Celebrating Mary the Tower

Artwork by Eileen Cantlin Verbus

Dear Friends, 

One of our great summer liturgical feasts is the celebration of Mary Magdalen, the Apostle to the Apostles, on July 22nd. We know her, but we don’t know her well.  

Luke alone tells us that Mary of Magdala was first among women to follow Jesus during His public ministry and that He, Jesus, had restored her to strength and fullness (8.1-2): “Accompanying Jesus were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities [including] Mary of Magdala from whom seven demons had gone out…”  

In Gospel times, to identify someone as being “of” a certain place was not to emphasize a specific location but it was a way of identifying a person with reverence within a community. This Mary: Mary of Magdala, and no other. Twelve times in the Gospel accounts, Mary of Magdala is named exactly that way. One interpretation of Magdala is that Mary was from the village of Magdala. Recent biblical scholarship tells us that a “Magdala” is a Tower, so another way of thinking of Mary of Magdala is a “Mary the Tower.” So we have Peter the Rock and Mary the Tower. Both treasures of early church leadership. Moreover, placement in a list of names, in biblical times was significant. Mary Magdalen is always named first in a list of women present at the death and burial of Jesus and at the empty tomb. 

Nowhere in Scripture is she ever called a prostitute. Her very clear place in the community got conflated in subsequent centuries with the nameless women who anointed Jesus with oil or were identified as prostitutes. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) was notable in his designation of Mary Magdalen as a public reformed sinner. The image stuck for centuries.  She became a wanton woman in need of repentance and a life of hidden and silent penitence. Gone was the revered title “Apostle to the Apostles,” given to her perhaps as early as the third century by Hippolytus. Enter Mary Magdalen of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ. Not the true Mary of Magdala, the Tower.

Even though Mary of Magdala was at the cross and burial, these alone would not be sufficient to elicit the great regard the early church had for her. Most importantly, she was venerated as the first witness of the Resurrection the first to see the Risen Christ in the Gospel of John.

There in the garden, on the morning of that first day of the week, Mary lingered after Peter and John had departed without seeing Him. She wept and she did not recognize Jesus until He spoke her name: Mary. That she recognized the voice of Jesus calling her underscores that Mary is a true disciple, who then went, at Jesus' command, to tell the others that He was alive. 

“I have seen the Lord” she told them, long before Paul used those words, “I have seen the Lord,” to confirm his own discipleship.

The witness of Mary to the Resurrection was so clearly accepted by the early Church that it could not be dislodged as the Gospel texts were being framed. Who would have thought that God would want the primary witness of a woman to such a defining moment of faith?

Let’s celebrate Mary of Magdala on July 22nd. She is our friend, companion, a faithful woman, a tower of strength and courage.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Summertime, and the Learning is Easy...

Dear Friends,

Here are some online sites that help me connect with other believers. If you visit these sites, you will find news, scripture reflections, interviews, and prayer resources. Enjoy!

God’s Word, Many Voices (godswordmanyvoices.org)

• weekly Sunday scripture homilies
• gifted and educated lay Catholic writers
• home grown in Rochester diocese

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (usccb.org)

• scripture for weekdays and feasts, with daily e-mail and podcast
• news and official statements by our bishops
• resource for questions about liturgy and Church teaching

Pope Leo and the Vatican (vatican.va)

• pictures and daily news bulletins
• texts of Pope’s homilies and statements
• written and visual resources for church history, practice, doctrine

America Magazine Podcasts (americamagazine.org)
There are several, the latest one being The spiritual life with Fr. James Martin, SJ

• Interviews on life with God
• Guests include Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, OP; Mary Karr; Stephen Colbert; Whoopie Goldberg; Pete Buttigieg

Daily TV Mass (dailytvmass.com)

• well produced 30-minute Canadian broadcast
• excellent homilies and some music
• our SSJ Motherhouse community has been praying with this community five times a week since COVID

Hoping for your summer refreshment,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Peter, Paul, and the Path of Compassion

Dear Friends,

Each time June 29 falls on Sunday, the liturgical calendar sets aside the readings of Ordinary Time and invites us to celebrate two giants of Christianity, Peter and Paul.

Peter and Paul were both Jews by birth. Peter was a fisherman by trade, Paul, a tentmaker. Peter fed people and lived under the sky. Paul created shelters for people to take refuge from the elements and the creatures that inhabited it. 

Jesus came upon Peter at his boat and called Peter right then and there. Peter followed Jesus immediately. Paul did not walk the roads of the Galilee and Judea with Jesus and Peter. Paul only came to know Jesus after the resurrection, but nonetheless as intimately.

Paul and Peter received new names from Jesus. Simon became Peter, the Rock. Saul became Paul, the missionary. With them, as with us, new names meant a new call, a new future.

Paul, the fiery, fearless preacher, and Peter, the acknowledged leader of the early Church, were not without faults. Paul hunted down the early Christians and sent them to prison. Some of those who stoned Stephen left their cloaks at Saul’s feet. Peter ran away as Jesus was arrested. A short time later, Peter denied that he knew Jesus. Peter and Paul were leaders who knew what it meant to be human, fragile.

It’s good to keep this fragility in mind in our times since the sexual abuse scandal broke in 2002. Then, the weaknesses of our current Church leaders came to the fore. The pain and humiliation touched us all.

I suspect that, even today, the anger, bitterness, and cynicism about the church lingers in many of us. It makes us lose our taste for Church and all it offers. Some of us leave.

But let’s stay the course. Let’s suffer with the abused. Compassion means precisely that, “to suffer with,” and let’s hold them in prayer, that they might experience a healing of memories and restored hope, dignity and joy in their lives. That is compassion to which we are called.

But we are also called to be with the perpetrators, the abusers, and the bishops as well. This is hard to hear. This is the real test of our compassion. Can we stand with another when it doesn’t feel good or look good?

From the example of Jesus, we find the courage to attempt this way of being. Jesus was crucified between two thieves. There wasn’t one cross, but three. To bystanders, Jesus was painted with the same brush as the other two: tainted and guilty. Jesus carried everything without protesting his innocence, though he was.

