...back to Basics...

…back to Basics…

We have just come from an intense weekend of reflection on contemplation. We have always known it is the rich ground of our ministries. It is a fact that many of us never have had real training in its meaning or practice in our Dominican formation. So why is contemplation so significant in present-day religious life, especially among active religious?

Let’s get very concrete. Rational analytic consciousness, the way our minds work in day-to-day thinking, is grounded in a more basic type of consciousness. This basic awareness is just plain wonder. It’s awe. It’s surprise, like the child on Christmas morn. As we grow, we get scolded if we “wonder” too much. We need to be responsible, you know. We need to get things done, and not be lazy. We need to accomplish something. This is the measure of our worth, right?

Really? The gospel has another suggestion: “…unless you turn and become as a little child…” Wonder reclaimed has the ability to clarify our thinking.  We see more clearly when we wonder at beauty, at kindness, at being loved. So as Dominicans, we begin all meaningful activity by a pause…on tiptoe…to be kissed. Then we run off to help heal the world. Our uniqueness? To be honest, others can do our ministries. But as long as we Dominicans have breath, we will remind those in the structure of the Church and outside it, that the authentic study of anything…of science, of medicine, of economics, of politics, of theology…all of it is grounded in wonder. All of the nitty-gritty is grounded in wonder…and our uniqueness is to call the world back to this wholeness so it can heal…back to basics.

                                   

Mercy me! But what about Justice?

Mercy me! But what about Justice?

We will soon be completing the Jubilee Year of Mercy. The Dominicans will seal this special 800^th Anniversary year with final celebrations. The liturgical year is nearing end. The harvest time is upon us. Where is the fruit? What growth can we find in the rich loam of our humanness, in our very earthy human struggle? Lord, have mercy!

Yes, indeed. When we learn that real mercy means compassion for one who does not deserve it, the shoe fits. This is not about somebody else. This is about me. I try, I really do. But inevitably I come up short. Always. So scripture these days seems to understand. We really want to “…do something beautiful for God…” as Mother Theresa would say, but we don’t quite make it.

So I don’t know about you, but I come before God, holding the thimble of my puny efforts. I stand helpless, so much lacking. Then a voice next to me speaks up…”I will supply what is lacking, Father…” Then it clicks. I know how it works. The justice is tucked into the mercy. And the One who has bent so low to lift us up supplies both. For in the One who loves us justice and mercy are one. They are not opposed. They kiss.

So ordinary time plays out. The fields become rich with grain. The corn is a bumper crop. The grapes hang on the vines, and the pumpkins await the knife to be emptied out to show a toothy grin. And me? I do my little thing. Somehow God makes it enough. More often than not I need the mercy of my falling short. Then Big Brother supplies, and I remember that without Him I can do nothing. Mercy me!

* * * *

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Indeed.

Mercy me when I come with so little.

Mercy me when I forget, and point the finger of my judgment toward another.

Mercy me when I need your compassion.

Mercy me when I do not measure up to your justice.

Mercy me.

Reflections on Amoris Laetitia

Reflections

On Some Responses to Francis’ Amoris Laetitia

Carla Mae Streeter, OP

Francis released his Apostolic Exhortation, “On the Joy of Love,” on March 19, 2016, the Feast of St. Joseph. The document was the pope’s long awaited response to the Synod on the Family, which concretized Francis’ vision of the Church as a participative community engaged in a participative event. A questionnaire was issued beforehand, with the explicit invitation to speak freely on the issues. It was to be an experience of a truly listening Church.

 What followed the publication of the Exhortation was a variety of responses. I will name two that the reader might want to pursue, while commenting mainly on one of them. The first response I reference appeared in Commonweal on May 20, 2016, and was entitled, “A Balancing Act: Reading ‘Amoris Laetitia.’ The article featured perspectives from Peter Steinfels, Paige E. Hochschild, William L. Portier, Sandra Yocum, and George Dennis O’Brien.

 The second was a booklet in English, Rebuilding Lives: Divorce, Welcome, and Communion, published by Cristianisme i Justicia from Barcelona. It featured the responses of four Jesuits, Xavier Alegre Santamaria, “The Teaching of the Bible: What did Jesus say About Marriage?, Josἐ Ignatio Gonzάlez Faus, “Theological Approaches,” Jesús Martinez Gordo, “Truth and Mercy: The Theological Cogency of Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal,” and Andrέs Torres Queiruga, “The Ecclesiological Background: A Shepherd Pope Faced With Ecclesial Restorationism.” The perspectives of Gordo will be the main focus of these reflections.

