The Power of Remembering

Dear Friends,  

During this last week, our media has been full of remembrances of 9/11 – the stories of victims, heroes, hero-victims. We remembered, we prayed and rededicated ourselves to the sacredness of life. 

I want to add still one more story from a distant land. Ireland. In October 2019, I was part of a group of tourists travelling with Father Joe McCaffrey and friends from Nativity Church, Brockport, NY. Michael, the driver of our coach for that whole week, took us one day to a place that was not on the itinerary. 

Up we went, driving on a country road high above Kinsale Harbor, above the waters where the Lusitania had been sunk in 1915. Michael told us the story of the Garden of Remembrance we were about to enter. 

A local woman named Kathleen Murphy had spent 30 years as a nurse in a New York City Hospital. She had also gotten to know Father Michael Judge, the Franciscan chaplain of a firefighters’ station in the city. Many of the wounded, including Father Judge, were brought to the hospital from the Twin Towers. Kathleen was among the dedicated staff who did all they could for the dying and those who would recover. 

Later, Kathleen, herself suffering with cancer, went home to Ireland. She had inherited a parcel of land which she wanted to turn into a remembrance garden for the 343 first responders who had perished on 9/11. Neighbors, family, friends, strangers from across Ireland and beyond, came to help. Three-hundred-forty-three trees were planted, each one dedicated to a particular fallen hero. We walked in silence through the gates into the garden. An appropriate drizzle had begun. Family and friends of the men memorialized there had come since the garden was completed in 2010. They bore and left here photos, dog tags, letters of love, other memorabilia, prayers. (Go back to the photos above.)  

Kathleen Murphy was not at the dedication on September 10, 2011. She had died and now was also memorialized in this garden, so far from New York. 

Later, we who had been there, spoke of the power of remembering and the deep connections between our nations because of the compassion of Kathleen Murphy.  

For all the deliberate destruction terrorists inflict, the tender mercy of God, holding the suffering close, becomes evident in people like Kathleen Murphy. Thank You, Lord, for her and for all whose caring is greater than death. 

~Sister Joan Sobala

All Work is Valuable

Dear Friends,

All of our lives we work. From our infancy to our death, we learn to take in and become all we possibly can about being human. This is major work for which we receive no money, but rather, we receive the human qualities that will inform our lives. For the work of our becoming, we praise you, O God.

On this Sunday of Labor Day weekend, let’s pause to think about the challenge to honor all work, beyond our becoming, and not to resist work as something not worthy of us. For the openness to work, you inspire in us, we praise You, O God.

Let’s look upon work with the eyes of God. God is the first among workers, as we read in Genesis. God worked for seven days, and the rested. We are God-like when we work, when we produce, create, imagine, enlarge and rest from our work. For making our work an imitation of yours, we praise You, O God.

All work is not of equal value, but all work is valuable. Not because of what we earn, although that is necessary, but all work is valuable because it is how we build, nourish, educate, make music and fun with one another. It’s how we sustain the human community. For the work of our minds, hearts and hands, we praise You, O God.

We have a habit of thinking some work is more important than other work. We tend to believe that, if I make more money, my work is more valuable. But consider the truth that the value of work is within us. As a dishwasher in a restaurant, I contribute to the health and safety of customers. As a beach lifeguard, I watch over the play of children, so that they don’t hurt others, deliberately or not. As a member of the military, my work is to serve the peace and not make war. How I think about the work I do contributes to my being more human. For our work which helps, serves, inspires, empowers other, we praise You, O God.

Some work is dangerous: military service, rescue missions, journeys into the unknown. Bravery is given to us when we need it. For our work which builds peace out of hostility and newness out of darkness. We praise You, O God.

The life work of some people is to organize the men and women who labor at essential jobs so they are not taken advantage of. For them, we praise you, O God.

In this world of brutal climate conditions, and brutal regimes which cause people to flee as refugees, there are women and men who answer the call to be first responders. For them, we praise You, O God.

Gracious, God, First Worker of the Universe and Lover of all You have created, as I study and learn from my life of work, help me to ask not “Why does he/she have more than I do?” but rather to ask “What can I be and do with what I have and am?” For the wonder of me, I praise You, O God.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Laws of Life

Dear Friends,

COVID or not, our youth are off to college. Part of the excitement of college or more precisely, the excitement of moving out of their parents’ home, is that they are free. No more parental obligations. I am free to come and go as I want, when I want. I can wash my hands of all those rules and regulations that made life at home so tiresome.

What college freshmen learn – what we all learned when we went out on our own, is that we are never completely, totally free. Housing complexes have rules, income tax needs to be paid by April 15, roads have speed limits. We escape one set of rules and immediately find ourselves under another set of norms.

Generally, our experience of law is negative. “Don’t.” Religion in particular is viewed as laying on its members multiple negative prescriptions.

So, when we turn to today’s first reading, we are skeptical. Moses maintains that observing the law of God will be life-giving for the Israelites. It would enrich them and free them. Indeed, the Israelites did experience God’s law this way, referring to it as “honey on their lips.”

