His Wounds and Ours

Dear Friends,

Today’s drugstores carry a wide variety of bandages. Some breathe, others are ouchless.  Some are plastic and waterproof. Still others are colorful so children would be glad to wear them. Make sure you have enough browsing time in the drugstore  to select exactly what you need!

We use bandages to cover our wounds from surgeries, accidents. Children who gash their knees or bump their heads run to adults with their wounds. They seek an end to pain. They look for comfort.

Other wounds can’t be bandaged. We see woundedness  in the stoop of someone’s shoulders, or in their eyes. Each year on Memorial Day, veterans march in our parades. Behind those eyes that look straight ahead are memories of wounds, and wounds unhealed. We try to hide our wounds, forget them, deny them, convincing ourselves that they are meaningless. But wounds matter.

Consider Jesus. On Easter evening, when he first appeared to His followers in the locked upper room, Jesus offered them Peace. Even as He did so, they could see His wounds – His badge of honor. Thomas, for whatever reason, was not there, but he was present when Jesus appeared to the disciples again.

“Touch my wounds,”  Jesus said to Thomas. In the end, Thomas did not need to touch them because, during that encounter, something leapt between Jesus and Thomas that brought Thomas to clarity and conviction. Thomas recognized Jesus as Savior and Lord – and these realizations cannot be touched or seen.

It’s important for us to remember that Jesus carried His wounds after He was raised up.

He didn’t cover them. He didn’t hide them.

The wounds of Jesus are important to us because the Resurrection can feel unreal to us. We have not seen Jesus physically or put our hands into his side.

We cannot will ourselves to believe, but when we look at ourselves in the mirror or look at other earthlings, wounded by nature or the perversity of others, we find our own wounds full of truth.

They are a fact and a sign: a fact of our humanness, a mark of our living, and a sign of our connectedness with  the risen Christ.

His wounds and ours.

Easter doesn’t mean that Jesus’ wounds are gone – or ours either. 

Easter gives us hope that we do not carry our wounds in vain.  

Alleuia! Amen! Happy Easter!

Dear Friends,

“There was no sound to prepare us,

no noise of miracle,

no trumpet announcing the death of death,

or was it what we call life?

We did not understand and we ran from the empty tomb and then

He came to us in silence.

He did not explain

And at last I knew

That only in silence is the WORD.”

Thus Madeleine L’Engle, poet and author of “ A Wrinkle in Time," sums up that uniquely holy Easter Sunday morning.

The Word didn’t need fanfare. The WORD was free, wholly new, wholly true and real. The silent world of nature welcomed him, even before he and Mary Magdalen met.  Peter and John didn’t look for him in the silence. They left to go back to the world of noise and to puzzle out and try to explain to each other what had happened.  But Jesus, the Risen One waited in the garden, savoring all of creation, waiting until the breeze touched him, the fragrance of the garden did him homage, like the incense of the Magi so many years before.

He comes to us in silence today, wherever we are. Before he speaks or we speak, we absorb his Presence in silence. Alleuia! Amen! Happy Easter!

At the same time that we celebrate Easter, our thoughts keep going back to the stunning fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. So much was lost: history, the layers of prayer whispered or sung over the centuries. 800 years of memories. Already, the word is out that France will rebuild the cathedral. Money is pouring in. But more than that.  Think about the Easter Vigil. In churches all over the world, new fires were being lighted to remind us that God has been present to us throughout all of salvation history and is uniquely present to us today in the Risen Christ. Couched between these two events, we have cause to believe that  not only can this iconic church be rebuilt, but more importantly, the whole of the Church, cleansed by fire, can be rebuilt as well.

-Sister Joan Sobala

Stories of Crisis and how we move forward

Dear Friends,

How we act and move forward in moments of crisis arises in large measure from how we are in the rest of our lives. Whenever we experience the potentially insurmountable, our deeply rooted values and habits see us through, or nudge us or at least surface.  True, sometimes, people are different in moments of crisis- theirs or someone else’s. For the most part, we are who we are.

Beginning with today, Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, and all week long, the gospel readings are about crisis – not just Jesus’ crisis, although it is primarily that. We see also crisis in all of the figures who share in His story. Their stories of crisis mirror our own, full of love, apprehension, apathy, despair, success, wonder, self-satisfaction and pain.

Consider Peter, James and John in the garden. Jesus desperately needed their companionship, but they slept on. How often when we are in need, our friends do not have the strength or understanding to keep vigil with us – or we with them in their need. Or perhaps God needs us and we are asleep. That’s a thought to linger over, isn’t it?

Take Judas and Peter. They each suffered from illusion. - Judas the illusion of his own power to force Jesus into messianic action and Peter the illusion of his own faithfulness. Each of their illusions was shattered during Jesus’ passion, yet how differently they came through the other side: Judas went to death by his own hand and Peter went on to lead the post-resurrection Church.

