Summertime Conversations about Faith

Dear Friends,

Continuing our summer series, we turn in this week’s blog to conversations about religion at picnics, parties, while driving together long distances in the car, or when reuniting with friends who are back in town for a visit. On these occasions, we either talk about religion or we assiduously avoid it.

Last week I was with a study group that focused on the legacy of Jesus – discipleship and a community of believers. One of the people there was Greek Orthodox and a weekly communicant in her church. As she talked about her frustrations with her church experience, I thought, “she could be talking about the Roman Catholic Church as I experience it: declining numbers, very few young adults, children absent because their parents are absent, questions over what is expected of believers, the priority some express for spirituality over religion.”

“It's nobody’s business but mine whether I go to church or synagogue or not.” True, but conversations about religion, gently engaged in, can be non-threatening, enlarging, revelatory. Someone else’s life with God could well reveal something about our own life with God. Nuggets from history sometimes tell us why a particular practice developed as it did.

For all of us Christians, our welcome into the faith tradition began with baptism. Baptism, most properly celebrated at the Easter Vigil, unites us to the dying and rising of Christ. As part of the baptismal ritual itself, the newly baptized is clothed in a white garment. The baptized person, still him/herself, becomes new, capable of embracing Christ, taking a place in the community, with all that this means. The baptized person now lives as a member of the Body of Christ. Baptism in its richness takes a lifetime to unfold.

Hard to understand? Yes. But in the 11^th century, St. Anselm put the task before us succinctly: “I believe in order to understand.” What he meant is that it is only in living faith that one comes to grasp its meaning better. Staying off at a distance doesn’t help. Belief comes before understanding.

Another important aspect of faith is to acknowledge the mystery of God, the mystery of life, the mystery of human beings exploring God’s life. All of these unfold when we keep company with God, when we listen to God speaking to us in prayer.

The road of faith is hard, and we can’t do it alone. That’s why we need the beloved community, as John Lewis and Martin Luther King called it. We can’t walk away from the beloved community without losing something essential to our lives.

To repeat the point: these summer conversations about faith seeking understanding need to be gentle. We are not called to swap horror stories about negative church experiences, or to mull over answers over unanswerable questions. The difference in us will come when we encourage one another to seek a new moment with God who is always ready to go forward with us, meet us where we do not expect to go.

~ Sister Joan Sobala 

The Transitions of Life

Dear Friends,

In this summer series of blogs, we turn to a topic that happens all year long, but which seems to have special relevance in the summer, namely transition.

Last week, I celebrated two members of a family who were transitioning, one from high school to college, a second one from college to a work experience.

Transitions may be, as in the case of these two young people, passage to a new educational place. Transition could involve marriage or religious commitment, the death of a parent, sibling or friend, a new way of thinking, new values just discovered and put into action, a change of patterns. People who work in ministry often transition in the summer to a new place, a new community.

Multiple transitions take place in life. Some are sequential, others simultaneous. We can be in transition when the people around us are not, and vice versa.

“Every transition begins with an ending. We have to let go of an old thing before we pick up the new – not just outwardly, but inwardly, where we keep our connections to the people and places that act as definitions of who we are.” (William Bridges, Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes)

Click! Click is a transition word. It means “I get it!” or “I have it!”

In Jesus, life was a series of transitions – the growth in awareness of who He was and what He was called to. When Jesus was confronted by the Syrophoenician woman who wanted healing for her daughter, click! Jesus moved to a new way of thinking and doing about who He was called to save. On the hillside, when so many people were hungry, click! “Feed them yourselves!” Jesus knew others would have to participate in His own mission in order for life to be enriched. On the cross and in the grave, Jesus had to let go. Click! Before the resurrection, He had to let go of all He hoped for.

Here are some thoughts about what I need to build into my life so that I can make it through transition times.

Be aware that, wanted or not, transition will happen. Change happens. Or as the cabin steward aboard our flight told us referring to the overhead bins, “Shift happens.”

Watch other people to see how they have transitioned or not.

