The Power of Community

Dear Friends,

The spring season of the programs at our Motherhouse called Fresh Wind in Our Sails concluded recently with a program about opioid abuse. Among the speakers were two young adults who are thankfully in recovery. Each of them included in their personal reflections the fact that as they sank deeper into narcotic use, they also experienced isolation from others: family, spouses, friends and colleagues. Only in recovery did they begin to recognize their need for community where they would be accepted as vulnerable, fragile people who needed others to accompany them in their growth. In saying what they did, these young people, suffering from a potentially disastrous illness, gave witness to the power of community – a thought we bypass or easily forget in our daily lives. It’s easy to see why. In our culture, independence and self-sufficiency are regarded as paramount to a successful life. Interdependence and belonging have little or no place.

We don’t need to live in each other’s pockets, but we do need the support of others to grow. We also need to give support to others to strengthen them and to build a future.

When we think more generally about the vulnerable whose lives have faltered or which have fallen apart, we come to realize that the value, presence and role of community has changed or disappeared in them. The vulnerable may think that no one needs them or wants them. What they don’t know is that there are communities who both want them and need them. What they also need is an invitation in the Spirit of Jesus to “come and see.”

Jesus did not save us from destruction one by one. His whole mission was to build a community that would welcome people and thereby shelter them, heal them, enrich their confidence in their call to be one with God, and send them forth to do the same for others. For Him, the ultimate community was the Reign of God or the Kingdom of God. Jesus even showed us how to do the work of building community. The secret is in the Beatitudes and in Matthew 25 “Whatever you do…”

Community demands certain things of us: listening, negotiation, openness, staying power, conviction that the Spirit speaks through each of us, goodwill, good humor and a sincere desire to be one in the Spirit of Jesus, even though we might not be sure what that means. Be with. Spend time with. Accept what the other offers by way of insight or challenge. Give in kindness.

Summertime offers a unique set of opportunities to be with apparent strangers whose lives need to be gentled and received into our communities even as ours do. Summer is also a season for increased consciousness that all of what we say of community is true. Summer holds the potential for community building, if we only take our eyes off of ourselves and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He will show the way to welcome or go to others. Jesus understands the power of community as no one else does.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Body and Blood of Christ

Dear Friends,

We could come at today’s feast – Corpus Christi – The Body and Blood of Christ – from many angles. We could spend this blog talking about Jesus in the Scriptures, and how he talked about food in his parables, ate with many, provided food for many and gave himself as food and drink for his disciples and for the ages. That could lead us to talk about the hungers of the world for essentials as basic as food and drink. We could talk about the ways nations and groups have politicized food and water, using them as a weapon to keep the poor in submission. We could look at Wegmans which provides the year-round varied and abundant food we have come to deem our right. And how about our national outbreak of obesity, countered by cool-sculpting the body to get rid of “love handles” of fat around our midriffs? There’s dieting of course – South Beach, paleo and more.

Instead, let’s recall that from the first Eucharist, Christians, throughout history have

                                                    received the Body and Blood of Christ.

A second meaning of the Body and Blood of Christ is given to us by Paul, when he describes the relationship of Christ and His followers. Paul refers to us as members of the Body of (Romans 12.5). That membership is given in baptism as is the work of a lifetime, as we

                                                   become the Body and Blood of Christ.

There’s an ancient phrase which links these two elements as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ and become the Body and Blood of Christ. That phrase is simple and profound. It says to us:

                                                             Become what you receive.

                                   The Consecrated Bread and Cup and the Consecrated People.

Let’s think of that phrase “become what you receive” each week, as we come to the table of the Lord. This call and consecration is true of each of us – our loved ones, the people who make us irritable, those who do evil deeds, the unborn and the recently born, the soon to die. Our bodies and blood are energy sources, sources of nourishment for one another as we give blood and body parts to one another, as well as mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Through our hugs, handshakes, as we nurse babies and make gestures of love toward one another, and go about the many other things we do daily in life, we are the Body and Blood of Christ. Somehow, we don’t easily make the transition to grasping that each day, in our lives, we are Christ’s body being offered to the world. 