Can we help carry one of the darker sides of our Church’s history without protesting its unfairness or distancing ourselves from it?

This is the challenge of living compassionately in this community of God’s people.

May Peter and Paul, who knew fully what it meant to be human, be with us on the way.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Body and Blood

Dear Friends,

As we move toward the end of June, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi. The stark words "body and blood" evoke images of our June 2025 news reports. No one reading this blog post is ignorant of the news of broken bodies and spilled blood.

Ukraine. Gaza. Israel. Sudan.

Minnesota. Texas. New York. California.

These deaths spring from violence and conflict. They are born of division and prejudice, racism and intolerance. What place do these harsh images have in the celebration of Eucharist? Our sacred meal commemorates the death and rising of Jesus and celebrates our baptismal unity with him in this mystery. In this feast day mass, a portion of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians recalls Jesus’ words and action,

"This is my body that is for you….

This cup is the new covenant in my blood."

The early Christians knew these words by heart, as do we. The words articulate our faith and remind us that we are one in Christ. However, when we read the verses ahead of this passage, we recognize a divided community. Paul points out separate food and seating for rich and poor, slave and free. He writes of neglect of some members’ needs. Was not the first Jesus community free of such separation? Were they not one in mind and heart in their prayer and their ministry?

Our own Eucharistic celebrations contain the same contrasts, the same light and shadow, the same love and indifference. When we hear Jesus’ words repeated at Mass, let us also hold space for the words of Paul. He and other preachers and prophets through the ages call us to share Jesus’ body and blood that we might attend to the suffering of his beloved community.

In hope,
Susan Schantz SSJ

Gazing at God: A Trinity Sunday Reflection

Dear Friends,

Today is Trinity Sunday, the only day in the liturgical calendar when we, as a faith community, gaze at our God in wonder. God: community of being. God, who has been misunderstood over the centuries, as uncaring, immune from our suffering, too hidden for us to know, who evokes fear and watches us from afar as an impartial observer. God who keeps a list of our sins. This God does not exist, says the American theologian, Catherine Mowry LaCugna (1991).

No. This is not the God we celebrate today, appreciate and hold close. Today’s feast leads us to honor and treasure “a personal God who is as close to us as a heartbeat, as near as the breath we breathe.” (LaCugna)

“God,” my friend, Father Gary Tyman, says “is a verb. God happens. When people who are adversaries come together in understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation, that is God happening. When someone suffering from alcohol or drug addiction decides to enter treatment, that is God happening.” I think further. When our relationships become more than just the two of us, God happens. Whenever profound things occur in human life, God happens.

The spiritual writer, Macrina Wiederckehr, speaks directly to this God who wraps us in a daily, unending embrace:

You are extravagant with your love.
You drown us with devotion and understanding.
You leave me breathless, thoughtless.
Master, Teacher, Friend, Lover, Parent,
Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer…
I try to encompass all Your names, but they slip from my grasp.
When I hold nothing, I hold You.
When I hold You, I hold everything.                          Seven Sacred Pauses, 2008

This way of celebrating the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity makes it a feast of affection for our God who embraces us and welcomes us into the family of God. Once we were not. But once we came into being, we belonged—to our own families and to the very family of God.

Our life stories are interwoven with the very life of God. We are continually being drawn into the life of God. Today, together, we welcome this call.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

All in One Place Together

Dear Friends, 

We celebrate Pentecost this Sunday. The reading from Luke tells us that Jesus’ followers were all in one place together. Jesus had told them Go and make disciples of all nations. Now they gather and wonder just how to fulfill this mission. Now they wonder how safe they are in Jerusalem. They try to encourage each other. Now they draw on the memories of Easter and worry about what’s ahead.

The Spirit comes to them. Hopes are rekindled. The believers leave the house and mingle and pray and preach in the crowd of Jewish pilgrims. The Jesus people are becoming a gift to the world, starting from that Jerusalem home. The Spirit sends them out. 

Luke tells us that the disciples’ words could be heard by all, whatever the native language. Jesus’ words would be preached in every language. Jesus’ healing and mercy would unfold in many cultures and in all creation.  

This Pentecost I am feeling the challenge of being a member of a world church. The world overwhelms me with news of conflicts and scientific developments and diverse cultures and belief systems. There are stories of good and of evil. There are many preachers and leaders and heroes and saints. 

So, what is my own prayer this Pentecost? I pray to learn others’ languages of need or faith or love. May I hear each day the ones who call me by name. May I steadily pray and act on behalf of the poor who call my name. And may I wonder with other disciples how to respond to the voices of many nations.

In the Spirit,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Being an Active Listener Like Jesus

Dear Friends,  

The term “active listening” would not have appeared in the language of Jesus’ time, but he certainly did just that. If Jesus had not been an active listener, there would have been no miracles, no deepening of faith and community. The understory of the Gospel is that Jesus looked at the people who came his way and loved them into new life. He listened to how their lives unfolded, and he took up their healing. On this Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost, as we have just entered into the summer season, let’s pray that we will follow Jesus’ lead in this sensitive way of being with people this summer. 

But what are some of the qualities of the active listener? 

The true and active listener stops moving, stops reading and apparently listening while, in fact, their eyes are following something else. The active listener wants to know more about the person being engaged: his/her stories of change, growth, humor and sadness, tragedy and moments of rescue. Only small portions of a person’s story can be revealed in a brief conversation, but it may be enough to garner a sense of the person. There are gray areas, ambiguities in human experience. With an active listener, these may well come into focus.

I find that chance conversations sometimes loosen people’s memories or desires to talk about something. It is a blessing for both speaker and listener. People are wary of personal storytelling. Maybe, in times past, they shared a piece of themselves, only to be shouted at, disrespected, judged, rendered joyless. 

The active listener puts aside his/her own need to tell and draws out the threads of the other person’s story and abides in that story, however briefly. 

John ends his Gospel with these words: “There are many other things that Jesus did, but if there were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.” (John 21.25) 

I hope we can believe that many of these things that Jesus did involved listening to people.  

