Hope…in the Coming Election

 As women and men of the Word we have been reflecting on what Pope Francis has said about hope in our lives. What faces us in the coming weeks is no exception. The stakes are high, and at such times, Satan often struts around as an angel of light. Dominicans above all cannot allow themselves to be duped at a time like this.

 It seems the media is presenting us with the news that some priests are telling their people that Catholics will sin mortally if they vote for pro-choice candidates. Sadly, these misinformed clergy are using their influence to misguide, and have not read or heeded the directives of their own bishops. These directives are found on the USCCB website. If you don’t have time to read the entire Voter’s Guide, check out #7 and #35. The latter was drawn from a principle given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (formerly Pope Benedict XVI) which is important enough to quote in full:

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons (emphasis added), it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.

(Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 2004.)

 ‘Proportionate reasons’ means evaluating the overall possibilities for good or evil ensuing from such a vote. We need to pray for these priests, and if possible direct them to the Guidelines of their bishops so they cease using their influence to cause scandal and misguide the consciences of others.

 

 

 

Whistling in the Dark

We’re into the seventh month with no end in sight. It’s hard to believe we’ve been living with this virus for six months. But those are the facts. We wonder when it’s going to end. Liturgically we are at that mid-point between the events of the Great Paschal Mystery and Advent. It’s the time of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and right alongside, several feasts of Mary, the Mother of God: her Birthday on September 8; her name’s day on the 12th, her sorrows on the 15thand that ancient feast of Our Lady of Ransom on the 24th. 

What is this Great Mother we call the Church thinking? First of all, who on earth wants to exalt the cross, that instrument of torture? And then, what does this humble woman have to do with the cross? I think a lot. Mary is always ourselves –fast forwarded. Yes, she is what we shall be after struggling through the agony and darkness of faith. She is us...come to fullness after hanging on for dear life by our fingernails. She stands there...Star of the Sea, and calls to us to get out of the boat and walk on water. 

Water in scripture is pure chaos. Many of us are doing just that. Our faith upholds us and we keep walking.Not only are we walking,we are whistling in the dark. No matter how dark it gets, we have an assurance. We have Someone walking with us...holding us, in fact...and carrying us at times. That faith enables us to walk on water...the chaos of Covid-19. It is, for now, the cross that has us hanging. But while we wait, there is that assurance. So,there is that little secret smile. So,we whistle in the dark.

 Are you there?

 Do you have hold of us never to let go? 

 Sometimes it gets so dark we think the Son is never going to come up. 

But faith tells us otherwise. 

You ran to the cross. 

You said you had to ‘enter into your glory.’ 

Was it because the cross revealed your immense love?

 Was it because you knew the cross would tell us all was made right?

 Was it because you wanted us to know you would be there, when it is dark? 

So through our tears there is that knowing smile... 

You are our assurance.

Hope has a Content

 

Sometimes what surrounds us in the News gets so heavy we are seriously tempted to despair of things ever getting any better. We all know this space. Yet Pope Francis stands there with us, but calls us to look elsewhere. All of us live in this present world, and it is broken, wounded, corrupted, abused, and blind. Not a happy picture. This is real. But something else is real too. The more permanent reality is the content of our hope.

We are talking about real stuff here, not just pie-in-the-sky. By stuff I mean tangible realities all around us that give substance to our hope. Deepest of all are the promises of our God, that life comes out of death, and that there will be a new creation. God does not lie. Yet we say, we must wait for the future for these to be fulfilled, right? Right maybe that they be fulfilled in their fullness, but in the meantime, we simply need to open our eyes. What are the signs of the content of our hope already at work right now?

Let’s start with ourselves. We are a bundle of possibilities. Every morning we have a new 24 hours before us. We will create, as we put our feet on the floor, what will actually fill those next 24 hours. Contacts, calls, choices, reflections, quiet, grief, joy, surprises, actions…like a canvas, the day awaits our artistry. With God’s assurances humming in our hearts, we will turn possibilities to actualities. This is going on all around the world among all peoples. What can we do today to create better government? Better health care for everyone? Eradicate homelessness? Protect the environment? How can we comfort the grieving? Speak a good word? Watch the flowers bloom…they silently speak of hope’s content here and now. Watch the sunrise…it announces another day for caring, loving, helping. The Mystery deep within us is singing of hope. In stillness we can hear it. In living it we can make it visible…right now, today.

“…never forget: hope does not disappoint.”

We all know we aren’t supposed to boast. Pope Francis reminds us that boasting usually makes us quite obnoxious to those around us. Yet there is one exception: we can boast all we want about the steadfastness of our hope. In fact, sometimes we need to do this when things look pretty grim.

 Without blinking an eye we can boast about how every corner of our life is permeated with grace…no matter how we feel. This realization can fill us with gratitude and quiet joy. This can bring us deep peace and with that peace comes freedom. Why so? The steadfastness of hope gives us an assurance that nothing can take away. This gives us a wonderful freedom. Nothing we do or don’t do can change this steady hope. It doesn’t come from us and we can’t turn it off. It is God’s assurance, and it is as steady as a rock. So we smile a little knowing smile, and whistle as we pass the cemetery.

 A sure and fast way to remind ourselves of this faith-fact is to ask ourselves: “Does God love me?” The answer comes quickly…yes, I’m sure of it. So, when I am sad…God loves me. When I feel alone…God loves me. When I wish someone could just give me a big hug…God loves me. This is truly something to boast about, Paul reminds us and so does Francis. This boasting never divides us from others, discredits or marginalizes them. It excludes no one; it teaches us to open our hearts to console and support; and remember…it never disappoints.

