Being Steadfast

Dear Friends,

On this Second Sunday of Advent, we ask the great “how to” question. How do we shape and reshape our adult lives to live meaningfully with God and one another? Paul’s letter to the Romans holds up two virtues to cultivate to make this reshaping possible. They are steadfastness and encouragement.

Steadfastness means keeping on. Sometimes the word “patience” is used in place of steadfastness, but patience has a connotation of being temporary: “I am putting up with this person, this situation now – but not for long.” Patience is not as rich a word as steadfastness.

One ingredient in being steadfast is the capacity to work at seemingly impossible tasks: Smaller Ukraine holding off Russia for over 270 days of conflict; beating COVID-19; therapists working with the paralyzed to get them walking again.

Today’s first reading from Isaiah describes the peaceable kingdom through a variety of impossible images: the baby playing in the cobra’s den; the wolf and the lamb laying down together in harmony. For some, these images get dismissed as fantasy. Get real! Everyone knows a lamb in the wolf’s lair is lunch!

But look: In 1988, who would have imagined that the following year, the Berlin Wall would be torn down. In 1990, who would have thought a Black South African would be the nation’s president, or in the United States in 2009, who would have thought we would also have a Black president.

In 1991, I never thought about being an ovarian cancer survivor. That journey began for me the day after Christmas that year.

Imagining seemingly impossible things is only one aspect of living steadfast lives. The steadfast also hang on when it would be tempting to let go, cave in, walk away.

Consider these examples of steadfast love active in people we know or have heard of:

• Caring for a loved one through an acute or chronic illness
• Believing in one’s call from God when others do not
• Seeing an endpoint and working toward it when others deny the endpoint exists
• Wholeheartedly serving others who have no familial or personal claim (Think of hospice workers, or government professionals who work behind the scenes preparing for peace accords and breakthroughs.)
• Musicians and artists who see creations no one seems to cherish
• Those who work at tasks which are greater than their lives, with no expectation of seeing outcomes.

John the Baptist, the dominant figure in today’s Gospel and next week’s as well, was certainly an example of steadfast love. His vision of God’s reign led him to preach and act and he could not be dissuaded even though his words and deeds led to his death.

Being steadfast, though, is no easy thing. Some days, the vision is dim or energy wanes. It’s then that encouragement is needed. The kind word, walking alongside the person can bring an infusion of energy. You and I need to be God-reminders for the steadfast, even as others are for us.

Two further brief thoughts about being steadfast: First, we are not born steadfast. We become steadfast through practice, and we learn its meaning and value from others. Secondly, not every life situation requires that we remain steadfast. There is no virtue in continuing in a situation where life is destroyed rather than fostered. Cut loose, for the sake of life.

The Advent figures of John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph accompany us through these weeks. They encourage us in our Advent-mindedness. “Believe,” they tell us. “Believe that you are capable of being steadfast and encouraging. Believe that Emmanuel, God with Us, is indeed with us in our gloom and glory.”

~Sister Joan Sobala

Welcoming God into Our World

Dear Friends,

Advent begins today. The way the season is laid out, the first two weeks invite us to concentrate on the big picture – the coming of God into our world. The last two weeks immerse us in the more familiar way of celebrating Advent, namely in preparation for the well-known, well-loved coming of Christ at the stable in Bethlehem.

Another way to describe Advent is to emphasize that our God comes and continues to come into our adult world – to meet us wherever we are and to enfold us in love as we live our topsy-turvy lives.

The Dominican Herbert McCabe writes in a compelling way about this very contemporary coming, albeit in non-inclusive language: “God’s way is very much simpler than our ways. He doesn’t have our complications. He is just simply in love with us. Not just with some of us, not just with saints or people who try to be good, but with absolutely everybody: with liars and murderers, with traitors and rapists, with the greedy, the arrogant, the inconsiderate, with prime ministers and priests and policemen. He loves us all. And not in some general way. It is not a question of some vague warm feeling for humanity, for the whole human race. He loves each of us intimately and personally – more intimately and personally than we can love ourselves. He is more personally concerned for our good and happiness than we can be for ourselves.” (God, Christ and Us, p.26)

God is in love with us now, in our adult lives, as we are, where we are, however we face the future. But we are not easily convinced.