                                       What Francis Intends to Do in the Exhortation

 In his seven paragraph introduction, Francis offers us a remarkable guiding statement: he states that “…not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium.” (3) With these words he acknowledges not only the true authority of the magisterium and its place, but affirms that the Holy Spirit operates significantly in the entire People of God, and all need to be attentive to this wide action.

Then he proceeds to sketch his approach to bring before all of us what he considers significant from the recent synod. His first chapter will explore the scriptures. Chapter two will examine the actual situation of families in our day as he perceives it. The third chapter will reaffirm the Church’s teaching on marriage and family. Two chapters will be dedicated to the nature of authentic loving, chapter four in marriage uniquely, and chapter five on love’s distinctive fruitfulness. Chapter six will offer some pastoral approaches, specifically on marriage preparation. In chapter seven Francis will tackle the sensitive issue of the education of children, including a specific call for sound sex education. Chapter eight is dedicated to a call to the entire Church to accompany, discern, and integrate the weakness of unions that do not measure up to the ideal, and provide pastoral care for those who struggle in these situations. The balance Francis envisions means “To show understanding in the face of exceptional situation never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal…” (307) Finally in chapter nine, Francis offers a spirituality of marriage and the family. It is chapter eight, and the pope’s explicit call for mercy in irregular situations, that in my view offers a refreshing affirmation of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the consciences of couples while simultaneously affirming the guidance of the wisdom of the Church’s teachings. It is also the most controversial.

                                              The Focus of this Particular Reflection

 Standing firmly on the balance principle above, I turn now to a specific section of Jesús Martinez Gordo’s article, “Truth and Mercy: The Theological Cogency of Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal.” In section 3.4 of the article, Gordo asks the reader to identify the “it” that God has joined in marriage. Theologically, Gordo is asking for the res or substance that the marriage ritual signs to us.

 Gordo begins by reminding us that for the Eucharist itself to “last,” the matter of the sacrament, namely the bread and wine, must last. They must remain intact. If they dissolve, if they decay, then the Eucharistic presence, as sacrament, ceases in what remains.  The “it” of the Eucharist as sacrament is the presence of the risen Christ in the elements. When the elements cease, the sacramental presence of Christ ceases to be present in the destroyed or corrupted remains.

Gordo wisely chooses the most central of the sacraments to make a point. When the matter or sensory element of a sacrament ceases, the divine active presence that is its substance ceases also in that local instance. The matter and form are inseparable, as modeled for us by the incarnation itself. The presence of the eternal Word of God was intact as the Christ suffered. That divinity was present as the sacred humanity died. It was present in the deceased body of Jesus in the tomb, and it was the Father who through and in the person of the Word, raised that sacred humanity from death.

 Gordo then sides with Cardinal Kasper against the more rigid cardinals who interpret the “indissolubility of marriage” in a more literal manner. In doing so, interpreters such as Cardinal Cafarra blur the distinction between fallible teaching still in process of discussion, and infallible teaching which has clear and limited characteristics: the doctrine must be a truth revealed by God, proclaimed in a solemn act, requires an irrevocable response of faith, and excludes any contrary heretical proposition. The exact nature of the indissolubility question is clearly a work in progress and does not qualify according to the four criteria as infallible teaching.

The argument of Cardinal Kasper that Gordo supports is simply this: The human love and self-gift that is the matter of the sacrament of matrimony is a sign of the indissolubility of Christ’s love. When the human love dissolves, the matter of the sacrament in that case ceases. Thus the couple is no longer a sign of that indissoluble love. The sacrament ceases. It is not the human love that is indissoluble, but Christ’s. The human love is but its sign. When the sign dies, when the love and self-gift ceases, the sacrament ceases. The couple no longer signs the ongoing reality of Christ’s love. One or both the man and woman can destroy this sign.

Gordo is presenting an argument for the Latin Catholic Church similar to that which has been long held by the Orthodox Church. A marriage can die. And when it does, one or both partners are free to attempt to sign that self-giving love with another. Divorce thus becomes the declaration of the death of a marriage, and remarriage becomes possible, because the self-giving love of Christ still seeks a living sacramental sign.