How Jesus was with people is how we, as his followers, are called to be with people this summer.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Ascension Missioning

From Christ Episcopal Church Glen Ridge New Jersey

Dear Friends,

What does the ascension of Jesus mean to us? This feast will be celebrated in my diocese on Thursday May 29. It commemorates Jesus’ leaving the disciples after commissioning them to continue the loving ministry and witness they had developed among them.

Reflect on the disciples’ feelings about Jesus’ leaving them. They’ve been consoled by his words and touch in the days since Easter. The recovery of presence and purpose during the weeks after Easter is threatened by the cessation of Jesus’ visits to the upper room and the lake shore. When these visits cease, the disciples are left behind, yearning for the spirit to take up ministry, to journey and preach, to tend the poor among them, to work out their relationship with Jewish and Gentile believers.

Do we recognize ourselves in this disorganization, in this grief, in this longing for direction? Where in our lives as believers are we confused, worried, or feeling abandoned? What turning points or transitions shake our faith in these days of 2025? What hopes have been abandoned? Are there any hopes being gradually rekindled? Where are we called to journey in the months ahead?

In this time after Easter and before Pentecost take some time with the disciples as they share sadness and hope, grief and faith. Take time to kindle hope as we wait for the fire of the Spirit. Here is a prayer for these days.

On the Death of the Beloved

by John O’Donohue

You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,

Where no storm or night or pain can reach you

Let us not look for you only in memory,

Where we would grow lonely without you.

You would want us to find you in presence,

Beside us when beauty brightens,

When kindness glows

And music echoes eternal tones.

Peace,
Susan Schantz SSJ

Continuing Jesus' Work

Dear Friends,  

On Easter Sunday and for the first few weeks following, the Sunday readings focused on the event of the Resurrection and the early believers’ experience of the Risen and Glorified Jesus.   

Beginning last week though, and for the weeks before the Ascension, the focus changes to the impact of Easter on shaping the early Church. 

Christ entrusted to His followers the work He began. We see this in the story of the early church in the Acts of the Apostles and in the letters of the New Testament. 

That work is summed up in today’s Gospel, where Jesus gives His disciples one comprehensive, all-encompassing charge: 

Love one another as I have loved you.   

It takes a person a lifetime to sample, deepen, develop, and do what Jesus calls us to do in living out the one indispensable aspect of discipleship. 

We are on our way. 

Sometimes analogies help us grasp what the Risen Jesus has entrusted to us. (I found this somewhere but give it to you without quoting the unknown reference.) 

Giacomo Puccini, the great composer, wrote the memorable Madame Butterfly, Tosca and La Boheme. In 1922, Puccini was diagnosed with cancer. Undaunted, he announced: “I want to write one more opera.” So he began to write Turandot. “But what if you die?”, his students asked him. "Then my students will finish it." In 1924, Puccini died, Turandot was unfinished and his student took up the task. 

Turandot’s premier performance was in Milan’s La Scala Opera House under the direction of Puccini’s best student, Arturo Toscanini. The gala performance went on until it came to the point where the composer laid down his pen. Tears streaming down his face, Toscanini put down his baton and turned to the audience. “Thus far the master wrote, and then he died.” 

Toscanini picked up his baton again. His tear-stained face was wreathed in smiles. Toscanini shouted to the audience "But his disciples finished the music!” And they had. 

That’s love and dedication – generous and willing to pick up the unfinished work of the master – and for us, disciples of the Risen Lord, we continue the unfinished work of Christ. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

A Book Full of Names

This Sunday is Mother’s Day in the US and I will leaf through my mom’s prayer book. It holds much more than its worn pages of prayers. I will see a few faded family photos and a yellowed Erma Bombeck newspaper column, entitled If I Had My Life to Live Over. A fragile bookmark is signed Love, Lila. That’s from my mom’s aunt, Sister of Saint Joseph Loyola Guider who died in 1948. There is an index card in mom’s writing, A Prayer for Husbands and Wives. There is a clipping of a letter to the editor written by my brother Stephen. There are death notices for my sister and my father. 

Mom’s prayer book still breathes relationships and connections. Her prayer, like her life, was full of names. She told me once that when she prayed at night, she would simply name each of her loved ones and ask God to take care of us. 

For many North American churches, it is also Good Shepherd Sunday. Like God, our Good Shepherd, mothers know us and call us by name. And, this Sunday, there is another shepherd on believers’ minds. By the time you read this reflection, we will know the name of the next Bishop of Rome. Let’s add his name to our own prayer. May he be a shepherd like Jesus, like Francis. May he be a shepherd like Brazilian Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga who wrote four days before his death:

At the end of the road, they will say to me:

Have you lived? Have you loved?

And I, without saying anything, will open my heart full of names.

Peace,

Susan Schantz SSJ

A Sign of New Life

Dear Friends,  

Sometimes my calendar is such that I need to write a blog a week or two before it is due. I wrote my blog for May 4 during Holy Week. Pope Francis died Easter Monday. I debated what to do. The blog I wrote is about Carlo Acutis, the millennial who was scheduled to be canonized on April 27th. The ceremony has been postponed until the new Holy Father sets a date. But I chose to present the blog about Carlo. He is still a sign of new life in the Church. 

Once in a while, I read two articles back-to-back, which seemingly have no connection, only to find out that they do. Your experience too?  

The Notre Dame Magazine (Spring issue) carried a conversation between the sociologist Christian Smith and the noted religion writer Ken Woodward. They talked about Christian Smith’s new book, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America. Smith points to the fact that availability to a larger world through the internet has come to mean that the younger generations do not need organized religion to understand the world or their place in it. Religion used to provide these insights. Smith’s research says religion is deemed obsolete to achieve these goals. Today’s young people live in a world where religion is culturally unnecessary. 

Then there is the story of Carlo Acutis, told in the “Last Word” section of THE WEEK (February 14, 2025). Carlo, born May 3, 1991, died of leukemia on October 12, 2006. Fifteen years old. Carlo was known for his devotion to the Eucharist. From the time he was 11, he posted on his website stories of Eucharistic miracles he collected from around the world. He called his postings a "virtual museum” of miraculous events. Carlo believed he would not reach adulthood. The onset of his illness and subsequent death were rapid.  