"There are certain questions we should ask ourselves, particularly during the Advent and Christmas seasons. Born 2,000 years after Christ…when we talk about God’s coming, do we not focus exclusively on the tiny babe born long ago?... Do we scan the horizons of our world for Christ’s coming, or have we locked God up in the prism of a bygone past?

"In our personal religious life, we are tempted to dwell on our childhood and our youthful enthusiasm, and we never really grow up. We surreptitiously undermine the possibility of a truly adult life. We give God no chance to exercise His initiative. We do not allow Him to reveal Himself in ways that would make Him credible as the God of adult life. We would like to overlook the divine advent yet to come.” (Johannes Baptist Metz, The Advent of God, pp.10,12)

Beginning today, we can take a fresh plunge into Advent. What one practice can you, can I, initiate to welcome God into our messy, much-loved world?

Perhaps it can be as simple as praying daily the last words of the New Testament. At the end of the Book of Revelation, we read, “Yes, I am coming soon,” and the reply “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!”

Amen!             Amen!             Amen!             Come, Lord Jesus!           Come!

~Sister Joan Sobala

A Note of Thanks

Dear Friends,

What do we need to live, grow, thrive, and survive? Gratitude. You may not have said gratitude, but it’s nonetheless true.             

Gratitude is the muscle of the heart. As gratitude pumps in us, vision and hope are released into the world. 

Today, let’s acknowledge aspects of life that we previously might not believe are subjects for our personal gratitude. And let us say to our generous, ever-mindful God...

 

Thank you for giving us people who help us understand

what this rollercoaster ride called life is all about.

 

Thank you for Eucharist, weekly nourishment through Word and Sacrament,

 and our faith community which embodies Christ.

 

Thank you for the universe out there - beloved of God -     even as earth is.

 

Thank you for writers and songwriters who open us to inspiration.

 

Thank you for newcomers to our land who

take the lowest jobs available and do them with care.

 

Thank you for all who have come and keep coming to the aid of the Ukrainian people

 in their determination to survive foreign aggression.

 

Thank you for the good done, the justice insured, all the compassion offered

 and the violence rejected across the world.

 

Thank you, God for boats that carry people away from danger and toward ports of safety

 

Thank you for holding us close as we try to keep the vows we have made.

 Thank you for the grace of growing older and growing old.

 Thank you for nature with its colors, textures and hues, its brilliance and starkness.

 

Thank you that I have come to this day without being overwhelmed

by the accidents, bad choices, unethical situations I have been in.

 

Thank you for prompting me to absorb into my life the insightful words of others

 that have touched my soul.

 

Thank you for healers, peacemakers, reconcilers, and builders of a culture of life.

 

Thank you for people who did us a service decades ago

and we still live off that gesture of generosity.

 

Thank you for the manna You sent to nourish me

as I struggled through my own personal desert.

 

Throughout this Thanksgiving Day, 2022, in between the turkey and the conversations, the walks, and the games, may we find ourselves thanking God for a whole host of realities the thought of which might, at other times, escape us.

I hope so, for to do so is to enrich the meaning of Thanksgiving Day even more.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Trusting in God During the End-Times

Dear Friends,

Each year, the readings of November and the First Sunday of Advent are hard. They are about the end-times and point to the unwillingness of people to stay the course that leads to fullness of life.

Malachi is railing against the proud and the evildoers. They have no life-embracing vision upon which to build their lives. But God says to the faithful “for you, there will arise the sun of justice.” (Mal.3,20a)

The people whom Paul addresses in the letter to the Corinthians believed that since Jesus’ second coming was imminent, they no longer needed to carry their share of the workload in society. Paul condemned this attitude as unworthy of Christ’s followers. He urged them to participate in shaping life.

In the Gospel, Jesus finds people admiring the temple instead of doing the work of justice and mercy the Temple required. Echoing Malachi, Jesus bids them to persevere.

Throughout history, the end-time experiences have inspired either panic or lethargy. Yet there is a third way to respond to dire times. That third way is to trust God.

