is a process. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The flow of that process originates in a Mystery Jesus called “Abba.” Jesus is the touch-of-God to a wounded human race. When he bonds with our flesh in the incarnation, God is revealed as I AM the One Who Saves. We are transformed. All this happens by an outflowing energy of compassionate mercy that we call the “Holy Spirit.” So the mystery of our saving is an ongoing function of a merciful unending Trinitarian Love. And our response? Well, for goodness sake! Say, “Yes!”

You reach out your hand

And it is a human hand just like mine.

My blindness is gone.

You reach out your hand

And my deadness departs.

You join me even in the tomb

And then leap up and sweep me away with you into the heights.

Saving Love, seal my love-yes in the fire of your Spirit flowing from your open heart.

A Listening Heart

                                 

The context for all we are and do – charism, Spirit Marks, common life, common prayer, study, mission and ministry – is set by our vows, our commitments. Our lay associates witness to us their baptismal vows, and some, their marital vows of faithful loving. Sisters vow the counsels in addition to their baptismal vows, to witness to the entire Church a non-consumerist, wild loving, and obedient life-style in community.

So what is so distinct about vowing the counsel of religious obedience? We all seek to obey the voice of God in our life-styles, right? Indeed.

Yet that voice of God asks different things of different folks. Marital vows ask a listening heart for the needs of the spouse and family. The sister pledges a listening heart for the voice of God coming through her religious community. That means a deep listening to those she has elected into office to influence her. It means listening to the times, and how they cry out to her community for healing.

As it is in every life-style, the obedience asked of religious in our unique life-context might be very costly. It calls us to listen in the wide context of an entire community. It challenges us to bow the stiff neck of our individual ego preferences to where that community is moving. It might call us to consider something we think we cannot do. It might call us to consider what we don’t like or agree with. Make no mistake. Religious obedience in community stretches the soul. If sincerely lived it makes the religiously vowed person big-souled. The individual with her preferences and gifts is part of every consideration, yes, but always in relation to the wider common good.

And there’s the rub. What I want is discerned in the context of what we want and need. In a sense, we vow ourselves publicly to assume a we-consciousness in all areas of our life. We live with a heart that is dilated. It is always open and listening. It would be so simple to do what I want, when I want, as I want, if I want. But to always check out these wants in light of the community is a challenge. As we age, our physical hearing sometimes becomes compromised. But in this obedient listening, age often reveals one who has learned to hear extremely well – with a listening heart.

Loving – At White -Hot Heat

If vows added to the baptismal promises identify certain life-styles, and the counsel of poverty vowed publicly reminds the whole Church that “You can’t take it with you when you go,” what is this celibacy thing all about?

The married must be chastely celibate to all except their marriage partner. They sign the fruitful love of Christ Jesus in their marital love. But what does total celibate chastity mean for religious  who vow this counsel publicly? What does their vow of chastity mean in an age of recreational sex?

Catherine of Siena believed that poverty was the most basic of the counsels, for if the human heart if fixed on a relationship with the Holy One as its one non-negotiable, then celibate love and a listening heart fall right in place. Sandra Schneiders, IHM, takes another view. She is convinced that only someone wildly in love could vow poverty and obedience as a life-style.

I think they are both right. Catherine, from the angle of a basic value, and Sandra, from the angle of desire. Most view celibate chastity as something one does not do. One vows to fast from genital sex. But why would one do that? Only when the longing tells the person it would not be enough, when one’s desire is fixed on something more. So heated is that desire, that it stops at nothing short of union with the Holy. Nothing else will do…no matter how long I have to wait. This takes a love of white-hot heat…a love stronger than death. The totally celibate lover is a sign in the Church of its ultimate union, whatever the life-style each of us have lived.

This wild love-in-waiting can hardly be imagined in today’s world of “If it feels good, do it!” To fall in love with a beautiful human being and not have to “have” them is counter cultural. But it is real. It happens to both the married and to religious. Celibates, married or religious, know. Healthy religious celibates too are wild lovers. Ask them. You might be amazed at their stories.