Let’s offer this prayer today to our generous God and tuck it somewhere we’ll remember to find it and repeat it on Sundays as a way of renewing our baptismal consecration to be the Body and Blood of Christ:

               Bread of Life, Jesus, Holy and Risen One, keep us as fresh as the bread we break and the wine we pour, that like these simple gifts which become your Body and Blood, our lives may become a source of freshness to all we meet. Amen.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Our Inheritance

Dear Friends,

Robert Indiana, the pop artist of the 60s, died last week. His most memorable piece was the square containing word “LOVE” broken into two lines, with a tilted “O.” Sculptures of “LOVE” can be seen in public places around the world. It is featured on greeting cards, wall prints, jewelry, and stamps. “LOVE” is the inheritance the world has received from Robert Indiana.

World Heritage sites around the world are those designated antiquities, whole villages and other human creations that are being preserved so that they can be visited and honored by generations. The world wept when ISIS blew up World Heritage sites in Syria and Iraq.

This weekend, we remember those who have died in service to the nation during all the wars from our national beginning. We honor these men and women and weep for our loss of them. We bless their lives however long or short they were, no matter where their mortal remains now lie. We remember them and their contribution to the freedom and bigness of life we have inherited through their sacrifice.

All of these – people, places, creations we can claim as our inheritance. There’s more. Among other gifts, we have inherited: 

     God our Creator, Redeemer and Holy Spirit (You are my inheritance, O Lord.)
     Life from our parents and ancestors
     Talents and qualities of our character embedded in our genes
     The Church shaped by the Lord and all who have made it durable and lasting for over 2000 years
     Freedom as a nation
     Life-enhancing ideas and inventions from philosophers, theologians, inventors, artists and musicians, engineers, storytellers, truth tellers and peacekeepers
     The earth with all its power, potential and fragile.

The common inheritance we share binds us together as human beings. We don’t always recognize the many aspects of our heritage. We sometimes pass them by as if they didn’t matter or pertain to us.

One of the characteristics of our time is the devaluing of our inheritance. Oh! We would never say it that way, but it’s nonetheless true. We walk away from family, church, God, because they do not meet our expectations. They demand from us more than we want to give or the way we want to give it. We have concluded that we need not treasure them. Captive to this viewpoint, we suffer immense, unrecognized loss, and the inheritance we bear begins to lose its potency for the future.

This holiday weekend, let’s reconsider what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about those who have passed on to us a rich, varied, inexhaustible inheritance. Drugs do not satisfy. The social media ironically keeps us separated from one another. Money can’t buy the things for which we have an unquenchable thirst. Only our divine and human inheritance will do all of this, and more.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Following the Holy Spirit

Dear Friends,

I believe that the single most important promise ever made and ever kept was the promise of Jesus to send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with His followers always. That promise is variously repeated in chapters 14 to 16 of John’s Gospel. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you” (John 14.26).

And then the Spirit came, on Pentecost Day itself, in wind and fire. The disciples went out into the streets, and there, in the midst of the people, these formerly fearful disciples newly filled with the Holy Spirit, preached about Jesus, the Risen One. Their words were understood in as many languages as there were people gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost who heard them.

The Acts of the Apostles tells how the disciples traveled out from Jerusalem, baptizing and conferring the
Holy Spirit on those who had come to believe.

And so it has been to this day.

But who is the Holy Spirit? Mechtild of Magdeburg, a 13th century Beguine, wrote a concise rendering of who the Holy Spirit is:

“The Holy Spirit is a compassionate outpouring
  of the Creator and the Son.”

She went on:

  “This is why when we on earth pour out compassion and mercy
  from the depth of our hearts, and give to the poor,
  and dedicate our bodies to the service of the broken,
  to that very extent do we resemble the Holy Spirit.”