Keep a memory of transition times past. What worked. What didn’t? What were the best practices about transition I need to remember?

Study Jesus and stay the course with the essentials that arise from walking with Him:

            Love God.
            Know that I am loved by God.
            I am called to speak the truth in love.
            I am called to be faithful yet open to change.
            Jesus accepted moments of change, 

            but not without resistance. Father, Let this cup…Luke 22.42

Add your own thoughts here about Jesus and you and others. For all of us, transition is more than a summer’s experience. It is the work of a lifetime.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Fulfilling Our Promise of Liberty and Justice for All

Dear Friends,

The rain was in full force, so an outdoor gathering was impossible, but a few weeks ago, on June 14th, preschool children gathered in the foyer of the Bayview YMCA to raise and salute the flag. On this Flag Day, these enthusiastic, cherubic voices were heard more loudly and clearly than they could have been outside. With hands over their hearts, with great spirit, they proclaimed words we all knew:

                I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
                and to the republic for which it stands,
                one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In 1892, the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering America, this pledge first appeared in a periodical called The Youth’s Companion. Children across the country were urged to memorize it, say it daily and live by it. Since then, citizens ranging in age from school children through adults, have uttered this promise, holding their hands over their hearts. The pledge was officially recognized in 1942, and the words “under God” were added in 1954. Each day, Congress begins its work with the pledge. You might want to add it to the rituals of your Fourth of July celebration this week.

You might guess that two phrases are especially important in this series of summer blogs: “under God” and “with liberty and justice for all.”

When we say “under God” we, of course, mean that we are indebted to God for all we are and have and do. God is our umbrella, our protector, the One from whom we derive our being. As a nation, we acknowledge God’s place in all the good things we have become.

When we say, “liberty and justice for all,” we mean all, not just our white neighbors, or the Daughters of the Revolution, who can trace their lineage back to our founders. We mean all. Newbies of all colors and sizes. The ones who don’t yet understand slang and may be homesick for the old places and old ways.

We have no right to kill anyone, yet our nation has experienced over 200 mass murders already this year alone.

Justice for all means encouraging fairness, and freedom of movement as long as we don’t step on one another’s toes. Liberty means making space for one another to grow, use our talents and become important contributors to the health and well-being of our land. We lose nothing when we are generous. We gain everything when we are undivided.

In his last official address as president of the United States in 1783, George Washington told Congress: “I now make it my earnest prayer that God would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice and to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion.”

President Washington was in the same spiritual arena as Paul writing to the Romans: “Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay evil with evil; be concerned with what is noble in the eyes of all. If possible, live in peace with all…Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.” (Romans 12, 16 - 18, 21)

Seeing the flag flying over public buildings, businesses and on residential streets, let the sight of it be a reminder to us that our country expects us to fulfill our promise. It’s a sound expectation – one that deserves our year-long attention.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Holding People Close Despite Their Sins

Dear Friends,

Summertime is traditionally a time to dip into novels. Beach reading. Backyard, hammock reading.

I admit it. I do. One of the historical crime novelists I have been reading for years is Anne Perry. Many more years will pass before I locate and read currently unavailable selections from the more than one hundred books she wrote before her death in April of this year. Anne Perry created finely drawn characters in her crime solving stories set in Victorian Britain and during World War I. She dealt compassionately with ethical issues, the social, intellectual upheavals of the times in which her books are set. “Many of my fictional crimes are committed by characters who find themselves caught in a situation beyond their comprehension or control,” said Perry as quoted in Time magazine, April 24, 2023. “I know only too well how that can happen.”

The reason she knows the pathos of life’s critical involvements is because, as a teenager growing up in New Zealand, she was involved in the death of a friend’s mother. Anne Perry spent time in prison for her part in the death of Pauline Parker’s mother. By her thirties, Anne Perry was living in Scotland and had begun to write.

What do we do when we hear about this awful part of Anne Perry’s life? Do we figuratively burn her books? Do we condemn her whole life because she had done evil as a youth?