If the Church is anything, it is thorough in its investigation of those who are presented for sainthood. This was certainly the case of Carlo. But the pieces quickly fell into place. “By 2019, Carlo’s body was moved to a glass-paneled tomb inside the Church of Saint Maria Maggiore….Assisi…A silicone mask of his face was made to cover up signs of decay… Acutis was attired in his favorite clothing: navy blue Nikes, blue jeans, and a North Sails zip-up sweater. He was the first prospective saint to be buried in branded clothing.” (THE WEEK cited above)  

Carlo Acutis will be called on as the patron of youth, computer programmers and influencers. 

One could argue that the Church is astute to present to the world as one of its own in the most dazzling sort of way a beautiful looking, contemporary youth who can attract others of his generation. True. But there is more. Carlo Acutis did not find faith, the Eucharist, belonging to God obsolete. He lived by these realities. 

Truth be told, many others of us also feel pulled, stirred, called by the power of God to be open about our lives of faith. For us, faith is not obsolete.  

In this Easter season, as we celebrate the Risen One among us today, as we remember with love, Pope Francis, we have a young friend who has completed his journey and stands with the living God.  

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Easter Sunday Homily of His Holiness

Dear Friends,

As we mourn our brother Francis, let us welcome his Easter words.

Gratefully,

Susan Schantz SSJ

EASTER SUNDAY

Saint Peter's Square

Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

READ BY CARDINAL ANGELO COMASTRI

Mary Magdalene, seeing that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, ran to tell Peter and John. After receiving the shocking news, the two disciples also went out and — as the Gospel says — “the two were running together” (Jn 20:4). The main figures of the Easter narratives all ran! On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the Lord’s body had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus. He, in fact, has risen from the dead and therefore is no longer in the tomb. We must look for him elsewhere.

This is the message of Easter: we must look for him elsewhere. Christ is risen, he is alive! He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum! On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary.  We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb.

We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.

For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives, is anything but a complacent settling into some sort of “religious reassurance.” On the contrary, every day we can experience losing the Lord, but every day we can also run to look for him again, with the certainty that he will allow himself to be found and will fill us with the light of his resurrection. Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples; it invites us to have eyes that can “see beyond,” to perceive Jesus, the one who lives, as the God who reveals himself and makes himself present even today, who speaks to us, goes before us, surprises us. Like Mary Magdalene.

Brothers and sisters, this is the greatest hope of our life: we can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death, he conquers our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world, to make us live with him in joy, forever. This is the goal towards which we press on, as the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (cf. Phil 3:12-14). Like Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, we hasten to meet Christ.

The Jubilee invites us to renew the gift of hope within us, to surrender our sufferings and our concerns to hope, to share it with those whom we meet along our journey and to entrust to hope the future of our lives and the destiny of the human family. And so we cannot settle for the fleeting things of this world or give in to sadness; we must run, filled with joy. Let us run towards Jesus, let us rediscover the inestimable grace of being his friends. Let us allow his Word of life and truth to shine in our life. As the great theologian Henri de Lubac said, “It should be enough to understand this: Christianity is Christ. No, truly, there is nothing else but this. In Christ we have everything” (Les responsabilités doctrinales des catholiques dans le monde d'aujourd'hui, Paris 2010, 276).

And this “everything” that is, the risen Christ, opens our life to hope. He is alive, he still wants to renew our life today. To him, conqueror of sin and death, we want to say:

“Lord, on this feast day we ask you for this gift: that we too may be made new, so as to experience this eternal newness. Cleanse us, O God, from the sad dust of habit, tiredness and indifference; give us the joy of waking every morning with wonder, with eyes ready to see the new colours of this morning, unique and unlike any other. […] Everything is new, Lord, and nothing is the same, nothing is old” (A. Zarri, Quasi una preghiera).

Sisters, brothers, in the wonder of the Easter faith, carrying in our hearts every expectation of peace and liberation, we can say: with You, O Lord, everything is new. With you, everything begins again.

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Embracing the Risen One

Dear Friends,

On Good Friday,
Jesus was condemned to death,
His life was violently taken from Him.
Then Jesus’ body was laid in a tomb.
Protected by a stone.

But not forever.
Jesus, whose life had been violently taken from Him,
was remarkably, truly alive.
Our minds cannot grasp
the extent of God’s faithful love
in raising Jesus from the dead.
Dumbstruck, we leave it
to our hearts to embrace
the Risen One this day.

There is no neat formula to know
when or how we can expect to experience the Risen Lord
in our time.
All there is
is the quickening of our hearts
and the witness of others.
The pull of it.

The good news of Easter Sunday is that
God has interrupted and continues to interrupt our
sometimes boring,
sometimes difficult lives
with compassion and
unending love.

God interrupts power that seeks to destroy
and the forces of evil that seek to
overcome our world.

Easter shows us that
death is not eternal.
Life is.

In You, O Risen One, we find life.
In the mystery of our personal depths,
when we choose life.

Christ’s life surrounds us,
embraces us,
upholds what is most treasured in us.

Our lives made holy and whole because
He lives.
Alleluia!

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Palm Sunday

Dear Friends,

As he rode along,
the people were spreading their cloaks on the road;
and now as he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives,
the whole multitude of his disciples
began to praise God aloud with joy
for all the mighty deeds they had seen.
They proclaimed:
"Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest."

Luke 19:28-40

I imagine Jesus’ arrival in my town in 2025. Crowds are waving signs and banners. Would I be there? Would I be hopeful or cynical? Would curiosity push me closer to the road? Would I call out his name? What praise would I echo? What words of desire and anger and longing would I utter? What words would go on my own sign?

Contemplating that exuberant day many years ago, I wonder. Would I recognize Jesus? Would I have joined the crowds singing at His arrival? Would I have believed? I believe that the psalms sung and prayed by my ancestors give me the words for prayer and praise. Justice! Peace! Help! Change! Save us! Mercy! Freedom! Deliverance!

This Palm Sunday, choose a word or two for the praise and prayer you cry out as you welcome the one is coming, always coming to save us. Join the crowd that calls out with many voices, many words. Welcome hope.

