Defining "Descended into Hell"

Dear Friends,

Since the introduction of the New Roman Missal in 2010, the presider can invite the congregation to say either the 4^th Century Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed, the essence of which goes back to the teaching of the Apostles. Besides being more ancient, the Apostles’ Creed is simpler in phrasing and choice of words. We seem to like it, except for one phrase which makes us frown.

Halfway through the Apostles’ Creed we declare about Jesus that he descended into hell. That phrase doesn’t appear in the Nicene Creed at all. What does it mean that he descended into hell?

Our question is modern. Hell, in our day, means only one thing – the place of eternal punishment after death. But for the ancients, the word “hell” had many synonyms. It was the grave. The Hebrews called it Sheol. The Greeks, Hades. These were different from Gehenna - a fiery, always burning garbage pit outside of Jerusalem – more akin to our modern hell.

But in early Christian theology, the grave or  Sheol or Hades or Gehenna, was simply the gathering place of all who awaited with some peace the opening of heaven by Christ. The great figures of the Hebrew Bible were there, holy people of non-Jewish origin, good people like you and me. Another way of saying he descended into hell is to say he descended to the dead.

Jesus came for everyone, scoops up into his divinely human embrace all who went before and all who came after him. Death would never be the end of life. Life would be the true outcome of death.

To say that Jesus descended into hell is to tell us something about that seemingly barren, unknown time from the late afternoon of Good Friday through Holy Saturday. It was not a barren time at all. Sister of Saint Joseph Eileen Lomasney offers us a poetic picture of this in-between time:

The ancient grayness shifted                                    And Moses standing

Suddenly and thinned                                                Hushed them all to ask

Like mist upon the moors                                          If any had a welcome song prepared.

Before a wind.                                                              If not, would David take the task?

An old, old prophet lifted                                           And if they cared

A shining face and said:                                              Could not the three young children sing

“He will be coming soon.                                            The Benedicite, the canticle of praise

The Son of God is dead.                                              They made when God kept them from perishing

He died this afternoon.”                                             In the fiery blaze?

 

A murmur of excitement stirred                               A breath of spring surprised them,

All souls.                                                                        Stilling Moses’ words.

They wondered if they dreamed –                           No one could speak, remembering

Save one old man who seemed                                The first fresh flowers,

Not even to have heard.                                            The little singing birds.

Still others thought of fields new ploughed         

Or apple trees

All blossom –boughed    

Or some the way a dried bed fills                            And they, confused with joy

With water                                                                   Knelt to adore

Laughing down green   hills.                                     Seeing that he wore

The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam                       Five crimson stars

On bright blue seas.                                                   He never had before.

The one old man who had not stirred

Remembered home.                                                  No canticle at all was sung

                                                                                       None toned a psalm or raised a greeting song.

And there he was                                                       A silent man alone

Splendid as the morning sun and fair                     Of all that throng

As only God is fair.                                                     Found tongue –

                                                                                       Not any other.

                                                                                       Close to his heart

                                                                                       When the embrace was done,

                                                                                        Old Joseph said

                                                                                        “How is your Mother?

                                                                                         How is your Mother, Son?” 

 ~ Sister Joan Sobala

 

                                                               

                               

Life After Death

Dear Friends,

In some eras of the distant past, Christians believed or were taught that this life was the antechamber for heaven. Thank God that way of thinking  has given way to the conviction that this life is good, worthy of being lived fully and valuable in itself. Some of us are old enough to remember singing “Life, I love you! Feelin ’groovy!” Yes. With our contemporaries, we do love life, but dangerously pay scant attention to the beyond. Yet both are essential for the Christian life, and our desire for both needs to be kept in balance. Life after death continues to be an indispensable part of faith, and an important topic for us to weave into our Lenten thinking. “If we have been united with him {Jesus] in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6.5).”

What can we say about life with God after death? We know that Jesus died generously, out of obedience to His Father who wanted us all to be saved. The death of Jesus “was the culmination of a life of loving obedience to God, obedience to the mission of being human, really human, with no thought of controlling or dominating others but simply of giving himself away to them…( Herbert McCabe, OP).”  Jesus took on death and conquered it. On the third day, he was raised up, never to die again. Jesus was whole, his risen self unrecognizable at first glance but then revealed to believers.

We cannot imagine life with God after death. But, as Herbert McCabe reminds us, we can know two things for certain: “that it is ours… and that it is now incomprehensible to us.”

