Everyone Gets an Invitation

Dear Friends,

The Jesus of the gospels attended weddings and celebrations. He shared meals with close family and disciples. Jewish officials invited him. He invited himself to the homes of prominent sinners. After the resurrection, he shared a meal with people he joined on the Jerusalem road. He hosted breakfast on the beach. For Jesus, as for us, meals were a time for celebrating holidays, commemorating milestone events, and for sharing faith and friendship.  

The gospel reading for this weekend is Luke 14:1, 7-14. In this passage, Jesus has accepted an invitation from a prominent Jewish religious leader and is seated at the table. Jesus is less interested in the menu than in the composition of the banquet. He steers the conversation to the way a party’s guest list and seating arrangements can mirror societal divisions and social status. Diners may strive to sit in the best seats. Hosts may have invited only prominent people, the ones with connections and status. 

Jesus reminds his table companions that the guest list should include the poor, the blind, and the crippled. Gatherings must reflect a beloved community of equals, all created and called by God. Our social and religious divisions threaten the beloved community of God’s people. Our behavior as guests or hosts must be that of members of this beloved community.

In reflecting on a community of welcome, we might identify with the host. We may see ourselves in the guests’ struggle for status. We must not forget to see ourselves in the broken and the needy. The needy may not hear the invitation. The broken ones may reject the invitation. Disciples need to encourage and refresh those who find it difficult to hear or accept Jesus’s invitation to a meal where all are one. At this banquet invitations are given and accepted, hosts and guests are one in dignity and their willingness to share themselves at the banquet. 

With hope, 

Susan M Schantz SSJ

To Gather and to Sort

Dear Friends,

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells this story.

“The reign of God is like a dragnet thrown into the lake which collects all sorts of things. When it was full, they hauled it on shore and sat down to put what was worthwhile into containers. What was worthless, they threw away.”

On local farms, in our minds, in our houses and garages, we gather all kinds of things to be sorted out later. To gather and to sort are age-old human activities. In these summer months, what have we gathered and of these, what have we sat down to sort out? Or have we just kept gathering, putting off sorting until some distant future.

Jesus is the Great Gatherer of people. In his public ministry, he did not sort out the good from the bad. He accepted people as they were and helped them in whatever ways he could. Think of Levi, the publican who became Matthew, the adulterous woman in John 8, the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5, Judas, Peter and Mary Magdalen. Jesus gathered them, and while interacting with them, he helped them sort out in themselves what needed to be retained and what needed to be discarded.

Consider all that we have gathered this summer - new thoughts, values, questions, stuff that are now in our closets, kitchens and memories and, garages. How will we sort out all we have accumulated? Here are some questions that I’ve found helpful. Maybe you will too.

What is my intuition about what I have gathered?
Do I value it? Feel happy about it?
Does the Holy Spirit nudge me about what to do with what I have gathered?
Will my having these things be an inspiration to others?

For how long will I keep what I have gathered?
Forever?

Do I hold it close and then let it go? Shall I give away what I gather so that others can benefit? What has happened to me in the past when I selfishly held on to what I have gathered?

As Labor Day approaches, and we turn to a new phase of the year, let’s also turn our thoughts and imagination and consciousness to what we have gathered. Let’s begin the sorting out process,
toss out rigidity and manipulation,

condescension and caste systems,

alienation in its many forms.

Collect laughter and tears,

truth-telling and peacemaking, tenacity and resistance.

Among the summer’s gatherings,
let’s find mystery and awe to hold up to the sunlight.
Hold fast to solidarity and cooperation.
Cherish words of faith, hope and love that people have offered us.
Gather family stories with all their twists and turns.

We need not be afraid to gather. Our nets and bins will not break, and who knows what we will bring forth can nourish us and our world.

Over these thoughts, we pray:

Give me the courage to sort what I gather, Lord, today, tomorrow and into my old age. Let all that I gather be sorted in Your Name. Amen.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Not Peace, but Division

Dear Friends,

The Gospel reading for August 17 features Jesus’s words about the cost of following him. Jesus asks his disciples

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.