What would Jesus have us do? In His travels, Jesus met people who had done wrong or alienated those close to them. Yet, He had a way of holding people close despite what they had done. He looked into their hearts, saw their sorrow and forgave them. He invited them to build their lives anew. Jesus told stories about people who did wrong and showed how they were reconciled with those whom they hurt. Jesus’ one outstanding failure in His ministry of reconciliation was Judas, who refused to believe that God’s love was greater than his sin.

Reflecting on her own life as it evolved after her release from prison, Anne Perry says, “I hope I have profited from the whole experience…to seek redemption, to devote the rest of one’s life to becoming a more compassionate, more just, less judgmental person. To atone.” (Time magazine, April 24, 2023)

Those wounded by their own sin cannot come to be able to speak this way about their life without help.

I think of the solace shown in the prophet Ezekiel:
            I will take you away from among the nations…
            And bring you back to your own land.
            I will sprinkle clean water upon you…
            I will give you a new heart
            And place a new spirit within you…
            I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36.24-28 selected)

Did anyone read this passage for Anne Perry? She doesn’t say. But her works speak for her.

When you and I meet someone after they have “paid their dues,” do we gentle them into new life and encourage them to release their talent as a gift for the world?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Putting God in the Center of Life

Dear Friends,

Since Advent, I have concentrated almost exclusively on the meaning of the liturgical feasts and seasons in this weekly blog. These cover the soul-touching times in Jesus’ life, and we are the better for immersing ourselves in their richness.    

But now that summer is officially here, let’s shift our focus to the legacy of Jesus, as perceived in the writings and contemporary experiences of his followers.

Here are some elements to build into our summer lives or to improve upon.

Have more family meals this summer than you do during the fall/winter/spring seasons. Agree in your household to leave cell phones or other electronic devices elsewhere in the house. Say grace that invites everyone around the table to participate. Talk with one another about the day, new learnings, special moments. Initially, these meals may be a challenge, but they are worth it for the family’s sake and for our faith. Family meals are a prelude to/are practice for Eucharist when the whole community comes together to share the presence of God in Word and Sacrament.

Learn to look around you when you are out and about. Who is walking by? What is growing in the garden you pass? What sounds are in the air? Whom have we talked with today or whom have we ignored and why? Pope Francis clusters these ideas for consciousness under the heading of “culture of encounter.” When we really develop this culture in our lives, “no one is discarded or pigeonholed, but all are sought out because all are needed to reveal God’s face…The Holy Spirit impels us to go out from ourselves, from all that hems us in, from all the things we cling to…Blessed are they who believe and have the courage to foster encounter and communion.” (Pope Francis, Homily, May 31, 2019)

Weave into your day a dollop of prayer. Believers erroneously think we need always to pray in paragraphs or designated formal prayers. Trying brief, one-liners directed frequently to God-around-us and God-within-us also work. When we are walking toward our golf ball in the rough on the golf course, when there is a lull in conversation on the beach, when we are waiting in line at the ice cream shop, slip in a word to God.

Thank you, God, for this moment.

Awaken me to Your presence, O Lord.

Teach me Your ways, O God.

Bless everyone in this line, Lord.

And more. Make up your own prayer or repeat and savor all week-long a phrase you heard at Mass last weekend.

Finally, in this simple but profound to-do list, allow yourself daily summer silence when God can cradle you close and speak to your heart. Quiet your senses for a few moments early in the day or at night before sleep descends. Let go of the thoughts that scurry around your mind like so many mice. “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46.10)

Like a summer tan, work at putting God in the center of life in your own unique way.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Nourishment of God’s People

Dear Friends,

Today, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, I can’t help praying that this feast will touch each of us deeply with Jesus’ very own depth of generous loving and self-giving. But the story of generous nourishment of God’s people began many centuries before Jesus.

Our readings prompt us to meet and value God’s presence in three such holy meals:

• God who in Deuteronomy, fed the Israelites in the desert with manna and water from the rock,

• the oneness of the loaf and the sharing in the cup at the First Eucharist, as told in First Corinthians,

• and the undeniable truth of Jesus giving us His very self as food and drink in John 6.