Still, Christians have ways of talking about life with God after death (heaven) in imagery drawn from the Scriptures. We say heaven is another name for the fullness of life Christ promised (John 10.10). It is the fruit that never becomes overripe, the face and the voice that never cease to appeal to us. Heaven is the insight that never fades, the music that always stirs us, the love that glows with vitality and never diminishes. Heaven is the fullness of all human relationships summed up in the depths of our relationship with God.

Once, when visiting a woman in hospice, I wondered with her whether she was ready to cross over. “No,” she said, “The kitchen in my mansion isn’t ready yet! (John 14.2)” Belief in this dying woman was laced with humor! She lingered two more weeks.

We get a feel for what heaven is like in those moments when we see more than meets the eye in the very people and places which we love. Elizabeth Barret Browning catches this sense of life hereafter as she reminds us:

                                                Earth’s crammed with heaven

                                                And every common bush afire with God;

                                                And only she who sees takes off her shoes.

                                                The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.

 ~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Barren Fig Trees in Our Lives

Dear Friends,

Living in New York State, it’s probably safe to say that you and I don’t know much about growing fig trees. So, part of Jesus’ parable about the man who told his gardener to cut down this unproductive fig tree escapes us.

For one thing, the fig trees in Jesus’ time (as well as today) were treasured, carefully cultivated, fertilized, watered. Unlike the average, uncultivated tree growing in poor soil, and left largely to fend for itself, fig trees were pampered. Precious. No wonder the owner of the orchard was annoyed! He gave this tree every chance. The care he provided was useless. To put the situation into an axiom: that which only takes, and does not give can expect to be destroyed. The gardener, the hands-on figure in the story, had another thought, namely, to give the fig tree a second chance.(Luke 13.6-9)

In fact, you and I do know about barren fig trees: people in our families, those we meet in our society, our church, our town or nation or through the social media and the newspaper. Certain of these people appear to be barren, but perhaps they are not. Maybe they simply take longer to bear fruit. Faced with an apparent barren fig tree, our temptation is to give up. What’s really at stake is our patience and our willingness to suspend judgment. After all, we don’t know the moment of ripening if it comes at all. Oh, how would we like to predict it, program it, control it!

Leading up to judgments about the barren fig trees of our experience, we see signs of failure. Let’s call these signs of failure “falls”. Our society takes delight in pointing out the falls of others. Think about the relentless cameras of sports coverage recording the spill of the skater, the missed field goal, the slice into the third fairway over. These are replayed endlessly. Not just in sports but in other areas of life, people fall in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons: infidelities, addictions, lack of discipline, bad choices, distractions. If we’re honest, people see us fall too.  Are we all bad fig trees? Who is to say? Certainly not Jesus and certainly not Pope Francis. Remember how Pope Francis echoed Jesus about holding off in much the same way? “Who am I to judge?” he asked reporters during one of his famous in-air press conferences when the question turned to priests who identify as gay?

Care is what we are called upon to give the fig trees that grow in our world. We either stand by, prune, and fertilize or we chop down or abandon what we judge to be barren.

One way of understanding the spiritual and corporal works of mercy which are foundational to the Year of Mercy is to see them as a call to care for the precious but barren fig trees of our world. On his Fridays of Mercy, Pope Francis spends time with people whom society has cast aside or judged useless. Most recently, he spent an afternoon with the addicted who are trying to make their way. With whom do we spend our occasional hours of mercy? For what fig trees are we the gardener?

This is our Jesus. He captures in this story one of the age-old tendencies people have – to judge one another worthy of being discarded. His story has another ending.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Shaking Off Guilt

Dear Friends,

During Lent, we are invited to make reconciliation with God and one another a priority on our way to Easter. Sin has caused a rift between ourselves and God, between us and our neighbors, a separation, a turning away, a rejection of the other. Sin is a choice that damages our friendship with God. Reconciliation requires that we deal with this separation, division, sin and …. guilt. We can say it simply: “I was hurtful and I am sorry.” Before we can be reconciled, we need to understand and confront all of these realities we carry within us the most thorny and lingering of which is guilt.

Throughout my high school years, our whole school made a retreat in preparation for Easter. It almost always took me the better part of the year to get over what we heard and the way it was said. The preachers, out of an abundance of zeal, I’m sure, led us to believe that we are to bear life as a burden because Christ died for us. They pointed a finger at us and described our part in the passion of Christ in such detail that they induced in our fragile minds and shaky hearts an overwhelming, inappropriate sense of guilt. Now, many years later, the need to spend time considering sin and guilt in our lives continues. Our Church and we personally have come to emphasize the mercy, goodness, and embrace of God, and not wallow in unhealthy guilt when we are less than loving.