This Holy Spirit, given in love to us, is not an afterthought of Jesus, not just a sidebar to life, but rather, the Holy Spirit is the completion of God’s gifts to humanity, a way we see the human in a new way, infused by new energy. The Holy Spirit impels us to reach out to other people as our sisters and brothers.

Regrettably, the world is still caught up in works of marginalization, oppression and brutality. Writing in The Guardian about the #MeToo movement on May 11, Moira Donegas bleakly observes: “This is a common, but still very strange belief that the epitome of maturity and personal strength is the resigned acceptance that the world cannot be better than it is.”

But this is not true. With the Holy Spirit alive and active in our world, we can welcome and use to full advantage the power and the wisdom of God to shape our characters with the sort of boldness that makes the unity and cohesion of all people a goal of our lives. We do what we can. God in the Spirit inspires. We are called to imitate God in compassion and mercy. Pentecost is a day to take the measure of our willingness to partner with the Holy Spirit to revitalize our world and say yes to God.

~Sister Joan Sobala

A Mother's Hands

Dear Friends,

I’ve been looking at people’s hands this week and how they hold the power and potential for good and sometimes pain. I suppose this Sunday’s celebration of Mother’s Day is my reason for it, and the hands of our mothers have played a major part in our early lives. Here’s a stream of consciousness look at hands.

I was 13 when I had my not-quite-burst appendix removed. One day, shortly after my return home from the hospital, I was in bed, restless, sweaty, still in some pain. My mother, Celia, came in and offered to give me a sponge bath. I, a teenager! A sponge bath? “No, thanks, Mom. I’m ok.” Somehow, my mother interpreted my no as a yes, and the next thing I knew, she was at it. Once done, she slipped away, as I drifted into sleep, remembering the gentleness and love in her hands. I woke up refreshed and genuinely better.

Think of your own mother and how she ministered to you in your growing up, your childhood illnesses and how much of what you learned from her then stays with you, no matter what she was like.

I’ve heard enough stories of mothers to know that mothers are not always gentle with their hands. Their own experiences made them what they were. And God was in the mix, no matter how life with Mother played out. Today, we remember them – their hearts, their hands, their values and personal stories.

When we use our hands for good, we are like God. God is Mother to us as well as Father. Christians have a long tradition of believing that. The hand of God is in this, we say. “The heavens are the work of your hands” we say of God (Hebrews 1.10). And of the angels, Psalm 91.11-12 says “on their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone.” And then there is Jesus’ beloved Mother Mary who did all that could be for Jesus in His infancy and childhood. One day, years later, she took his lifeless body into her hands, and cradled Him once more in her arms.

Jesus used His hands to heal the sick and restore the dead to life. He took bread into His hands, blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples. That same night, He washed the feet of his disciples with his hands. And after His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples to look at His hands and feet, for He bore the wounds of the cross in his hands and feet. They are a treasured part of His risen life.

Later, it was said of Peter near the end of John’s Gospel, “You will stretch out your hands and another will lead you and take you where you would rather not go” (John 21.18). As followers of the Risen Lord, we are asked to do the same – to go where we are called by God and not by our own determination.

Hands. Hand over/hand on/hand down culture, tradition, family values. Hand up to a new level of growth and consciousness. Hands are instruments of profound love and respect or hate and torture. Accept the laying on of hands in faith. Wash your hands for your own health and that of others. Receive in your hands. Just put it in the hands of God. Be the hands of God for the untouchables and those with contagious diseases. Think of your Mother’s hands.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Great Biblical Women

Dear Friends,

Since the Middles Ages, most of the statues or paintings of St. Anne feature a young Mary at Anne’s side. One of them is holding a book. Anne is teaching Mary to read. Nothing in our ancient tradition says that Anne actually taught Mary to read, but it’s reasonable to think that the source of Mary’s knowledge of the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) was her mother Anne. Stories, lessons, poetry and psalms were passed on, mother to daughter, so that God’s presence and action in the biblical tradition could be cherished by each succeeding generation.  