With you in the crowd,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Continuing Life's Journey with Acceptance

Dear Friends,  

The story recounted in today’s Gospel haunts us who claim to be followers of Christ. We don’t necessarily like this story. Maybe the woman taken in for adultery was for real, maybe she was a plant. At any rate, let’s grapple with it. 

The unnamed woman’s accusers made her stand before everyone, the Gospel says. A non-person. A thing used to trap. A woman, ostensibly caught in the act of adultery, she stood before Jesus alone. No man was presented with her. Only this woman, awaiting the condemnation that would lead to her death. The stones were already being gathered.  

But Jesus had no use for the stones or the cleverness of the learned who knew how to manipulate the Law like stones. 

Tracing his finger in the sand, Jesus gave everyone time to cool down, to rethink their part in this drama. It gave Jesus time to think of the other women whom he healed, those who loved him and ministered to him. Then he straightened up. Authority fell like a mantle, softly on his shoulders and enfolded this misused woman. 

Has no one condemned you? 

Don’t you wonder what was in her voice as she answered Jesus? Surprise! No one, sir! Wonder? No one, sir. Gratitude? No one, sir. 

Go now. And sin no more. 

From this day on, she would carry with her the strength and weakness of her past. “It is not that I have reached the goal,” Paul echoes in today’s second reading to the Philippians. "It is not that I have finished my course – but I am racing toward it.” 

There is more ahead. More for Paul, for Jesus, for the adulterous woman. More for us. 

Next week, we plunge into the Passion. The agenda is before us: Will hurting, hurt, wrong, wronged people find in our believing community the acceptance that enables them to continue life’s journey, or will we turn away those who are accused and condemned as beyond hope, comfort, love or salvation? 

We all know hurting, wrong, wronged people. 

Will we accept these people and others like them? When we ask them, “Has no one condemned you?”, will they answer, No one! 

Will we accept those aspects of ourselves that others might condemn and go on? 

Because God does accept us and bids us to go on. 

The words of God in Isaiah today tell us: “Remember not the events of the past. See. I am doing something new! Now it springs forth! Do you not perceive it?” 

The newness that Jesus offered the woman in today’s Gospel is a presage of Easter. Then, all things will be made new. Let’s go on!

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Next Steps

Dear Friends,

The reading for Sunday, March 30 is Luke’s familiar story of the Prodigal Son. A young man longs to leave home and be on his own. He convinces his father to give him his share of the family wealth. The boy eagerly steps forth to a new life. The father and his second son mourn their loss but adjust to home and work life without him.

The traveler struggles and wastes away his financial and spiritual resources. He finds himself yearning for the home and family he left. He turns and retraces his steps, seeking even minimal reconciliation. The father sees him from afar and steps out to greet him. The broken traveler is welcomed and forgiven. His father celebrates the son’s safe return.

The boy’s desperate steps toward the family home call for responses from his father and brother. The father sees the struggling son from afar. He steps out to meet him, unconditionally welcoming him home and caring for the broken son. The second son holds back. There are no immediate steps toward reconciliation for him. He complains bitterly about the joyful reception of his irresponsible brother.

In reflecting on this story, I felt called to take some steps of my own. In my family and community life I have some unsettled relationships. There are people who need to know for sure that I recognize their acceptance and care. There are gestures of acceptance that I need to offer. These steps are part of my Lenten journey. Does this story call you, too, to take steps toward reconciliation?

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

What's in a Name?

Dear Friends, 

One of the great priests of our diocese is Joseph Parrick Brennan (1929-2008), scripture scholar, interfaith pioneer, seminary rector, friend. What follows is an edited version of a homily he gave at St. Mary’s Church, Rochester, on Feb. 26, 1989, for the third Sunday of Lent, C cycle.. It is as relevant for our chaotic time as it was then. Savor the depth of the man who spoke God’s Word ardently. 

Do you ever find yourself intrigued with names? When you are driving along and see strange street names like Fitzhugh or Clarissa? Or towns like Henrietta, Chili or Greece? Who named them? And why? And people’s names are even more intriguing. When I was growing up, lots of members of my family had patriotic names, but one of my older cousins had the initial M. in her name which she never would explain, until one day it slipped out that she was born at the time when the US had won a decisive battle in the Spanish American War, so her parents called her Manila. Some young friends of mine had a baby girl not long ago. When I asked them what they were going to call her, they said. “We aren’t sure. We don’t know her well enough yet.” 

Moses was curious about names, and especially God’s name. In today’s first reading, Moses says to God “If they ask me what your name is, what am I to tell them?” After all, if he was to work for God, it would be useful to know his name. But God was evasive in his answer. God says, "Tell them I AM WHO AM." In other words, you and they already know who I am from your own experience. You know what I have done in the past, for Abraham and Sara, for Isaac and Rebecca, for Jacob and his family, and you know what I will do for you and your people. I AM ALL THESE THINGS AND MORE, AND YOU CAN’T REALLY PUT A LABEL ON ME OR GIVE ME A NAME EXCEPT PERHAPS TO SIMPLY SAY THAT I AM WHAT I AM/WHO I AM.  

Names can be intriguing and useful and even essential sometimes, but in the last analysis, we get to know people by how they act, what they do, what sort of lives they lead, how they treat the people around them, what their interests and priorities are. We are what we are, and our name doesn’t really change that, does it? 

And if that is true, then we can learn a lot about God from today’s first reading. God tells Moses: "I HAVE SEEN THE AFFLICTION OF MY PEOPLE. I HAVE HEARD THEIR CRY. I KNOW THEIR SUFFERINGS, AND I AM COMING DOWN TO DELIVER THEM." God is moved by human suffering, appalled by it, a God who sets himself in opposition to it, and a God who comes down to do something about it. He is a God who sides with all who suffer, whether it is the suffering of the hospital patient or the battered wife or neglected child, or the elderly person who can’t make ends meet on a fixed income or the homeless who wander our wintry streets and sleep where they can find a bit of shelter. He is the God who takes the side of those who, like the Israelites in Egypt, suffer from political, social and economic oppression, whether it’s in Eastern Europe, or our own country…. 

The only way God can deliver, that he can help, is by stirring us up out of our apathy and indifference, until we are compelled to share His divine compassion and love, and to share in His work of healing and deliverance.   