Guilt is a tricky emotion. It makes us uncertain about our next steps in dealing with our willful transgressions in helpful ways. False guilt consumes us, makes us turn against ourselves. It is abusive of who we really are. True guilt moves us on, helps us to reach for and hopefully be restored to our own authentic selves and our relationships with God and others. I once read somewhere that guilt, at its best, makes us look back at sin, recognize it for what it is, and then look forward to  reconciliation – to put our emphasis there -- on the forward movement. I am not saying that when we come face to face with our sin or when we think deeply on the meaning of Christ’s passion, that we should feel no sense of guilt. I am saying that we need to shake off, to put aside the undue, improper, unhelpful sense of guilt that boxes us in. Healthy guilt is to the soul what pain is to the body an indication that something is wrong – a dis-ease deep within us. Guilt is unhealthy when we stay in it, as Peter did for a while after his denials of Jesus, when we suppress it as Pilate did. Judas never did look forward. He was truly boxed in.

In Luke, we read about the interchange between Dismas, the so-called good thief, and Jesus. Dismas (Luke 23.39-43) knew healthy guilt. He had led a life of crime, but his words to Jesus came from a repentant heart. Dismas reached out to Jesus, acknowledged his sinfulness, and expected nothing more than to have Jesus hear him. But the generosity of Jesus abounded: forgiveness, and a welcome home. Jesus offered Dismas and, later, any of his disciples who had strayed from His friendship, both companionship and life to the full. That’s what Jesus offers us. There’s no need to take the better part of a year to recover from the Lenten examination of conscience. God has other things for us to do.

By all means, let’s admit our sin, whatever it is. Let’s seek reconciliation, shake off our past and enter into the embrace of Christ. With Him, we can walk confidently into a future that if as fresh as Easter morning.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Power of Symbolic Gestures

Dear Friends,

Pope Francis is in Mexico this week. Watch him carefully. His words will be important, but more important, I believe, are his symbolic gestures/actions in the places he visits, among them, Chiapas, one of the poor states of Mexico that has been subject to the brutality of powerful forces over the years. He’ll stand at the Mexican-US border, his presence a hope for all who want freedom from fear, freedom for life.

You’ve heard the words of Saint Francis of Assis: Preach always. If necessary, use words. That’s what Francis does. On his first trip after being elected, Francis  went to Lampadusa, an island off Italy’s mainland where refugees were brought, some dying on the way. Francis went there, prayed and threw a wreathe into the water in remembrance of all who died. Then he celebrated Mass on the shore. The cup he used for the Eucharist was made of wood salvaged from  a refugee-laden  boat that broke up on the offshore rocks.

Remember this photo of Francis taken in St. Peter’s Square? Francis hugged, held close for long minutes the lumpy, misshapen face of a man who had disfiguring disease. Francis did not turn away from him or stare in revulsion as others did. Who had last held this man’s unappealing-looking face  close?

Francis is not the only one who performs symbolic gestures. We can, and we do. Think hard this week of the symbolic gestures you’ve made or neglected to make. Be aware of the symbolic gestures you or others have received. Be ready to be inspired to make symbolic gestures when moved to do so.

We do not always recognize or appreciate the power and impact of symbolic gestures. Here’s an example of a multi-leveled, intertwined set of symbolic gestures. As a gift, I recently gave a friend a cutoff from my mother’s crown of thorns, a floor to ceiling plant which is now 43 years old. Since then, this friend has been diagnosed with stage four liver cancer, and is undergoing treatment. Last week, her husband came home with a sun lamp for the crown of thorns to help it through a bleak winter with sparse light. How many gestures of support and connectedness are in this simple story!

Children seem to know the value of symbolic gestures. At the children’s hospital Pope Francis visited on Sunday, children shyly slipped him pictures and cards with hearts on them. Francis gave rosaries and remembrance cards. He took pictures with as many children as he could. Frequently, our newspapers carry stories of children whose generous hearts move communities to give whatever is needed so that others may live. Two eighteen-wheelers took bottled water from our area last week, because a Webster boy’s heart was moved to do so. Symbolic gestures soften the harsh and difficult times of life.

Watch Francis and the people around you. Be inspired. Weave the power of symbolic gestures into your daily lives. I’ll do the same.

 

                                                There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;

                                                      but what good are these among so many? (John 6.9)

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Trusting God With Our Efforts

Dear Friends,

There’s an austere familiarity about Lent. We’ve experienced it for years and years. And yet, no two Lents have been identical for us. This year, once again, we are at a new place. We’ve had experiences during the last year that we’ve never had before. As this year unfolds, so will newness. So Lent 2016 can be fresh and surprisingly appealing to us.