The end-times enter our lives in all sorts of ways. In some way, the war in Ukraine represents the end times. So did 9/11. When our jobs are phased out or relationships fall apart, when the illness and death of our loved ones threaten to swamp us, today’s Gospel says:

Don’t stray. Don’t panic. Give witness to the faith that is in you. Endure even as you trust Christ to be with you. I will be with you to give you the strength you need. “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking so that your adversaries will be powerless to resist or dispute.” (Luke21.17)

Surrounded by supportive family and friends, bolstered by the promise of God’s fidelity, we can weather the storm and even during our own chaos, feel the sun of justice with its healing rays that Malachi writes about.

People are not always surrounded by loved ones in times of distress. Some of us apparently or truly stand alone, cut off from the people we love and depend on the most – shut off from them by our own choice or by the choice of others. People are alone for all sorts of reasons. But in truth, God is with the bereft as well.

The difference between despair and hope during personal or societal calamity is in the measure of our openness to the stunning truth that we are

                            surrounded
                            held up
                            shielded
                            propelled forward
                            beckoned by a God who loves us.

When darkness of whatever kind sets in, our God will not abandon us, just as God did not abandon His only Son. God is here. Our God is a faithful God.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Life Beyond Death

Dear Friends,

The November liturgical readings prompt us to ask: Life. Death. Then what? The answer to that question has changed in history as people’s core values have changed.

If you were an Egyptian monk three centuries before Christ, you would think of this life as an antechamber – a prelude. Real life would happen after death. Still, a person couldn’t just sit around and do nothing, waiting for this life to be over. So the monks took up basket-weaving, weaving and unweaving the same basket throughout their lives. In doing this, the Egyptian monks underscored their sense of the futility of life.

The Greek philosopher Plato spoke of death as the releasing of the soul from the prison of the body – not a very positive way of viewing either the body or this life, which for us can only be embodied.  

One element of genius in Judaism is that it did value this life, with all its challenges, victories, and defeats.

Belief in the resurrection of the dead emerged relatively late in the history of Judaism. Jews came to believe not that their bodies would be resuscitated or that their earthly lives would simply be prolonged, but that God would transform them entirely.

Today’s first reading comes from this Jewish perspective. We read the second century B.C. story of a mother with seven sons. Encouraged to remain faithful to God by their mother, all seven sons died, rather than abandon their faith. In dying, they reaffirmed their belief that they would live with God in a new way. To sum up what was taught by the experience of the mother with her seven sons, we can say Life is treasured. Death is a passage. New life lies beyond.

A few centuries later, Jesus would embody these beliefs in His very person, as He died, rose, and appeared to many. But already in his public life, Jesus dealt with the meaning of life, death, and eternity. In today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a group of Sadducees who understood the resurrected life as a simple extension of this life. Thus, they told the story of a woman who married seven brothers successively, according to an ancient Levirate law. No, Jesus told them. This life and the resurrected life are different but related realities. Moreover, the resurrected life is beyond our imagination and inventiveness and rests with God’s own creativity and freedom.

Today: Life. Death. Then what? Life around us is so full of misery, injustice, pain, and cruelty that it would be unbearable if there were not more. But if life beyond this life is not merely a continuation of what we have been and known, then what is it? What can we say about eternal life, heaven, whatever we call it?

The first thing we can say is that Love Endures. We have only to think of our loved ones who have crossed the threshold of death. We continue to experience them through dreams, feelings, help apparently from nowhere.

The second thing we can say about life beyond death is that God’s compassion and promises will prevail according to our capacity to take them in.

You and I, all people, are destined for life. Believing this, we put aside the things that don’t matter in life, we put human cruelty and carelessness into perspective and welcome the conviction that we are destined for eternal life. We are loved by the God of the living.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Hope -- Rooted in God

Dear Friends,

November in our global north is a time when people enact rituals of hope. We plant trees, floral and garlic bulbs, oats and wheat. Into the earth they go, and then we give them no more thought, somehow confident they will weather the winter and thrive in the spring.

We may not make the connection between November planting and hope, but it is strongly there. We hope for that which is not in hand but will surely come. But only in God. Only in God will the fullness come. Hope is not optimism. It is rooted in God.

Recently, some of our Sisters gathered to talk about hope, to enlarge and relish its meaning for ourselves and our times. Here are some of our realizations to pass on to you.