This understanding opens a new pastoral possibility. Access to the Eucharist for Catholics whose marriages have died becomes the healing for one or both persons to recover and again reach out in self-giving love. It is the Christ whose love never dies, whose union with us in the baptismal bond is indissoluble. Francis is asking that this pastoral mercy be discussed further in the Latin Church. Amoris Laetitia is not a final word, but a call for the Church to move forward in mercy. It is a call for the development of doctrine into the fullness of its truth as it is lived in the lives of the People of God.

 Carla Mae Streeter, OP is professor emerita of systematic theology and spirituality at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.

Three and Then Four?

As September comes, we look toward the harvest in the fields, and liturgically toward the fruit the Spirit has coaxed into ripeness in the spiritual gardens of our souls. We have just celebrated the Transfiguration of the sacred humanity of Jesus and the Assumption of the humanity of Mary, his mother. Both of these feasts point to what we ourselves shall be.

 As if the Church is deeply pondering this remarkable revelation, she offers us three more feasts of the Mother of God in this month: Mary’s birthday on September 8, the feast of her Holy Name on the 12^th, and then the feast of her Sorrows on the 15^th, right after the feast of the Holy Cross. Could the Church be trying to tell us something as the Sunday readings look for sweet fruit from us? Then, as though three were not enough, in the earlier calendars there was a fourth feast of Mary: Our Lady of Ransom on September 24. No longer on the liturgical calendar, this was the ancient feast of Our Lady of Mercy. It commemorated her concern for those enslaved, and often set to work as rowers on slave ships.

I suggest that this is no coincidence. Mary had a birthday, and so do we. She was named, and so are we. Her heart was broken in sorrow and grief, and so too is ours. Finally, in this Year of Mercy, she is still concerned about those of us enslaved. Whether it be by what we accumulate day by day, what fear paralyzes us, or what addiction wraps its chains around our will. It is time to look for the Spirit’s fruit, and we might be surprised at how much there is. We live our days in swift flow, wondering at times where the time has gone. Yet all the while the trees of our lives are blossoming and beginning bear the luscious fruits of kindness, joy, peace, patience, mildness, chastity and more, all being shaped by those quiet happenings in our unique situations. We often are all too aware of the fungus. But make no mistake: the fruit is there too. God brings it forth from the water of our tears and the sonshine of the love of the Word. So it was with this woman who shows us what we too will be one day. Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy…our hope. Yes, indeed.

                                                            ************

Lady,

I bring you my soul’s garden.

Help me clear it of briars and brambles

that might suffocate the growth

the Spirit’s groaning has tried to bring forth.

Look upon my poor efforts

and bend down to wipe the sweat from my brow.

Drive away the grubs of doubt and the hungry beetles

of self-love that seek to consume what little I have to offer.

Take me on a tour, and show me what my tears have watered

From the broken vessel that I am.

Uncover for me what my humble prayers have produced

and what my patient suffering has sweetened.

Show me what you see.

Amen.

Why Mary???

Have you ever wondered why Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is so prominent in Dominican spirituality? Yes, there are the stories of Mary’s appearances, guiding Dominic in the foundation of the Order, and the use of the prayer beads that became the rosary, to give folks access to scripture before the printing press arrived in 1443. But why would Mary take such an interest, not only in the Dominicans, but in other Orders as well?

We might find a helpful clue from the lay woman Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare Movement, who died recently in Rome. Chiara calls Mary the transparency of God. Her insight suggests that Mary’s present state as a risen human is something like a “see-through lady.” Her humanness has become the very radiance of God, who shows in her and through her. This would give us a hint of our very own future. Is that how it will be with us? Will the grateful love we have lived day by day, and the faithfulness we have struggled to maintain, be the agents of our transformation? Are we actually a partner in our own risen life? Is this our “wedding garment?”

It would be just like our merciful God, to use our very own love, faith, and hope, to make us new. In fact, this may be just what the Word does with each Eucharistic kiss. He may be about the work of transforming us into our own risen life like his own, for as Augustine says, we become what we eat, and he is a transformed human as risen.

So as we enter the time of harvest, the time when the fruits of the Paschal Mystery should be showing in the gardens of our souls, it might be a good practice to keep our eyes on our Mother. She shows us what we shall be when the pain is gone and the tears are wiped away. That’s Good News, and the essential element of being a Dominicans is about proclaiming the Good News.