Jesus had been with Mary Magdalen in her crisis, when emotional and psychological sickness threatened to overwhelm her. She never forgot. In her utter devotion to Jesus, she stood beneath the cross, prepared Him for burial, witnessed to His risen presence as no other and proclaimed with authority that Christ was risen.

Pilate had his own crisis. Should he listen to his own conscience and stand up for Jesus or give in to the pressure of his office and to Jesus’ enemies?

These people and others experienced critical moments during Jesus’ passion.  They would be the better or the worse for their participation in His last days. Jesus would have had enough to do to keep  Himself glued together through this whole series of events, yet in His passion, he related to them even as He relates to us. We are Peter and Pilate, Judas and Mary Magdalene, the criminals and the crowds.

So on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, let us set aside the ordinary things that absorb our lives. Let us make time to worship together because we belong to Christ and to each other. Our lives are interwoven into Jesus’ great life crisis. This week, like no other time of the year, we are called to contemplate and participate, to remember the Lord’s self-giving and recommit ourselves to be one with Christ.

-Sister Joan Sobala

Who among us will love Jesus into new life?

Dear Friends,

Today, on the Fifth Sunday of  the Lenten cycle, we hear the story of the adulterous woman that the Scribes and the Pharisees brought before Jesus for his judgment.

Stories of adulterous women keep reappearing in history. Remember Nathanial Hawthorne’s famed masterpiece The Scarlet Letter? A group of colonial New Englanders condemned a young woman as an adulteress and forced  her to wear the letter “A” writ large on her clothing, to acknowledge her sin. As recently as 2000, newspapers reported that a seventeen year old unmarried girl in Nigeria was flogged 100 times for having sex. It didn’t matter to the authorities that the girl said she was pressured by her father to have sex with three men. In our own jails, women are held for prostitution. To us, they are unnamed, invisible. We don’t know their stories or their pain.

But why is this encounter of Jesus placed here on the Sunday just before Holy Week? Two reasons come to mind.

First, this is one more instance of the Scribes and the Pharisees looking for – devising ways of trapping Jesus. Who knows, perhaps this woman is a pawn, a set up used to ensnare Jesus. And second, this passage shows us still again that Jesus does not condemn the bruised, the broken or the outcast.

In fact, Jesus demonstrates great tenderness for this unnamed woman, and throughout the Gospel, for all women.

When the Scribes and the Pharisees called for the death of this woman, Jesus seemed to hesitate, 

writing in the sand at his feet. But it was a moment of grace. The accusers drifted away. Only Jesus and the woman were left, taking each other’s measure.

With all this as a background, we finally come to the connection between the 5^th Sunday of Lent and Holy Week.  He who will not trap others, will himself be trapped. He who will not condemn, will himself be condemned. He, who will send no one to their death because it is the law, will be sentenced to death, because, as the Scribes and Pharisees put it: “We have a law, and by this law, he must die.”

Jesus loved this woman into new life.

Next week, who among us will love Jesus into new life?

As we come to immerse ourselves into Christ on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and at the Easter Vigil, will we bear the Jesus of today’s Gospel in our hearts? Will his mantle be on our shoulders?  A mantle that proclaims “I will trap no one. I will condemn no one. I will love the outcast into life.”

If we allow it, God, as it says in today’s first reading from Isaiah, “ will be doing something new “ in you and me.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Be the Embrace of the Father

Dear Friends,

Today is the Sunday of Rejoicing during Lent.  Some would suggest that we rejoice because Lent is now more than half over. But that’s not the real reason. The deep and real reason is found in today’s readings. They tell us that this is how God really is:

Forgetful of the past

Embracing us in the present

Ready to move with us into an unknown future.

Put the past behind, God says to the Israelites, settling into Canaan in the first reading. Put the past behind, Paul tells the Corinthians. Be reconciled to Christ who first reconciled himself to us. Put the past behind, the Father says to his two sons in the Gospel. What God says to the people of biblical times, God says to us today. Put the past behind. Stand in the present. Stretch out toward the future.

We are called upon to make the Father’s forgiveness and welcome our own –

To be like God

To love like God

To embrace like God.

You and I know people who have been away in a far country – like the younger son in the Gospel. Away from family, the sacraments, away from the church.  And we know people who don’t necessarily value staying home, but they stay, like the older son, because they are driven by duty and ambition to stay. They stay resentfully, not being recognized for what they consider their great generosity.

With Holy Week and Easter coming, family members, friends and acquaintances who have been away may feel that same stirring that the younger son felt. It is a scary thing to come home. We might anticipate harsh words, rejection. Hopefully, instead, the one returning will find the Father’s welcome, embrace, delight. If they return at all, it is because they believe that someone wants them home. Is it you?

Your simple invitation may be just what’s needed.