 

Shining Like the Sun

August comes, the August of the 2020 Pandemic. Liturgically, wise Mother-Church keeps before us during this month the brilliance of the Paschal promise: as your Lord and Lady have been transformed and shine now as the sun, so shall it be with you. In the Word, fused forever to our humble flesh, we have that pledge.

 The feasts of the Transfiguration and Assumption of Mary bring this pledge before our eyes. The brilliance of the transformed Jesus stuns Peter, James, and John. They don’t know what to make of it. They only know they don’t want it to end. But it does end. There is the agony of the Passion to go through, but they don’t understand that either. Nor do we. Yet the pledge is the same. It is an assured hope given us by God, and where the Head went the Body will follow. That’s us.

 Then, as if to underline the pledge, we watch it happen to one of our own. Mary has no burial place, because there is nothing in the tomb where they placed her. The body that held the Word, the flesh that gave him the ability to suffer and die, shines with the love and faith that filled her in time/space. Perhaps it is that very love and faith, hope, and love that effects our transformation too. If so, then we can do no better than to attend to the word during this month, for it seeks to grow that same love quotient in each of us. Inch by inch, day by day, it transforms us – yes, even in the midst of the August 2020 global pandemic.

 We know not what we shall be…

Live the truth in love, you said.

So in your Spirit help us to hang on in faith,

and teach our souls to sing their little song of hope.

Amen.

Not so ordinary after all…

The great feasts are over…Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Corpus Christ. Liturgically it’s a bit like Fourth of July when the fireworks disappear from the night sky. We enter Ordinary Time. Lush green appears on our vestments, and in our summer fields. It’s the growing time in the North Temperate Zone. Summer is here and the fields are lush with new life.

Truly, this mirrors our grace-lives liturgically. All the wonders of an unspeakable love have been shown to us, and now it is quiet. In the fields of our hearts much unseen will be going on. The texts will be calling forth growth from the great Mysteries. New life, new growth, new challenges to our cranky old ego with its blaming-shaming-complaining-whining-worrying-withdrawing ways. Oh, yes…our egoism has a voice. We can listen for it. Three ugly sisters, and three feverish brothers. They need to be put to ‘bed’ and get a good long healing ‘sleep.’

In their place we welcome joy, cultivate constant prayer, and give thanks, even for what we cannot understand. Then, surprise…! The rich humble earth of our hearts will show new growth! It will appear unbidden…surprising even us. Yes, it is Ordinary Time…but our lives in God are not so ordinary after all.

Holy One,

You have left the scene…or so you have said.

But then you have said too, that you will be with us always.

So you must take your heaven with you wherever you choose to be.

Help me to remember that, when the days are dark…

when the news is bad, when the violence rises, when the virus sweeps away dear ones.

No hair falls from our heads without your knowledge.

Then like that ugly stuff out in the fields, so smelly,

You turn the manure of our lives into marvelous growth and rich food.

Help us to see beyond the darkness, and hear beyond the noise.

Let us hear your voice, Shepherd.

The ‘Ordinary’ Way

St. Augustine (in the Office of Readings) reminds us that there are two ‘times’ during the Liturgical Year: the time before Easter and the time after Easter. These two times reflect the ‘Paschal Mystery’ in our lives. The time before Easter is a time of struggle and penance in faith; the time after Easter is a time of unbounded joy and hope in the promise of our future.

So now we have celebrated the ‘big’ feasts. The Lord has risen and ascended, taking our humble transformed humanness with him to the throne of his Father. They have sent their common Spirit-Gift. The Spirit now dwells and burns like a holy Fire in the midst of the Church. What has Jesus been teaching them - and us - during this precious ‘time after Easter?’

He has been teaching us ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’ He appears when they are together, especially at meals. Then he is gone, breaking the pattern of his former time with them. In former times he was always visible to them. Now he isn’t. So – he is teaching them that there is now going to be a new ‘ordinary’ way of his presence. He is telling them, and us, that we will need to learn to use our faith to ‘see’ him in a new way. Yes, he has returned to his Father, but no, he has not really left at all. The ordinary way is going to be faith’s way of knowing where to look.

Our coming feasts hold a clue. We will celebrate the Most Holy Trinity, The Body of Christ, and the Heart of Jesus and his mother, Mary. There you have it. That’s where to look. We live, and move, and have our being in the Triune Mystery (like fish in the sea, says Catherine). We are nourished by his very Body and Blood to keep us ‘becoming what we eat.’ And we will find him in our own hearts and in the hearts of others – a way of saying that he will be looking at us out of  our deepest love relations.

So we have our challenge before us: we will need to intentionally look for him…around us, in the Breaking of the Bread, in our own deepest heart, and in the hearts of loving people all around us. We will need to see past his disguises…it’s now the ‘ordinary’ way.

You don’t fool me, Lord.

Unless, that is, I let myself be fooled.

I am bonded to you as Word in the Triune Mystery –

where you have carried my very own DNA.

You feed me with your risen self…in your new humanness.

Each time, you kiss me into my own transformation, inch by inch.

And, wonder of wonders, you tell me to look into my own heart –

guilt-laden, selfish, greedy, and egotistic – where you make your home, poor stable that it is.

You haven’t gone anywhere, have you.

You’ve just given us your presence

the ‘ordinary’ way…