"...You promised...!"

How often these words come tumbling out when children are full of expectation …a party, a treat, a trip…to hold us to our word. After all, our honor is at stake. As adults, we continue to make this plea in turn to God who has made promises, too, and has literally given us his Word.
This month of August brings us two feasts that at first glance may not seem related: The Transfiguration of Jesus and the Assumption of Mary. But a closer look reveals a similarity. Both feasts have something to do with the human body. In the Transfiguration we are given a glimpse of what is behind the veil of the sacred humanity. Jesus literally shines. In the Assumption we are shown that the body that had been the temple of the Incarnate Word would not be allowed to corrupt in the grave. It is carried into eternity, risen and transformed.
We need these two feasts this year in a special way. The news has been filled with violence. The human being has been destroyed, the body desecrated by bullets and bombs. But God has promised…  God has given his word that death would not triumph over life. God has promised that we too will be changed, that death will not be the final word. The Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor is a preview of his resurrection. The apostles don’t know what to make of it, but are so taken with the sight that they don’t want to go home. The Assumption of Mary shows us the promise fulfilled for one of our own. Mary’s body had provided the Word with the human genome, and through that humanness he would redeem the world. With her Assumption, Mary gives us a preview of the promise kept for all the Church, and for us, who grow into our own resurrection with each Eucharistic kiss. Yes, God has promised…and this gives us hope through our tears.

Risen Jesus,

Your sacred humanity shines in the Transfiguration mystery.

You draw your Mother to yourself

in the risen and transformed humanness that one day will be ours.

Wipe the tears from our eyes

as we grieve the violence and loss that surrounds us.

Give us as a people the wisdom

to reverence our humanness in all the stages of its earthly journey.

Fill us with hope in your promise of everlasting life.

Turn us from violence to compassion,

from judgment to mercy,

from isolation to community,

from self-righteousness to honesty,

from discrimination to consideration,

and from accusation to respect,

for the glory of your holy name and the fulfillment of your promise. Amen

 

What is...the one thing necessary...?

the one thing necessary…

Summer is in full swing…ordinary time rouses itself day to day like a stretching cat. The Church is like the bride turning her wedding ring every which way to catch every facet of the diamond her spouse put on her finger. She is wedded, and her beloved is away. Every Sunday liturgy is another facet of the diamond she wears to keep his presence ever in mind. What is that ring that keeps her bonded to him? During the waiting time one must be faithful…full of faith. All the readings are presenting aspects of that faithfulness.

We lose something precious in English translation of the Greek word for faith. It means much more than “intellectual assent.” The word in Greek is pistis and it means “to adhere to, as with glue; to cling, to hang on.” What marvelous meaning comes when we realize that faith is like a magnet on a refrigerator door…it keeps us so pressed to God that it takes quite a pull to dislodge us! Go to your refrigerator door, and physically try to pry one of your magnets loose. Enter into the “pull” that fights your effort to remove it. Then sit down to pray, and enter that same sense. The magnet does not have eyes to see the refrigerator. You do not see the God you cling to. But like the magnet, you know where you need to be.

Then the community, through its creed and scriptures, offers content for that bond. In your baptism your Creator took you for better or for worse in a relationship sealed with blood. In your confirmation you confirmed that choice on your part. In your marriage vows you “sign” this mysterious marriage of the Word with our human genome for all to see. In your religious vows you witness that all your breathing, every blink of your eyes, every heartbeat, is an act of worship to the primary Lover of us all.

Yes, we are all wedded. To be mindful of it is the one thing necessary.

                                                           My Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer,

             My Shepherd, my Guest, my God,

       I search for you day and night,

                                    My soul longs for you like a dry and weary land without water.

                                Yet all the while that I search in the protective blindness of my faith

         You grasp me and will never let me go.

           Teach me to rest in You

           As the fish rests in the water.

          Calm me as I fight against the very faith that protects me from your beauty.

            For to catch but a glimpse of you would make me like a moth before the flame.

        I would be useless to you for the task you have given me.

       Fill me with yourself.

        Then I will be fruitful…giving birth to the peace and justice of your reign.

                   Teach me that my inseparable bond with you is

           The one thing necessary.