Three memorable meals, spanning the centuries, from Moses to Jesus. They are ours today to relish.

We pass on to one another “a taste for this meal” which we call Eucharist. We cultivate that taste. We hunger to be fed by the bread of life and to drink from the cup of salvation.

To stay the course of faith and life, each of us – all of us – need nourishment of many kinds, all of which ultimately come from God, but proximately, that nourishment comes from others, strangers as well as family, friends, coworkers in the vineyard of the Lord.

I am speaking of food for our minds and hearts – that’s what the Word of God is. Food we eat so that we can be strong and determined enough to serve the poor, the outcast, the whole community.

We need the food of incongruity to make us laugh; the food of wonder as we behold a child learning life’s quirks; the wonder of people’s stories of survival; the giants that swim in the depths of the ocean; the longed for, fragrant, springtime-blossoming of fruit trees.

Sometimes we need the food of fasting so that we can be disciplined enough to hear the Word of God and keep it.

Even as Jesus poured out His blood for all people on the cross, we pour out our own blood, so that others may live, Transfusions we call them. Blood that once was ours becomes the blood of life for others. We become blood relatives of one another and in this way, are called to be faithful to all people, for we do not necessarily know who got our blood.

We are nourished and we nourish, endlessly reaching out in tangible or symbolic ways to those who journey with us.

To preside at the Table of the Lord is the honor and responsibility of the priestly minister. It has been said that there is a dearth of vocations to the priestly ministry. Not true. Women and married men experience the call to priestly service, but the official, institutional Church does not recognize these callings. Such vocations have been found wanting without being tested. It’s hard to believe that the God who fed the people in the three mystical readings today would starve future generations.

As we move toward the beginning of the Synod in October, we remember Ludmila Javorova, ordained in the underground church of Brno, Slovakia, in 1970, to minister to imprisoned women, including nuns, who were denied priestly support or the sacraments in the official Church. Ludmila, in a visit to the United States in 1998, told a group of us gathered in Washington, DC how she would go into women’s prisons, bearing a roll of bread, and ask for a glass of water into which she would drop a raisin, thus making wine for the Eucharist. She would console, anoint, absolve. After the dissolution of Communist rule, Ludmila was not allowed by Rome to continue her priestly ministry.

The coming Synod, 2023-2024, will consider the life of our Church and its essential mission of pastoral care. We find ourselves in a new period of history. Assumptions about the way the Church has deployed priestly ministers in service of the reign of God, the way the Church has fed the People of God, are giving way to new realizations about human life and what we can be and do, male and female. We desire to see our Church responding to the call of Jesus to serve in new unexplored ways. It is time.

As Jesus fed the multitude, no one ever went away hungry. Each of the six accounts of the feeding of the many said there were leftovers. More than enough. Enough for the next people who came with their hunger. Thank God for Jesus foresight. Can we do anything less?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

God is Not Beyond Us

Dear Friends,

The meaning of the feast of the Holy Trinity eludes us. In this age that demands to know immediately the usefulness or relevance of any thought, we get impatient with the word “Trinity” – which seems beyond us.

But God is not beyond us.

God is not some impartial observer who watches from afar, but a lover of all things human and created.

When we fall down into the sewer basin as the ducklings in Buffalo did last week, God, like Mama Duck, stands guard until help comes.

God is never, ever absent from us.

God’s Word offers us truth, even when we don’t want to hear it.

God’s Spirit opens us up to the new, the unpredictable and holy.

God cannot be defined by our need.

God does not fulfill our personal or political agenda.

God simply is.

The boundaries of our language give us no once-and-for-all way of giving a clear, unequivocal expression to who God is. But God, who embraces us minute by minute, says to us: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” No conditions.

When we switch to the categories of love, ah! That’s different from trying to understand God with our minds. We can grasp God as simply loving us.

Think of people you love and who love you. God’s love is their love exponentially multiplied.

~ Sister Joan Sobala