Jesus goes on to note all sorts of conflict that will face new disciples.

As Luke’s faith community remembered Jesus’s words, they would have been strengthened by remembering Jesus’s own relationship struggles. From the beginning of his life and into his ministry, Jesus’s own family was disrupted. John the Baptist, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Friends and family in the Nazareth synagogue. His mother and brothers. Other Jewish believers.

Early Christians who heard these words of Jesus were familiar with the conflict their own conversions had created in their own relationships. To Luke’s listeners those disagreements were all too familiar. Their own family and social and religious lives had been turned upside down. Some had been imprisoned. They may have lost contact with siblings or friends. With his stories of Jesus, Luke reminds believers that this struggle of discipleship began with Jesus’s own struggle. Believers are not alone.

C. S. Lewis said that the Gospel was concerned to create "new people" not just "nice people." There are many saints whose beliefs caused disruption with family or friends. Check out the Saint of the Day website for these stories of men and women who challenge us twenty-first century believers.

• Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
• Mary MacKillop
• Kateri Tekakwitha
• Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions
• Matt Talbot
• Franz Jaggerstatter
• Charles Lwanga and Companions
• Damien de Veuster of Moloka’i
• Miguel Agustín Pro
• Joan of Arc

Susan Schantz SSJ

Beyond the Horizon

Dear Friends,

Many of us are satisfied with the familiar and the comfortable and are reluctant to push ourselves further. If this is so, we can say of ourselves that we have a limited horizon.

Everyone has a horizon – the limit of our thinking, experience, interest or outlook.

When Robert Louis Stevenson was coughing out his life, suffering with a lung disease, his wife Fanny walked into the bedroom. Looking at her wasting husband, she challenged him:

“I suppose you are going to tell me it’s a glorious day.”

“Yes,” the author replied, looking at the sunlight streaming through the window.

"I refuse to let a row of medicine bottles be my horizon."

A row of something or other may be our own personal horizon, but God calls us to push out that horizon so that we can see life through a wide-angled lens and a telescope, not just with a microscope or the unaided eye.

Today’s readings tell us to have enough faith to expand our personal horizons.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author reminds us that
faith is the confident assurance about what we hope for
and conviction about things we do not see.

In this year of being pilgrims of hope, we are called to push beyond the limits of expectations about our lives, our culture, our political atmosphere.

Abraham certainly did. His age alone would have been enough for him to believe that life had passed him by.

But he got the word, and he went, not knowing where he was going. His destination was over the horizon.

That was the case of the people caught in slavery in Egypt. The reading from Wisdom in today’s liturgy offers a retrospective glance at the Exodus. The people were told beforehand that they would be saved. This was to give them the courage to cross their horizon. They went, we recall, but they grumbled, lost faith, turned against their leadership, only to regret their lack of faith and go on.

And then there is Jesus. What began with Abraham reached its high point in Jesus.
Jesus’ stories about what happens beyond the horizon.

Today’s parable of the master who came home late happily to find his servants up and waiting for him is also a story of what happens beyond the horizon of the immediate. They never would have anticipated that he would kick off his sandals, put on an apron and serve them a meal.

Jesus seems to be saying that over the horizon of waiting there is a new relationship with the master. Not promotion. Not praise. The master serves the servants. Neither the servants nor we see or expect this from the vantage point of a long night of waiting.

So much of life is beyond what we can see. Moreover, what is beyond our horizon is the unexpected friendship with God.

Even though our paths through these summer days are unique, shall we meet together on the coming horizon?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Summer Travel, Anyone?

Dear Friends,

Where are you going this summer? Some of us might answer that we aren’t going anywhere, because we have no vacation plans or family visits coming up. In the deepest sense, though, each one of us really is on the road. Together, we are travelling toward the future. Each community, family, and individual has already left the home of the past.

You may travel reluctantly. You may feel you have no choice about the itinerary. You may want to ignore the upheaval in our world. You may want to ignore the news. You may want to silence others’ noisy cries and shouts. You may draw back from change or challenge in family, in your health, at work.

