Special Lenten Mission

 

Dear Friends,

                In last week’s blog, I talked about the sign of the cross as an apt symbol for us in the Lenten season. This week, I want to do a second brief blog about Lent as a whole – Lent as the way we prepare for the Great Feast of Easter, for Lent is not meant to be a season of penitence in which we are the center.  Christ is the center. The whole Church is invested in preparing for Easter and we, as individuals, are called to do the same.

                In one of her writings, Teresa of Avila prayed about making Lent meaningful for her.

                                “What do you want of me?” She prayed.

                                            “Yours, you made me,

                                                Yours, you saved me,

                                                Yours, you endured me,

                                                Yours, you called me,

                                                Yours, you awaited me,

                                                What do you want of me?

                                                Yours I am, for you I was born:

                                                What do you want of me?”

               

                In our Lenten experiences, God wants us to pay close attention to others. Pope Francis in one of his Lenten reflections tells us “We need effective gestures that will alleviate the pain of so many of our brothers and sisters who walk alongside us.” We see them only on the nightly news, in the homeless shelters, in the children who have almost nothing to live on. But what are effective gestures for us to participate in alleviating the pain of others? That’s for you to determine with your own insights and skills, your own response to God’s call: “What do you want of me?

                  Here’s another thing that’s reasonably simple. Let’s try to live with the Gospel for each Sunday before we celebrate Eucharist. If we have a computer, there is no reason not to know what text is coming, for the Gospel texts can be easily found there. In this year’s C cycle readings, we encounter Jesus tempted, the radiant Jesus transfigured, Jesus’ parable of the barren fig tree, which the gardener begs to be allowed to live, the prodigal father and Jesus’  encounter with the woman caught in adultery. As you find yourself in these readings, ask “What do you want of me, God?”             

                Here’s an at home thing to do -  let’s be bold with our closets, drawers and shelves and throw out/give away each day one (just one) item to help diminish our attachments to things. Things: do they possess us or do we possess them?” What do you want of me, God?”

                 God has a special Lenten mission for each of us: to seek… to become…to do…to hand over…to open ourselves to…to practice…to unfold…to soften…to enter into radical trust…YOU finish the phrase. All you need to live Lent in love will not be revealed to you at the beginning of the season, but it will become known, so be alert.  Trust God as the companion of your Lenten journey. Ask God over and over again: ”What  do you want of me?”

~Sister Joan Sobala

               

Preparing for Lent

 

Dear Friends,

                Looking ahead, our church celebrates Ash Wednesday  -- the beginning of Lent – on March 2, this year. What is notable about that day is the public display of penitence writ large on our foreheads  - the sign of the cross made with ashes, sifted down from the palm used the prior year on Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion.

                Catholics who can, go to Mass on Ash Wednesday, at which time they come forward and have the sign of the cross traced on their foreheads with ashes. Catholic Christians, and some other Christians as well, relish the thought of this public proclamation of faith. TV personalities can be seen with ashes on their foreheads. So also people on busses or in hospitals or businesses and children in schools. I remember when I was in parish work and distributing ashes at Mass one year, being moved by young mothers presenting their very small children for ashes. Sometimes, priests wait in the church parking lots to offer ashes to passersby whose schedules don’t permit them to get to Mass. In other cases, a dish of ashes is left before the altar in the quiet church during the day for people who come by. But however we receive ashes, they are always administered in the sign of the cross.

                The sign of the cross is an ancient prayer/practice. It was introduced in the second century. Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4^th century wrote: “Be the Cross our seal made with boldness by our finger on our brow, on everything… over bread , over  our coming and going.” The sign of the cross is a way of blessing ourselves.

                It is used in liturgies by the priest/presider to bless us as we begin the liturgy of Eucharist, as well as at the end of Mass. People are baptized and confirmed with the sign of the cross, and always with the words “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

                One of the shifts in practice we have made over the centuries is to leave making of the sign of the cross to our priests and deacons. It’s true that they are the ones to bless us liturgically, but if we go back to Cyril of Jerusalem and other writers, we see that blessing ourselves and others is a way believers express faith for ourselves and encouragement in faith for others.

                As Lent comes, how about making it a daily practice to bless yourself as you get up in the morning or as you get into the car or bus to leave for your workday? Tell your spouse or children what you are doing, but then bless them as you part in the morning and trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Bless them at night as well. Such a simple practice, but one which highlights the centrality of the cross for the believer.