That idea of law as freeing, as life-giving, takes effort for us to comprehend. The closest we come to law as freeing would be the laws that freed slaves, gave women the right to vote, allowed the freedom marches to pass unharmed from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to present their grievances to Governor George Wallace, the laws in South Africa that put an end to apartheid.

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees and scribes accused Jesus’ disciples of being unclean – not observing the ritual washings, referring to the ritual laws of washing hands, kettles, cups, without meaning. Lip service to God.

We know about lip service. That is the result of being a minimalist. I will do the least amount in order to stay in God’s good graces. I’ll get to Mass by homily time and leave after communion. That will fulfill my obligation. I’ll punch in on time at work and take as many coffee breaks as I wish. Just enough to stay on the right side of God and people in charge at work.

But Moses says that God’s invitation to live by the Law is characterized by a freedom of spirit. James says it will be recognized by a sensitivity to people on the periphery of life. Jesus holds up love of God and love of neighbor as the essence of the Law.

Once we have let God’s Word take root in our hearts, we will more likely allow this Word to change us, make us more whole, as individuals and a community, make us other-centered. We move toward being ready to embrace right order and daily living with God’s ways as our guide. In other words, we put law into perspective and make it the servant of life. It is what is in the heart that matters.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Staying on the Journey

Dear Friends,

In the midst of this pandemic that won’t let go and in the ensuing civic climate that is so lacking in mutual cooperation, let’s turn to today’s readings for solace, wisdom and courage to go on.

The Israelites that Joshua leads in the first reading are second generation travelers, born after the exodus began. They were on the journey but without conviction and without commitment. Joshua says to them, “Decide today whom you will serve and be faithful” (Joshua 24.15).

In the Gospel, we have a graphic picture of how the claims and promises of Jesus aroused cynicism, ridicule and contempt. How could this man give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink? “This sort of talk is hard to endure,” (John 6.60) the people said. They rejected the very thing that could get them through life with its harrowing aspects. Many of them left Jesus’ company.

Perhaps some who left after his sermon on the Eucharist went away sad. They may have wished that Jesus had not said what he said. Now they had to make a choice as the Israelites did in the book of Joshua.

Jesus turned to his close followers: “Do you want to leave me, too?” (John 6.67).

A wonderful thing about Jesus is that He is not insecure. He permits his disciples to make a choice. But even though He left people free to choose, Jesus himself did not back down from what his critics called his “hard sayings.” He didn’t say: “Look. You misunderstand me. I was only speaking in symbols. Let me say it another way.” Jesus meant what he said and said what he meant. And then he waited for his disciples to respond. He waits for us, too.

Some of us may have indeed gone away – gone away from Christ or at least from the Church. Perhaps the fragile bud of or faith, the enthusiasm of our service, our sense of belonging, was crushed. Maybe we found the church forbidding, unyielding, unloving and have walked out the door. Maybe some of us got up one Sunday and didn’t go to church, and after that it was easy not to. Others of us may be like the Israelites, drifting within our church and never really making a choice. Maybe our minds and hearts have gone away, but our feet still take us to church. If we’ve stayed and been alert, we are still not exempt from Jesus’ question, called as we are to deepen in faith with Jesus.

We do not know how it will be for us when we are tempted to go away because God seems to demand so much.

When we can’t seem to find words to respond to the God who asks us, “Will you stay or will you go away?” we can at least borrow the words of Peter to make our own – to say them over and over again until they come to us as naturally as breathing:

                                “Lord, to whom shall we go?

                                Your words are the word of eternal life.

                                We have come to believe and are convinced that

                                You are the Holy One of God” (John 6.68-69).

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Feast of the Assumption

Dear Friends,

The summer games are now over until 2024. Thinking of the Olympics and para-Olympics this last month, we cannot help but savor how people make every effort to perform at a very high level. We were mesmerized by the human body with its sleek beauty, its ability to perform remarkable feats in record time. We have wanted these athletes, with their wonderful spirit and well-disciplined bodies, to succeed, because in some way, they represent all of our bodies and spirits. 

In the context of this feast, you and I and every Olympian are important to God in the same way Mary is – as ourselves in all we are, body, soul and spirit, whether we break any world records or not. 

By celebrating that Mary lives with God in her whole being, this feast reminds us that our human bodies, young and vibrant or marked with signs of aging, are redeemed. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul addresses an attitude in the people of his time and ours that denied the goodness of the human body – the attitude that focuses only on the salvation of our souls. That idea lingers today, and today’s feast reminds us that it is not true. 

It’s important to be reminded that our bodies are good. This is not obvious. Women’s bodies, men’s bodies, bodies that are beautiful, bodies of color, bodies that don’t seem to work very well, young and energetic bodies, bodies without certain limbs. They are all good.

Part of our Christian heritage is to treasure our bodies. They belong to us and they belong to God and at the second coming, each of us will rise in our own body: individual, recognizable and transformed.

To trivialize, misuse or neglect our bodies is to reject God’s gift of our whole selves. 

