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…

 

The One Thing Necessary

 Sometimes Lent can be quite noisy: daylight savings time clicks in, summer sports teams get active, needs on the news continue to be overwhelming, the president puts out his budget, and I keep trying to keep true to my Lenten practices. But, what’s it all for? Why am I doing all these things?

 Thomas Merton wrote some time ago:

At the center of my being is a point of pure nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, New York: Doubleday, 1966:142)

 Maybe, just maybe, I should begin each of the remaining days of Lent just going there, just sitting there. “…the pure glory of God in us.” This means deeper than all the sin I find…this means going to the spot where God and I are joined.  This is the place of the promise. This is where my own resurrection comes from. It is growing already in me, and just waiting for me to help it along, or at least get out of its way. The one thing necessary is the truth…of who I am, and who God is. Jesus is this God-joined-to-me eastering in me…

 I so often forget.

I need a daily reminder.

Teach me again and yet again…

Today in the midst of the human struggle

You are eastering in me.

 

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.