                One of the things I have started doing is making the sign of the cross with the cursor/mouse on someone’s forehead on the computer screen at the end of a particularly deep and touching zoom conversation. I tell them I am blessing them and most often, they sit still, poised to treasure the moment.

                This year if you can, begin your Lenten experience with Eucharist and the reception of ashes. Begin even now to reclaim the tracing of the sin of the cross with your thumb on your forehead or the foreheads of others.

~Sister Joan Sobala

 

Valentine's Day...A State of Heart

 

Dear Friends,

                Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, when we honor the people we love in some way. But is what we do tomorrow a true symbol of what we do all year long?

                For love is not momentary, not limited to a greeting on a certain day, no matter how profound the verse on the card may be.

                What we give on Valentine’s Day depends on the state of our heart, and the state of our heart is what we would do well to think about before Valentine’s Day dawns so that we can judge whether what we say tomorrow is rooted in our lives.

                Here are some questions to address to your heart:

                All year long, do I have a courageous heart – one that does not fear loving deeply and                             broadly?

                Do I love the stranger, immigrants and the poor and find ways to engage with them and not                    just people I love most dearly.

                Do I have a heart imbued with joy or a heavy heart that makes life gloomy?

                Over my lifetime, have I had a forgiving heart that sets other people free and myself as well?

                Do I have an empathetic heart that recognizes the misery of others and tries to be                                     compassionate with them?                                         

                Do I have it in my heart to encourage and awaken the spirit of possibility in others?

                Do I believe that God lives in the sanctuary of my heart? If so, what does that mean for my                    life?

                Do I continue to love the people who have weathered life with me and do I tell them so?                                                                                                                                                                              As I think about these questions, and perhaps some things that have only recently come to light in my heart, what lurks or lurches in my heart? What do I feel when I come face to face with God’s Image in others in my daily living?

 O God, Mother and Father of us all, I pray to you with deep reverence:

                May your love become like a furnace burning in my heart. (Jer. 20.9)

                May Your Son’s peace reign in my heart. (Col.3.15)

                May Your Spirit stand guard over my heart and mind. (Phil.4.7)

 From this side of the computer to you…May you have a happy heart this Valentine’s Day.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Here I am! Send Me!

Dear Friends,

                Isaiah, Paul and Peter.

                These three figures are prominent in today’s readings. They were people totally caught up in their own day to day lives. They did not wish to be different or to relate to God in another way. But each was surprised by God and ended up in a new place spiritually and even physically.

                Isaiah was from Jerusalem, an aristocrat, married with children, a bright man, totally absorbed in his life and times, a faithful believer who worshipped regularly in the temple. He was also a reluctant prophet.

                Today, we hear how Isaiah had a vision, i.e.  he came to a new and compelling consciousness of God calling him to speak God’s word to the people. By the end of the passage, when God says “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”, Isaiah steps up.  “Here I am. Send me!” Isaiah had moved  from no apparent consciousness of a new mission to an ardent commitment to speak God’s word.

                Paul was a whole-hearted Jew, who made tents for a living and a man who was hostile to Christ and his followers. “I persecuted the church of God” he confesses in today’s second reading. Yet Paul, in a moment of conversion, moved from hostility to being one who claimed Jesus as his Lord.

                Peter was from a small town in Galilee, far from the places of power, married, satisfied to be a skilled fisherman, self-reliant. Prone to put his foot in his mouth.

                On this morning in the Gospel, he and his dejected partners washed empty nets. They had fished all night and had caught nothing.

                Jesus, the non-fisherman, stood on the shore nearby and told Peter to go out again.” Cast out into the deep.”

                Peter was called back to the same place he had failed and was asked to try again. Daring to go back, Peter knew great success and realized it was not of his own doing – an important step in coming to a new commitment to follow Christ.

                In much the same way as these three, you and I are absorbed in our everyday lives. In our homes, families, work-world, we are sometimes reluctant to follow God’s call, or hostile or so self- reliant that we don’t need God to tell us how to fish. Yet each of us is called by God, touched by God, invited by God in a unique way to be the embodiment of God and the bearer of Good News to our world. “Why me?” we might ask. “Why not me?” Each of us called by God at some point to go beyond where we are.

                It might be to a new place like Isaiah. We may have to give up long- held convictions like Paul. We may have to return to a place we’ve been, like Peter, only to be surprised by what God offers us there.