Hope is the confidence that God will see us through to a fruitful end. The danger is in being more confident about our ability to see ourselves through, and not acknowledging God’s presence and action in the moment. As people of hope, we risk hostility and persecution as Jesus risked crucifixion. We enter into the darkness so as to emerge into the light of the resurrection.

We do see true hope embedded in human life in our times – the bright spot at the end of the evening news, the realization that no one really wants war. How the people of Martha’s Vineyard, exhausted after the tourist season, rallied to treat with care the immigrants dropped on their island. That was a mustering of hope. The many justice projects around the country that find evidence to make right wrongful incarcerations are examples of hope alive among us. Pope Francis offers his own encouragement: “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given to us.” And again, “Where God has planted you, hope.”

Yet the word “hope” is not part of our daily language. A prison chaplain asked a young incarcerated Black man, “What do you hope for in life?” “No one has ever asked me that before.”

Fear, the opposite of hope, threatens to overcome our land. The potential loss of democracy, human-made disasters make hope seem absent in our times. Around us, we find people engaged in “quiet quitting” looking as though they are engaged, but secretly are simply marking time. Inside, they are “away.” Pieces of this reality are in your life and mine.   

God, in Jeremiah, lifts up any of us who allow ourselves to be embraced by God. “I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for life and not for evil, to give you a future full of hope.” (Jer.29.11)

We enliven hope when we perform small acts of kindness, when we look and act like happy people (because, deep down, we are). To paraphrase Paul saying to Timothy, “Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you.” When we listen to the community’s story of coming through difficult times, we see hope blossom. Hope is never complete except in God. 

As earth and sky embrace November, may the God of hope fill you to overflowing. Now go plant some bulbs or a tree.

~Sister Joan Sobala                                                                         

Accepting Ourselves as Sinners & Saints in Process

Dear Friends,

For the last 10 years, a professor of psychology I know has begun her first class of the semester by asking students, “What do you fear most in life?” Up to four years ago, the answer was the same. Death. More recently, students came to fear something more than death, namely failure…the failure of a project, a scheme, an idea or the anticipated failure of a marriage, the stock market, a career.

Failure seems to grip the American student – and perhaps the American public – as an ultimate thing.

I’ve read some books and articles that counsel how to minimize failure and ensure success. In common, these texts tell us we must rely on ourselves, sell ourselves. Not a bad idea, when taken in moderation, but problematic when taken as the only or primary way to shape one’s activities and goals.

Take as an example the Pharisee in today’s gospel. Before we write him off and judge him lacking, we have to admit that he probably takes his religious obligations more seriously than we do. Who among us fasts twice a week and gives 10% of all we possess to the church? Moreover, the Pharisee is also an honest man, faithful to his wife and unwilling to work as an agent of an occupying power. He is proud of all of this – and rightly so. Like a good salesman, he takes off before God can catalog all he says and does.

Paul, in today’s second reading does the same. Paul says of himself: “I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith.”

The difference between Paul and the Pharisee, though, is the same as the difference between the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee stands with head unbowed. Paul and the publican, on the other hand, know and acknowledge that everything they are and have is of God. Willingly, they bow before God, the giver of all good gifts.

In short, the Pharisee is his own horizon. He could only find scorn in his heart for the tax collector.

The tax collector, on the other hand, makes no reference to the Pharisee in his prayer. He does not see himself in competition with anyone for God’s attention and love. The tax collector simply prayed: “O Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

If God is to touch us in any life-giving way, we need to admit that we are sinners.

Once we acknowledge the sinner in us, we take the first step to being gentle with others. We are all frail, all hurting in some way, all in need of being held tenderly.

Today, we are invited to accept ourselves as sinners. In a few weeks, we will be celebrating All Saints Day – the saints who have gone before us, the saints around us, and the saints we are working so hard to become.

Both labels apply. We are saints in process and we are sinners.

To deny either is to shut off great possibilities for our growth toward God, great possibilities for shaping our world as a place of mercy and tenderness rather than confrontation and violence.

To welcome the sinner in us and the saint in process is to open ourselves to life.

~Sister Joan Sobala