Among the treasured stories we can believe that Mary learned was the story of Hannah, wife of Elkanah. Hannah’s story and Hannah’s own Magnificat are told in 1 Samuel 1–2.1–11. Unable to bear a child, Hannah wept in the temple. She encountered Eli the priest, and after first judging her rashly, Eli then prayed for her to conceive. In time, Hannah gave birth to Samuel. She dedicated the child to God and sent him to the temple to live. Samuel grew up to be a great prophet in Israel. He was the one sent by God to Bethlehem to identify and anoint David as king.

Hannah and Mary – two daughters of the matriarch Sara, who like her, gave birth in unexpected circumstances. Hannah and Mary…who gave their sons over to God with songs of praise and thanksgiving.

Mary, knowing the story of Hannah, took Hannah’s song into her own heart. There it became enlarged, soaring with themes of God’s justice, mercy and love of the poor – Mary’s own Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-56).

Even more than through song, their lives were interconnected. Hannah’s son Samuel anointed David king. Centuries later, Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, bore the Son of God, the Son of David.

Hannah and Mary had believed, trusted and took their next steps, convinced that God, who had seen them through thus far, would raise up their sons as they were meant to be – Samuel a prophet and Jesus the longed for Messiah.

In this month dedicated to Mary, read out loud in prayer the songs of Hannah and Mary. Tell the stories of Hannah and Mary to children and grandchildren as one tells the stories of our family ancestors.

Tell the stories, relish and celebrate the bonds of faith between generations of women in your family and these great Biblical women.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Pruning of Our Lives

Dear Friends,

Last Sunday was a fresh spring day – the first we’ve had this year so far. I took a long walk through the neighborhood and watched homeowners rake, prune, and create piles of winter debris along the roads. One way to look at the devastation of this particular winter is to say it was nature’s way of pruning away weak or dead parts of still-healthy plants. Nature-watchers say that pruned trees and greenery fare much better than those left unattended.

People also need to be pruned, although we don’t always want to admit it. The story of Paul’s pruning is told in Acts 9. Yet even after he had well and truly been pruned, the community of believers was still suspicious of him. They remembered well how Saul had persecuted their brothers and sisters in faith. But trustworthy Barnabas introduced Paul to the community, which grafted him onto the vine, and the graft took.

One of the results people associate with being pruned – trimmed back – is a certain soppy meekness – a diminishment of zest or feistiness. But Paul was never meek – neither before nor after his conversion, so we, too, can take courage that we will be ourselves, and even better, after we are trimmed back.

Pruning is a means to an end – to increase the yield or to bear more and better fruit and an indispensable element of growth. Connectedness is another. It may seem obvious but is worth underscoring: every tendril, every offshoot grows if, and only if, it is connected with the original plant or is grafted onto another. But we know individuals and groups that separate themselves from that which sustains them. Couples split, children walk away from their families, individuals leave the church of their earlier years and choose to be isolated from worshipping communities. These things happen and separation may be the right thing to do. But not always. It takes discerning with the Holy Spirit‘s wisdom to know what to do with the separations we consider as necessary for life.  

Connected to Christ and the believing community doesn’t mean we lose our individuality with all its grandeur and funny little quirks. On the vine that is Christ, the branches do not all look alike or act alike.

I know a man named Ben who had a horrendous life as a youth. Abuse and neglect drove him into crime – serious crime that resulted in years of incarceration. Upon release, Ben went back to his own city to reconnect with family and friends, but people he knew were fearful that he would fall back into old ways. They wouldn’t trust him. Providentially, Ben came across AA which accepted him unconditionally. With lots of encouragement, now years later, Ben has found himself part of a community that accepts him for all he has become. He, in turn, is reaching out to others to help them connect.

What we say we believe about the vine and the branches becomes real as we accept people not of our own choosing who are pruned by God’s grace and are ready to be connected to us in faith and life.

~Sister Joan Sobala