                This is real. This is true. 

                What will it take for us to cast out into the deep, or to say “Here I am! Send me!”?

~Sister Joan Sobala

Remembering Our Call to Integrity

 

Dear Friends,

                On Friday of this week, the eyes of the world turn to Beijing for the Winter Olympic Games. Some of us will be glued to the TV as medal counters. We want to see who is best in the world. We want to hear personal stories of failure and success, pain overcome, victories unexpected. We admire and honor their dedication and their self - control.

                All that dedication can push athlete to make some poor choices, for example the use of performance enhancing drugs, as we see sometimes when medal winners are tested.

                Where there is unlimited potential, it comes as no surprise that the potential for disordered  desire also arises.

                The Greek world, long before Christ, knew of self – control and  fostered it not only among athletes and the military but among educators and civic leaders. Do the  Christian Scriptures themselves advocate self- control as a way of following Christ?

                In Galatians 5.22-25, where Paul lists the fruits of the Holy Spirit, he does include self-control. Does he mean the same thing as the Greeks do when he invites us to understand self - control as a gift of the Holy Spirit? No, he doesn’t. Paul tells us that as followers of Christ, we must be other- centered, to “be renewed in the spirit of our minds and to clothe ourselves with this new self (Ephesians 4.22-24).”

                Maybe self-control isn’t a word that speaks to us today? Maybe the idea would be more intelligible to us if we were to use the word integrity – that is being who we say we are and making our choices about our behavior based on our values and our commitments.

                We cannot cultivate integrity by ourselves. Followers of Christ soak ourselves in all that nourishes our integrity when we come to the Table of the Lord. In these COVID days, some people choose not to come, even virtually. Yet at the Eucharist, we are in the presence of God who draws everything toward life. We are in the presence of people who struggle mightily with believing, who have known great pain, great sorrow, great love. We are in the presence our deepest selves, perceived only in a mirror dimly.

                Integrity doesn’t deepen automatically at the Table of the Lord. We do not overcome self-centeredness or addictive habits automatically at the Table of the Lord. What happens can happen only if we are open to the Spirit. Perhaps we perceive nothing different at the Table or as we leave. But what do we know?

                As the Olympics begin, enjoy. Enjoy the thrill of watching and cheering the well-honed skills that bring the athletes to Beijing. But somewhere in some corner of your being, remember your own call – not necessarily to athletic prowess, but to an integrity that honors God, serves others and makes you whole.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Developing a Spirit of Love and Unity

Dear Friends,

COVID has swept over many aspects of our lives. We are distracted by the very essentials of life: food, education, shelter, health, survival. With you, I look forward to the day when we pick up the threads of life that brought us together before and will enrich us as a human community again in the future. One such positive factor that rose prominently in new ways in the 20th century was ecumenism – the restoration of unity among all Christians. Ecumenism began in Europe among Protestant Churches between the world wars. The Catholic Church was not part of that movement initially. When the work was still new and largely unknown, the Greymoor Franciscan Community in downstate New York made efforts in ecumenism that came to be reasonably well known. This Catholic community, which had its roots in the Episcopal Church, highlighted the work of unity during the 8 days from January 18th (the former feast of the Chair of Peter to January 25th (the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.) The work of ecumenism didn’t formally become part of the work of the whole Church until Vatican II issued the Decree on Ecumenism (1964.) Since then, the movement toward unity has been an important ingredient in the life of the Roman Catholic Church, along with churches that range from the Orthodox Churches of the East to the Protestant Churches of the west. One Lord, one faith, one baptism is both the call and the goal. 

How do our churches achieve that unity? For one thing, Christians of all denominations need to experience a change of heart, putting aside suspicion of one another, a lack of respect for the pilgrim journeys that various churches have taken. Our own church is not an exception. We need to work on our own house so we will be ready for union. 

Our churches need to take steps of engagement, together promoting justice and truth and collaboration, and above all, developing a spirit of love and unity. Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council, recognized that the divisions among the churches were noxious. These divisions needed to be treated, he said, not with the “medicine of condemnation but the medicine of mercy.” 

Popes since Vatican II have been eager to meet with the patriarchal leaders of the Orthodox Churches and with Protestant Church leaders in the west. Their leadership and the work of the various church agencies are essential for re-union to happen.