Most of us are probably inclined to react as Moses did and say "WHO AM I, LORD? SEND SOMEONE ELSE." 

Today’s reading from Exodus is central to our understanding of God and ourselves, because it shows us a God who cares, and asks us whether we care. A God who says, "I AM WITH YOU." in the same breath God says: "I SEND YOU." 

The big question put to us by this reading is: Will I, like Moses, accept the call and go where I am sent?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Time in the Desert

Dear Friends,

We began this Lent with a Sunday reading about Jesus’ time in the desert. We hear this story each year and imagine Jesus’ struggle with those temptations orchestrated by Satan. We think of the bible’s Exodus stories, too. Moses walked God’s people through decades of desert. They all traveled in hope, a hope threatened by fatigue, doubt, and dissent. Where is desert for us this 2025?

Desert is certainly close to home. We each have our own desert places. Like Jesus, we are tired and hungry, hungry for peace, for direction, for God’s presence. Like the traveling believers in Exodus, we are troubled and quarreling, beset on all sides by danger and despair.

In his poem, Desert Places, Robert Frost describes this emptiness:

I am too absent spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
….
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Desert is a fearful place of isolation and longing. As believers who are traveling in good company, we ask:

• Who am I called to be in a time of violent conflict?
• How is God nourishing my heart in this lonely time?
• Who needs my care during these desert times?

Traveling in hope,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Seeing Anew this Lenten Season

Dear Friends, 

Lent began last Wednesday. Perhaps you are already immersed in your own way of focusing these six weeks so that they are spiritually uplifting and deepening to you. The facts of life in these United States and in our world at this time may already give you more than enough to keep you prayerful and disciplined. But another framework could be useful. For this, let me invite you to turn to Jesus as he appears in Mark 8. 22-26.  

Jesus came to Bethsaida, where the locals brought Him a blind man. “They begged Him to touch him. Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes, Jesus laid His hand on him and asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ Looking up he replied, ’I see people looking like trees and walking.’ Then He laid hands on his eyes a second time and he could see clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then He sent the man home and said, ’Do not even go into the village.’” 

Jesus took the man by his hand. This Lent, will you allow Jesus to take you by the hand and walk out of the town – out of the world – you have been living in? In this world you have known, are there some things you have clung to and been blind to? Only in daring to walk hand in hand with Jesus will you be able to see how to be faithful to God in your daily life as you go forward. Jesus does not berate you for not seeing. He walks with you to a new place and freshens your eyes and heart. God is faithful to you. 

I see people looking like trees and walking. Clarity of vision does not come all at once. Shapes and meaning and focus come only with trusting Jesus to repeat the process with you until you can see what is truly present. God sustains us in the process. 

Do not even go back into the village. That sounds like a throwaway line, except, that for him, what did the village represent? Was it where he was born blind? Became blind? The place where people took his blindness for granted and thought he did not have the capacity or desire for clear vision? All around us – in our workplace, neighborhood, recreation areas, are people who do not see, by choice or by happenstance. Maybe here we ourselves chose to fit in and not see. Go instead to a place where you are welcomed, loved, accepted. Where you can grow. And see anew. 

These three things: to take Jesus’ hand which He offers us, to be patient with the work of seeing anew, and not go back when we have been living a blind life. Together, these make up an effective way of approaching this season as we prepare for our Easter Lord who comes to us beyond the boundaries we have allowed between us. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

What a House Holds

Dear Friends,

Twenty years ago, I spent a day at poet Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts. I stood on holy ground in her lovingly restored little garden. I climbed the stairs she used. I loved being in the bedroom where Emily wrote. I touched her desk. I looked through the window at the leafy path that led to the house where her dear friend and sister-in-law lived with Emily’s brother. Even now, when I read one of Emily’s poems, I am sitting with her for a while in her Amherst room. 

Rooms are more than walled spaces. All the walls become history walls, infused with the spirit and energy of the people they shelter. We Sisters of Saint Joseph are living through a planned remodeling of our French Road Motherhouse. For close to twenty-five years this building has been a Congregational ministry headquarters and residence. The reconfiguration of some of our common areas is stirring up memories and feelings. 

• Every four years, we’ve elected our leaders here.
• We have such wonderful Christmas masses in the Chapel.
• Staff and volunteer service awards are the best parties we have.
• Anniversary celebrations of Sisters and Priests are so joyful.
• Funeral services fill the Chapel with memories, music, and friends.
• Family and friends are always welcome guests.

You’ll still feel the heartbeat of the family of Joseph here. Walls and halls will pulse with even more stories as we welcome old and new friends. 

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

Choosing Reconciliation Over Retribution

Dear Friends, 

Know who Abishai is? Probably not. Abishai is not a well-known figure in the bible, but we read about him every three years in Ordinary Time. It’s a valuable thing to linger over him today, because Abishai continues to be part of our everyday world. We’ll recognize him as this blog unfolds.

Abishai was David’s military advisor.

King Saul and young David were in conflict, battling over who would lead the kingdom. Saul was about to kill David, when David fled. Saul’s army pursued David, but couldn’t find him. Then, David had a stroke of luck. David and his friends came upon Saul asleep, unguarded and defenseless.

“Kill him!” an elated Abishai counseled David, but David refused. Saul was his king, the Lord’s anointed one. Trusting in God’s wisdom, David left the task of dealing with Saul to God.

Can you imagine how Abishai might react to David? “What is the matter with you? Are you a fool, David? Saul will kill you if he can. King? What kind of king is Saul to you? Act now, David. Kill Saul!”

But David chose to be guided by mercy, justice, and compassion.

But during his encounter with the sleeping Saul, David took Saul’s spear to show that he could have killed the sleeping king if he chose to do so, but that he, David, preferred reconciliation to violence. Saul was moved by David’s actions, and a kind of restless peace was born between them.

In today’s Gospel, Luke reports that Jesus sided with David rather than Abishai. Jesus urged His followers to use the spiritual tools of mercy, compassion and justice when involved in conflict. In fact, Jesus encourages us to use God-like generosity toward those who do wrong to us. And more, Jesus tells us to do good to them and for them. Jesus urges us to break the cycles of violence, hatred and evil by returning compassion for violence, love for hatred and good for evil

What a seemingly impossible path to walk. The world seems full of Abishais who tell us to get them before they get you. 