Nowhere in the New Testament is the death of Mary, the Mother of God, mentioned, yet believers had an instinct for the truth of Mary’s life, death and beyond. The conviction became well rooted in the faith community that Mary went to God upon her death – whole and entire: body, soul, spirit, memory, thought and consciousness. Mary was not just her womb. All was taken up. All. With Jesus, Mary could expect nothing less. So today, let’s focus our attention on the homecoming of Mary. Let’s let our minds and hearts soar. Let us say thank you to God for her life and eternity.

When the Assumption was finally proclaimed as part of our faith, the psychologist Carl Jung was delighted. He saw this feast as the Church’s statement to the world that our bodies are part of our redeemable and redeemed whole. Mary is the first among all of us.

~Sister Joan Sobala

In Times of Drought

Dear Friends,

Drought, caused by an extended lack of rain, is nothing new in human history. Civilizations have crumbled to dust because of drought, among them, the Mayan and Ming civilizations and modern Syria. In our own land, the 1930s, 50s, 80s and our current period have known unrelenting drought. Today, Lake Mead and Lake Powell that serve the water needs of 40 million Americans in the West have just hit their record lows. The fragile balance that ecologists identify between the atmosphere and earth has become unbalanced.

As a result of the drought, the economy will be greatly affected. Fires will continue to scorch the land. And all of us feel helpless to produce rain, the one thing that undoes drought.

So, we wait, use our water carefully, pray, swelter, advocate for and put into place strong, consistent actions on behalf of saving the earth.

Drought is certainly its own reality, but it is also a symbol of the inner life, our spiritual life at times of crisis. Drought is a symbol of human vulnerability and ultimately our dependence on God. In Psalm 63, the psalmist cries out “my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water” and in Psalm 143, “My soul thirsts for you like a parched land.”

Drought, in the Hebrew Scriptures, is sometimes a symbol of the quality of the relationship between God and the people. Rain is a gift given to show God’s closeness to those who have remained faithful.  Rain is a symbol of God’s promise. “I, God, will give you rain in due season” (Lev.26). “May my instruction soak in like rain” (Deut.32) and in Hosea 6.3, we pray “Come down to us like rain.” Scripture names the reality of our own world and lives. Both need rain to live and grow.

When our inner being is restless, when growth seems not only lacking but nearly impossible, we finally know the classic spiritual meaning of being in “the desert.” This is the time to plunge into faith and hope that things will change, and we have to commit ourselves to making that change happen to the extent we can. Growth will come again after disaster. The rain will fall and our lives will bear fruit.

In times of drought in our land, we are asked to be gentle with the earth, careful of the water we do have, good stewards of a suffering creation.

In our personal droughts we are asked for no less.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Food of Life's Journey

Dear Friends,

One of the more powerful lines in today’s readings is found in the Letter to the Ephesians:

“Lay aside your former way of life and the old self which deteriorates through illusion and desire, and acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking.”

Read that call to change against the background of the first reading in which the Hebrews, trudging through their exodus experience, took along their old selves. That’s why we find them today grumbling about their lack of food, longing for the good old days. We can all take heart from the fact that God pays attention to grumblers – because God heard and acted, giving the people quail at night and manna in the morning. Food. But not what they wanted. Food, which they nonetheless tried to hoard, even though they were told to pick only what was sufficient for the day.

With their blinded hearts and limited tastes, the Hebrews could not quite grasp the big picture. They could not quite embrace a future that was given to them piecemeal, in a way that called for trust.

The people in today’s Gospel were plagued by similar problems of illusion and desire. They had eaten their fill of the bread that Jesus had given them, and they wanted more. Irked because Jesus recognized them for what they were, the people pushed Jesus with their trick questions and used today’s first reading to drive home their point.

But Jesus didn’t bite, if I may put it that way. Instead, he offered himself as the one who would truly satisfy their hunger.

To hoard, to stockpile, to let self-gratification be the horizon of life – these are easy things to do. But to acquire a fresh spiritual way of thinking is hard work. What do we suppose it means to acquire a fresh spiritual way of thinking?

Here are four examples, taken from Scripture, which are new ways of thinking in these still-pandemic times.

                My food is to do the will of the one who sent me: to heal, to teach, to plant, to help the poor and suffering. The fruit of what we do lies beyond us. We may never know what good we have done by our kind words and generous deeds.

                We must become food for others. That means being consumed, if only for a time. Becoming food for others may mean interrupting one’s plans, one’s charted course to serve others. We watched medical personnel and other people in the service industries do this in these critical times.

                We do not live on bread alone. Bread feeds our bodies for now. Justice and mercy feed the community day after day.

                Finally, in acquiring a fresh spiritual way of thinking, we need to believe that the Lord will give us the bread we need. What is the manna that each of us receives daily? A word of peace that calms us? Someone, something that gives us courage to take the next step? The example of someone who leads the way? The bread we need may be a phone call from a stranger – an invitation to serve the community in some way, an experience that refines us and adds clarity to our thinking.

Each Sunday until the end of August, Gospel passages will all be taken from John 6. They will give us insight into the Eucharist. But these verses are also about the fact that we are given food for the journey of life – food for our bodies, minds and hearts – food that nourishes the sacredness of our community. Food that lasts. Let hunger for this food be a daily part of our lives.

~Sister Joan Sobala