Nevertheless, God calls you to travel. There is a place for you in this crowd of pilgrims. There are companions who need you. Your prayer matters. Your faith matters. You have a disciple’s work to do.

Pay attention and you will know the next right thing. With God-given fellow travelers you will

• raise a grandchild;
• work a 12-step program;
• phone a legislator;
• drive a friend to chemo;
• live with chronic illness;
• work at a shelter;
• pray with a heart that pays attention.

As poet Mary Oliver wrote

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

With you on the road,
Susan Schantz SSJ

Treasuring Our Earth

Dear Friends,

Last weekend, the Sisters of Saint Joseph from across the country and abroad celebrated our 375th Anniversary of life and service to the dear neighbor. The gathering, held in Kansas City, MO, brought together Sisters, associates and partners in ministry, all of whom find inspiration in Saint Joseph.

The Saturday morning keynote speaker was Brentwood Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a well-regarded theologian. Now retired, Sister Elizabeth's theological thinking has not stopped evolving over the years. In recent writings and in this talk, she aligns herself with Pope Francis’s encouragement to care for our common home – the earth.

With her, I invite us to enlarge our values to actively include a tender regard for the world in which we live. We have to only pay attention to the daily news to know how much this emphasis is needed: hurricanes, tornadoes, blistering heat, floods, devastating fires. Nature is in pain and so are we. We need to act.

We can send contributions to relief agencies, but that is really not enough. We need to form new personal and communal habits that honor the world in which we live.

Pope Francis wrote ten years ago in his encyclical Laudato Si’:

“Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, an educational program, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault on nature brought on by technology. (n.111)

Taking a cue from Pope Francis, Sister Elizabeth Johnson

• encourages us to become conscious of all of nature in our prayer. When we pray for “all of us” in the psalms and other prayers of the church, we really mean all of creation.
• invites us to consciously choose to watch nature programs on PBS or read National Geographic to see the remarkable way in which nature expresses the glory of God.
• reminds us that we can take part in ecological projects, however small, to hold back the overwhelming tide generated by those whose actions do not uphold life to the full.

To paraphrase Pope Francis, we are called upon to protect, restore, improve and beautify creation as something that belongs to everyone.

As he concludes Laudato Si’, Pope Francis invites us to pray

Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love,
Teach us to contemplate you
in the beauty of the universe,
for all things speak of you.
Awaken our praise and thankfulness
For every being you have made.
Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined
To everything that is.

This summer, watching the fireflies send out their light, smelling the fragrance of growing crops in the fields, looking up at the vast sweep of stars across the nighttime sky, pledge with me to treasure the earth anew now.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Visiting Friends

Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary

By American artist Eileen Kennedy

Dear Friends,

Some Sunday readings are so familiar that we can whisper the words along with the reader. This Sunday’s gospel reading (Luke 10:38-42) is one of those familiar stories.

• A woman whose name was Martha welcomed Him….
• Mary sat beside the Lord, at His feet, listening to Him.
• Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.
• Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.

This story carries such strong feelings. Each time I hear or read it, I am invited to a different perspective, pulled toward one character or the other. I’ve found many words written about this trinity of friends, but in this post I share a painting for your own reflection.

In her painting, North American artist Eileen Kennedy (eileen-kennedy.com) blocks any easy interpretation. Martha moves in on Mary and Jesus, wielding a noisy vacuum cleaner. She looms angrily over Mary. (Has Martha already bumped into Mary’s chair?) Mary ignores Martha, and we suspect that this isn’t the first time she’s done so. Jesus the visitor sits partly hidden by a screen and pretty flowers. A cat settles serenely next to Mary.

You are invited this week to this scene in this room. Here are some questions for reflection.

1. Is there a figure with whom you identify most? Are you an uncomfortable visitor? A bemused observer? An enraptured listener? An irritated outsider? An unappreciated worker?
   
   
2. Is the room your faith community? Your family? Your nation? Your own divided heart?
   
   
3. Who is an outsider? Who is the one who welcomes? Who prepares space for three friends?

Hoping for welcoming spaces for all,

Susan Schantz SSJ