Lent is most especially a time of preparation to welcome the Risen One, who lives with us today in our complex world. Tools that help us prepare for Easter are traditionally prayer, fasting and almsgiving. With these, we clean the interior places where the really important movements of our lives take place. Tie these tools in with Pope Francis’ call for us to live a Year of Mercy, and we already have a full plate.

The human quality that will sustain us during Lent, Easter and beyond is trust…trust that the grace will be given, trust that we will have the strength and generosity we need to be Christ-like in our daily Lenten efforts and even trusting people moving in the same direction as we are.

Trust is a confidence that someone else is reliable. Trust means I can be secure in going forward, because I am being held up, by others, not the very least of whom is God. Yesterday I was finishing laps at the Webster Y and heading toward the shallow end of the pool. In a nearby lane, a boy no more than three was moving through the water, bubble on his back, a noodle under his arms. His grandmother led him out deeper and  deeper. This little guy was content, secure and happy. He trusted that grandma would give him all he needed to be at home in the water. This child was learning who to trust. Adults have to learn these things as well. Who is trustworthy enough to lead us out deeper and deeper?

Developing trust, for the Christian, takes discipline, faith and energy. It means living out the belief that the Risen Jesus is faithful to His promises. Trust is faith under pressure. There’s no such thing as a little bit of trust. We either trust or we don’t.

“Do not trust in princes” we read in Psalm 146.3. We need to be wise enough not to trust in a wide variety of people and things, from hawkers to surefire schemes to preachers who tell us that God is vengeful and that we are fundamentally evil. How different these devious  purveyors  of life are from Jesus who was once asked to cure two  blind men. “Do you believe I can do this?” Jesus asked. In other words, “Do you trust that I can do this?” “Of course, you can,” the blind men said. In others words:  “We believe you can. We trust you can”(Matthew 9.27-31). And Jesus did. Jesus is trustworthy beyond all that we can expect.

Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch Christian imprisoned for her efforts with her family to save many Jews from the Holocaust, wrote of God’s place in her work:  “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

Learning trust in a known God as we do the work of Lent can make a difference during the rest of the year. In the Lenten process, we learn to know the known God even more. Dare I say it? Happy Lent.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Happiness and Blessedness

Dear Friends,

World Happiness Day, brainchild of the United Nations, is celebrated annually on March 20. On that day this year, our Church will begin Holy Week and this blog will be absorbed in the meaning of this holiest, most profound of weeks. So now is as good time as any to talk about happiness. We all want it. We find it, recognize it and name it in varied aspects of life. The Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index taps the happiness level of the world daily. 500 people worldwide are contacted each day and asked whether, on the day before the call, they experienced happiness without a lot of stress, or whether they experienced  the opposite. Gallup posts the results daily on the web. Your answers to the questions I pose here won’t get you into the Gallup Poll, but how about you? What in life has made/now makes you happy? What part did God play in these experiences? Maybe these questions don’t go together in your mind.

For many, happiness means things are going our way and Christianity has nothing to do with happiness. Rather, happiness is satisfaction with work, family, level of success, the newest “toys,” travel.  Happiness that includes these things is good, but over the centuries and in varied cultures, happiness has meant much more.

In the Jewish mentality of Jesus’ times, happiness and blessedness were interchangeable. They had to do with success, good health, many children. All of these were understood as signs of God’s love.

No one in Jesus’ mind has ever been categorically excluded from happiness. In the Gospel, blessedness/happiness is possible for everyone, but happiness is not necessarily what we expect. Happiness, believers in Christ over the centuries have found, is intrinsically connected with the well-being of others.  

Combing through the Gospel and summing up the characteristics of the people whom Jesus encountered along the road and in the villages and cities of his time, Jesus, in effect says:

                Blessed/Happy are the people who are good

                                                      the hand that does not strike,

                                                      the mouth that does not betray

                                                      the person  who does not deny his/her friend.

                Blessed/Happy are the merciful who see each other’s needs and act to fill them

                                                      those who care for each other in good times and bad

                                                      those who are open to change and become loving in that change

                                                      those who are willing to share their own food and drink.

                Blessed/Happy are they who do not give way to dominant power

                                                      those who let go of dominant  power

                                                      those who speak truth and love all without restraint.

 

Today, I wish you blessedness/happiness. May you recognize it in yourself and others, celebrate it, engage it, and turn it over to God, the source of all happiness.

 

~Sister Joan Sobala