But our own work as members of the Catholic Church is also necessary, so that the longing for and growth toward reunion is felt throughout the Body of Christ. We need to work through the divisions we have maintained for centuries. There are few absolutes in life. The early community of Jesus’ followers gave up things they thought they could never do without. Each subsequent generation needs to ask: What is for now, what is forever? What is essential and what is not? In the life of faith, nothing burdensome should be imposed unless strictly necessary (Acts 15.22). We , the community, must develop a keen awareness of the connectedness of all Christian believers with the Holy Spirit. 

Like the Christians of the first century, we are faced with questions that won’t go away. We too need to have the courage to become what we say we are, the Body of Christ today. We too need the courage to face the questions unity requires, not point fingers at each other or put each other down. It is the Holy Spirit and we (Acts 15.28), the believing community, who work to create a church ever more consistent with the Gospel, ever more sensitive to the times. 

 ~Sister Joan Sobala

Honoring the Life & Legacy of MLK Jr & Rep. John Lewis

Srs Josepha Twomey, Dorothy Quinn, Mary Weaver, Margaret Isabelle Tracy, and Mary Paul Geck with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, AL. 1965

Sister Barbara Lum with Rep. John Lewis at SSJ Motherhouse, 2016

           

Dear Friends,

  This weekend, during a raging pandemic and palpable national disunity, we honor the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., a visionary whose leadership was rooted in the Gospel. It seems right that today, we should also honor John Lewis, who internalized the Gospel and its message together with MLK. Congressman John Lewis died on July 17, 2021.

                The core of the vision of both King and Lewis was the “Beloved Community,” and that’s where we linger today. The Beloved Community in their lives and in ours.

                When MLK spoke of the Beloved Community, he was describing “the ultimate goal of non-violent action for peace and justice – a global community of caring, where poverty, hunger and injustice are no more. “(Syracuse Cultural Worker) “Our goal is to create a Beloved Community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.” (MLK)

                “You live as if you are already there, that you’re already in that community, part of that sense of one family, one house. If you visualize it, if you can even have faith that it is there, for you, it is already there.” (John Lewis)

                King and Lewis name the Beloved Community as the overarching framework of the Civil Rights Movement. Coretta Scott King speaks of it in wider terms: “The Beloved Community is a state of mind and heart, a spirit of hope – goodwill that transcends all boundaries and barriers and embraces all creation. At its core, the Beloved Community is the engine of reconciliation.”

                Somewhere is this collection of insights, we can find ourselves. How do we name and experience the Beloved Community in our lives? I hope that we can recognize the Beloved Community as the Reign of God, the Kingdom of God or as other contemporaries say, the ”Kin”dom of God. Like John Lewis, we are already there but don’t allude to it. And for Catholic Christians, the road to the Beloved Community goes through the Church.

                That’s a cultivated awareness. It’s a realization that we must work at developing. It’s so easy to go to Sunday Eucharist alone, or with our families. We recognize and even sit near friends and neighbors. But everyone there at any given Mass belongs to us and we to them. We might not agree with their political or social values. We might like their tattoos or purple hair. But we are one with them. We are together the Body of Christ, and that is more than a saying. We also belong to the Catholic Christians of Vietnam, South Sudan and Belize… every place around the world where the Baptismal waters have cast us into the same stream, making its way toward the ultimate unity of all people, all creation with God.

                It’s a fact that less American Catholics are participating in Sunday Eucharist now than in prior decades. People slip out of the pews as if no one will miss their presence – as if no one knew they were there or even cares. And here’s the awful part. Perhaps we didn’t notice their presence or their absence. Or perhaps we are the ones who have slipped away and no one seemed to notice. The Beloved Community loses so much when this happens. Our work as believers is to encourage one another to be actively engaged as the Beloved Community.

                Coretta Scott King named reconciliation as the necessary ingredient for the Beloved Community to thrive and reach its destination. Catholics seem to depend almost exclusively on the gift of reconciliation as coming from the priests and bishops exclusively, but reconciliation is the gift of believers to one another in the flow toward unity with God and all creation. It is a right and a privilege and a responsibility to reach out to one another, and say welcome home or I’m here and glad to be back.

                So today, let’s honor Martin Luther King Jr, and his leadership towards racial justice and equality.

Let’s honor John Lewis by making good trouble as he encouraged us to do. Let’s honor the faith that is in ourselves and others.

                 And together let’s “keep our eyes on the prize.” (John Lewis)

 ~Sister Joan Sobala