In the United States today, we experience the call to retribution against past governmental leader and positions. Subtle or maybe explicit violence.

Jesus and David would have it be otherwise.

But if these readings are a lesson for world leaders, they are also for you and me.

Today’s readings ask us to look at our own words. Do they hold hate, disdain and contempt for others because of real or perceived wrongs? What do we see when we study our tendencies to be aggressive and violent in our relationships?

My own personal Abishai whispers to me: “Show them that they can’t get away from being mean to you.”

Abishai becomes active in me when I hit back.

Each of us needs to learn from our contemporaries who have internalized the spirit of today’s Gospel passage – community leaders who work hard so that Jesus’ teaching will be a living force in the world. Begone Abishai.

Come to me, Jesus. Stand with me, David.

Help me not to judge, not to condemn. Help me to pardon, give, love, be compassionate in word and action.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Refreshing and Cleansing Waters

Dear Friends,

This Sunday’s first reading from Jeremiah 17 imagines the faithful believer:

Blessed is the one who trusts in God, whose hope is in God.
That one is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress but still bears fruit.

And the response from Psalm 1 echoes this image:

That one is like a tree planted near running water,
that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade.

The Hebrew scriptures often draw our attention to refreshing water:

Beside restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirit. Psalm 22
I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground. Isaiah 44
And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Isaiah 58

Cool, clear, refreshing water. Water that cleanses and heals and energizes. Here the weak and thirsty can drink. Here the journeying pilgrims gather for restoration. Somehow people who love God bring water to dry places. Humans and God work in tandem. Moses compared his own God-given words to water:

May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense like the dew; like gentle rain on grass, like showers on new growth. Deuteronomy 32

During this time of social and political unrest, we could pray for people in leadership in all sorts of arenas, that God would enable them to speak words that strengthen and unify, words that welcome and inspire. Let us pray for each other, that our words be like a gentle rain refreshing our fellow pilgrims.

In hope,

Susan Schantz SSJ

The Power of Our Stories

Dear Friends,

Much of winter is still ahead of us. On cold, snowy nights, shut off the telly, put away social media devices and tell stories: each other’s, well-loved stories, stories with surprise endings, stories that helped shape us. Enjoy and treasure your stories of life, faith, adventure.

We live a life-long story, and yet, if asked, we would not be sure that our own stories are interesting at all. It’s only in the telling of our stories, we begin to see their value and worth.

We also have a wealth of family stories. My four-foot eight Polish peasant grandfather, conscripted into the Russian army, deserted, and somehow made his way to Lackawanna, New York. How did that happen? I had no idea, before hearing this story as a child, that my little Grandpa had such courage!

We tell stories that have impacted others in the world, stories about what happened at school or work. Travelling, seated next to strangers, we often exchange stories. Sometimes, we reveal to strangers whom we will never see again parts of ourselves we don’t easily share with people closer to us: incidents, near-misses, daydreams. “I remember once…I had an experience something like that…”

Beyond those of our own lives, we like to hear other stories, see stories unfold on TV or in books, or at the movies. Stories make meaning the way that analysis or synthesis can’t. Where did the world come from? Why are there people? Why don’t snakes have legs? Why do the living die? As we read the lives of others in biographies, we clarify our own convictions, and have new tools to examine our own lives. Here’s a thought: Go where you can hear the stories of migrants and refugees and be awed. To be human is to have a story to tell.

The much admired writer, Elie Weisel, once remarked “God created people because he loves stories.” We know that Jesus was a remarkable storyteller. He used the stuff of ordinary life, introduced strangers into the story who became unexpectedly central to the meaning of the story and, as we know when we study them, these parables say more than they seemed to intend, to this very day.

God is not captured for once and for all in our human stories, but God is surely revealed in our stories, if our eyes and hearts are open.

The philosopher Kierkegaard went even further to say “the only real answers to religious questions are in the telling of a story.” So dare to explore religious questions in this seemingly simple way. Tell and enjoy the power of stories in your life.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Feast of the Presentation

                                                                                                                        (CNS/Lola Gomez)
Dear Friends, 

This Sunday, the feast of the presentation, we read from Luke 2. The child Jesus had been circumcised soon after birth. Forty days later his parents present him at the temple. An old man named Simeon notices the child and his parents. Luke 2 tells the story.

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss[a] your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”

Luke wants us to know that Joseph and Mary are faithful Jewish parents, initiating their child into their faith by bringing him to the temple. Their arrival at the Temple is noticed by a believer named Simeon. Deeply prayerful, he has been longing to see the consolation of Israel. He asks to hold the baby. He takes him in his arms and praises God.

I am moved by this old man, the one who prays despite disappointments, social and religious upheaval, and political oppression. I, too, am old, and can imagine that baby in my arms, his warmth and small but solid weight. God comes to us in every child.

The above picture of Pope Francis speaks of an old person’s hope as well. This man knows God. This man has challenges to his hope. This man knows that God can encounter us in a child. Francis’s homily on the 2024 feast of the presentation includes these words, an echo of Simeon’s song.

He is presented to us as the perennial surprise of God;

concentrated in this child born for all

is the past, made of memory and of promise,

and the future, full of hope.

May our own hope be refreshed,

Susan Schantz SSJ

Secrets of the Heart

Dear Friends,

Let’s talk about secrets of the heart. What do we carry within us that we hold closely and don’t reveal to anyone?

Our secrets are of all kinds.

We hold close the times when God has blessed us with a singular insight or vision that has made us grow more secure in God’s love, times people have said good things about us. We can close our eyes and see the beautiful places we’ve been to which no one has seen or treasured the way we do. We treasure the words of family members who have gone before us. We pray for some people in the secret of our hearts. We protect others in our heart of hearts. Our secrets make us blossom from the inside.

But not always, for we also remember times when we’ve been mean, when we have said spiteful things or wounded others in some way. We remember when others have said awful things to us about us. We replay the tapes endlessly. We keep reliving those moments, even if we shared with the injured either forgiveness or reconciliation or both.