Not just: Why don’t you go to Holy Week services?
But “I’m going to Holy Week services this year. I would love it if you would come with me for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.”

Or maybe you’re the one who has been away. Look around. The light of the Holy Spirit will rest on someone and it will be clear that she/he is the one to go home with you. Ask. Seek. Go together.

One way or the other, let us, together, be the embrace of the Father, who can’t wait for the prodigals to come home.

-Sister Joan Sobala

Will we bear fruit in this new moment?

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns to his vineyard imagery. Except this time, he focusses on a fig tree planted there. Most vintners are pretty exclusive about what else they plant in their vineyards because grapes need all the richness  the  soil can offer. This fig tree is planted in a privileged place, yet it did not produce. But it was given a second chance to bear fruit. Jesus does not tell the rest of the story. (Jesus has a way of leaving the ending out! I have a bucket list for when I cross over into eternal life. On my list is this fig tree. I want to know if it lived up to its second chance.)

What the story of the barren fig tree tells us is that we can’t just accept the privileged place of our lives We have to bear fruit. Thank God we have a second chance. But will we bear fruit in this new moment?

Now, in the middle of Lent, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the mysteries of Holy Week and Easter, we pause over this reading. Take it to heart. Will we accept a second chance? Will we give others a second chance, or will we be totally absorbed in the privileged world in which we live?

Remember Oskar Schindler? He was a young, ambitious, pleasure-loving German when the Nazis took over in the 1930’s. Oskar Schindler was not a particularly good person. As a result of some dubious deals, Schindler found himself running a large factory in Nazi-occupied Poland. The work force in his plant was entirely composed of forced labor – mostly Jews  - everyone destined for the extermination camps. What is remarkable about Schindler is that, over time, he became a shrewd and courageous protector of his workers. Schindler put his disreputable talents to work to save thousands of lives. He survived the war, and the Jewish people never forgot what he did. Schindler is buried in Israel and is numbered among the righteous Gentiles who gave so generously so that endangered Jews might live.

Oskar Schindler is a splendid example of what happens when ordinary men and women, not necessarily heroic or saintly, are overcome by divine impatience in the face of human cruelty and suffering. God graces them with the strength to overcome their indifference. They receive a second chance, and the people they serve receive a second chance.

If we have not been particularly mindful of the needs of others, God offers us, as Jesus offered the barren fig tree, a second chance to find ways to bear the fruit of compassion toward others. Look around. We are just where we need to be –  in the privileged place where human need awaits our generous help.

However we become aware, however we feel the divine nudge, will we be like Oskar Schindler and do what we are called to do?

-Sister Joan Sobala

Helping Others Live as Fully as Possbile

Dear Friends,

Within one week in March, St. Patrick, St. Joseph and St. Oscar Romero are celebrated as great men of God.  March 17, 19 and 24. These three saints, each of whom loved God deeply, came from different historical periods and walked very different paths to God.

Patrick, an Irishman by birth, was taken to Gaul as a slave. Eventually, he was released and became a priest who could have worked among the Celtic people on the continent. But he yearned for the people of his homeland, went back and worked tirelessly so that Ireland would be ardently Christian.

Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, had expected a normal length of years, with a wife and family among his own people. But God called him to a remarkable journey as the spouse of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.

Oscar Romero was a priest in El Salvador. In one small town where he ministered, Father Romero was exposed to the plight of his parishioners at the hands of government agents. He experienced a conversion to embrace the cause of the poor. As the bishop of San Salvador, he died at the altar for it.

What was common to these men? Certainly their faith and their perseverance. But there is something very basic in all of them. It is that they were other-centered.

Other-centeredness is the opposite of self-centeredness. Infants are by their very makeup at that  point in their lives are self-centered. Their needs are all they know. The symbol of the self- centeredness of an infant is how they put everything they can in their mouths. Parents have to be vigilant, lest they take in something harmful.

It takes diligent effort to move from self-centeredness to other-centeredness. It is the work of a lifetime to become other-centered – to expend oneself for the good, the well-being of others, to open the way for others to recognize God’s abiding presence and treasure it.

Certainly Jesus is our primary example of other-centeredness through his life and through his death. One person in the gospel who mirrors Jesus’ other-centeredness is the Syro-Phoenician woman – the foreigner who came to Jesus begging for her daughter to be cured. And how about the man whom Jesus met at the foot of the mountain right after the Transfiguration.  The man wanted healing for this son. The disciples still, seeking to be first in the kingdom of God, were not other-centered enough to heal the boy.  But Jesus did so. Jesus recognized other-centered people when he met them. Still, he loved and worked with his disciples who were “on the way” but not yet other-centered.

During this Lent, as we take time to honor and celebrate the great generosity of Joseph, Patrick and Oscar, let’s ask our Gracious God that we might become bigger of heart and mind, so that others may live as fully as possible.

~Sister Joan Sobala