In our heart are secret wishes for what we might want to be “when we grow up” – secret wishes for our future yet to be revealed. Secret prayers, secret beliefs about God, secret hopes for our own place in the world.

In this jubilee year, when we are called by our church to be pilgrims of hope together, we are encouraged to travel to holy sites and to the holy reorganization of our lives. (See Fresh Wind Blog for December 29, 2024.)

One of those holy sites is our own hearts. It’s time to rethink which of the secrets we harbor are worth keeping and which are not. Sweep out our memories. Which ones give us life and which ones suck the air from our lungs? Do we beat ourselves up by reliving the negative aspects of our lives or do we look at ourselves as the beloved of God? Hand everything over to God once and for all, in this jubilee year.

Let’s pray for ourselves and one another as we go through this sorting out process this year:

Tender God, we know no secret is hidden from you, (Ez.28.3)

Teach me wisdom in my secret heart (Ps. 51.6)

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Many Gifts, Given for All

Dear Friends,

Many gifts, one Spirit. This is the theme of the reading from Paul for Sunday, January 19. In his second letter to the church at Corinth, he writes:

There are many kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit.
There are different forms of service but the same Lord.              2 Corinthians 12

The apostle is encouraging that early Christian community to recognize and affirm the gifts given to individuals for the sake of all. They need the reminder because, for this faith community, that’s difficult to do.

It is difficult for some 2025 communities as well. All the baptized are called to mission. Baptism calls us to live in Christ Jesus, to love God and the neighbor, using the gifts we are given. The Church is called to recognize and nourish believers’ gifts, and to foster whole-hearted living of the baptismal call.

A colleague of mine is a gifted preacher. She is prayerful, attuned to human experience and educated in scripture studies and theology. She offers insight into the Sunday readings in a way that helps the congregation go deeper. She encourages worshipers to holiness and service. She leads in response to the baptismal call.

Currently, she is unable to preach at Catholic Mass because this ministry is limited to ordained priests and deacons. Her calling to preach is not recognized by her own faith community. A woman of faith, she has found ways to fulfill her call. She has taught Scripture, trained new preachers at a Christian seminary, and preached at various Christian churches. Along with other lay Catholic women and men she publishes homilies on the Sunday readings. In her nineties, she continues to share this gift of preaching. She has found ways to fulfill her vocation outside the Eucharistic celebration.

This woman’s story is not unlike that of many lay Catholic women and men called to preach. Each one has received a gift given for the good of the community. Each must find a way to live the call. The Catholic community continues to gratefully receive the preaching gifts of the ordained. These men’s homilies do build us up for faith and service. How much more blessed and gifted would our community be if the ministry of preaching could be shared by the gifted non-ordained?

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

Taking the Plunge

Dear Friends, 

During many Christmas visits over the last few weeks, I heard heartwarming stories of newborns being welcomed into their families. Take Elena Marie. Not only was she welcomed, but the family arranged her baptism when the whole family was together because they all wanted to witness and celebrate Elena Marie’s new place in the church and world. 

One proud grandparent relayed to me the anticipation the family had as they waited to hear her response to the touch of water being poured over her. If Elena Marie showed no fear, the family would say “Ah! Isn’t she strong and wonderful!” And if she cried out, they would say “What powerful lungs she has already!”

In a sense, Elena Marie’s cries are a truer response to baptism than smiles. At its core, baptism is a frightening event, not just for babies, but for adults for who baptism was originally intended.

The descent into the water is a symbol of dying. The person being baptized is dying to the past in order to become, to enter into something new. 

At his own baptism, different from Elena Maries’s, Jesus went down into the murky waters of the Jordan and submitted to a cleansing by John. Luke, and only Luke, tells us that Jesus was baptized in the midst of and after others. He is one of the crowd, part of our humanity. He takes his place with all who stand, wade, and plunge into the waters of ordinary life. Jesus is not apart from us.

You and I suffer in varying degrees because the currents of our minds pull us in one direction and our desires pull us in another. Sometimes we feel deluged by the waters of our mortality, by the threatening chaos of sin and death. But we are not alone. Jesus enters the cleansing waters, greets us in the floods of our lives and emerges with us on the other side.

At his baptism by John, Jesus leaves his former hidden way of life and emerges a new creation. As does Elena Marie. As you and I did when we were baptized. Jesus urges us to discover what is true about ourselves and face our truth with all its beauty, paradox and difficulty.

Luke also adds that Jesus, after his baptism, prayed. Through prayer, he opened his life to all the possibilities the Holy Spirit offered. Jesus held himself ready, then gave himself freely and completely when the time was right. If Elena Marie’s baptism as well as yours and mine are to be fruitful, we must take the plunge, and pray to be ready for the next moment.

With Jesus before us, beside us, behind us and within us, why should we be afraid to take the plunge?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Magi, Returning Home

Flyaway Books, 2018

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. Matthew 2:12


Dear Friends,

It is the feast of the epiphany. I’ve been reflecting on the Magi story and I have two questions:

• What happens to the Magi after Bethlehem?
• What happens to us after Bethlehem?

The Magi saw a star and they followed it. Their visit to Herod alerted him to Jesus’ birth. Herod’s violent response began with their visit. The Magi found the child and family they had travelled to see. They worshipped and gave gifts. A dream warned them to return home by another way, avoiding Herod and protecting their new hope.

We believers are also advent searchers for signs. We are drawn by the Christmas star, and we follow. Through each epiphany season of our lives, we retrace this journey to find the God of hope.

Like the Magi, we encounter evil, in individual persons, but also in destructive systems and ideologies. Even when our hope is threatened, God draws us forward to meet the glory shining on the face of Christ. We too can see clearly and follow a different road home. We are strengthened in faith and courage to face changes and challenges ahead.

There are so many threats to our hope this new year. The Magi’s story speaks to us:

• Do not travel alone.
• Be ready to travel far and long.
• Be awake and alert to the presence of evil.
• Be awake and alert for signs of hope.
• Find this new way home and foster and protect the gift of hope.

Hopeful New Year’s greetings,
Susan Schantz SSJ