Experiencing Joy Amidst Difficult Times

Dear Friends,

On this Third Sunday of Advent, even though our world seems violently out of control, believers are called to joy because our God continues to come to us. We are invited to stir up the embers of joy in us – joy that recognizes and celebrates God everywhere and in everything.

Among the realities we hold close today are two babies born in the Holy Land about 2000 years ago. Both survived the rigors of being born, John, son of Elizabeth and Zachariah, and Jesus, son of Mary, son of God, beloved by His foster father Joseph. Two babies were born in the Holy Land about 2000 years ago. Both survived.

Recently, with an unholy war raging, 31 babies were born prematurely in Gaza, on the sea edge of the Holy Land. Not all survived. Those that have and will grow to adulthood will be told how it was that they survived and others did not. They will be told the story of their beginnings, and they will wonder at what God has called them to. They will know the joy of God, even as they know human sorrow.

Our biblical ancestors – these wondrous babies, John and Jesus, their parents and families lived in times like ours – hard times in which to live out right relationships, support families and communities and be faithful to the Lord. Even in hard times, they experienced a joy that no one could take from them. Each in his own way, was united with God. From them we learn the joy that recognizes God everywhere and in everything.

Joy grows in us over a lifetime. The person who has learned joy gazes at and walks in the world and sees God’s imprint everywhere.

True joy is not giddy or silly or trite. It is a strong luminous thread of connectedness that runs through our life, uniting us with God. We don’t think our way into joy. And let’s not make it a project or think we can pre-program it. Don’t be afraid of joy in these difficult times, as though being joyful is not appropriate right now.

Be still. Take an inward glance. The experience of joy is within us, waiting to be recognized. Look around. See it blossom and give thanks. Rejoice with the Palestinian babies that survived their premature birth not long ago. Let glimmers of God’s own mercy and human compassion touch them and their homeland. Rejoice as our own lives unfold.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Carrying the Light

Dear Friends,

In the early morning when I pray, I like to have a candle lit. Its dancing light is a sign to me of God who dances with joy because of us.

Here in the north, Advent begins in a month of deep darkness. Only at the very end of Advent, does the daylight begin to increase in tiny fragments. It behooves us to light our candles during Advent, for our personal morning or evening prayer, especially with the unspeakable destructiveness of war and animosity raging in our world.

                Blessed are you
                Who bear the light
                In unbearable times,
                Who testify
                To its endurance
                Amid the unendurable,
                Who bear witness
                To its persistence
                When everything seems
                In shadow
                And grief.                                (Jan Richardson)

John the Baptist, whose vitality we experience in today’s Gospel, was one who carried the light into the wilderness in unbearable times, when people did not know what to make of their lives. They did not recognize God’s presence within them and around them. But John brought them the light that moved them to see, to welcome God.

As his story evolves in the Gospel, John also suffered the ravages of an interior wilderness, but he was faithful to God and to his cousin, Jesus the Word Made Flesh. He died because he would not back away from what he knew to be true.

When we find family life stretched almost beyond recognition, when the integrity of our soul is tried by experiencing or witnessing tragedy, the voice of the Lord speaks to us and through us to others.

Light the candle. See God dancing with joy because of you. Be the light others can see by and be moved.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Potential of Advent

Dear Friends,

Our eyes continue to be fixed on the Holy Land. Dire times with war and suffering are seemingly inescapable. So far, we have not heard of devastation in Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Ain Karem (home of Elizabeth, Zachary and John the Baptist.)

The patriarchs of the Christian Churches centered in Jerusalem have asked their people to keep Advent and Christmas in spiritual ways only. Set aside the bright lights and festive air. Stay alert to the coming of God around them and in them.

In the Holy Land, where God came once in human history, the Divine leapt into our world, uniting with us so completely, that history itself was transformed. Some groups of people haven’t gotten the message yet or block their ears to it or are asleep. They raise their drawbridges against truth, grace, compassion and peace. We see the same violence in Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen -- other so called hot spots. The lion and the lamb have not reconciled in our times.

But Jesus says to us today, on this first Sunday of Advent, “Stay Awake!” We cannot be in Gaza or Ukraine. But we can be alert to, committed to healing, or at least not adding to the misery in the world. The servants in today’s Gospel were told to be about their work, to watch until the master came. The same message stirs in us. But what should we watch for?

Watch for opportunities to make our part of the world better.
Watch for temptation and put it in its place.
Watch for meaningful outcomes even when tragedy befalls.
Watch for truth as it unfolds and emerges in life.
Watch for ways and places to sprinkle love until it is absorbed into each person’s life.

“Lord, make us turn to You; Let us see Your face and we shall be saved,” we pray in today’s psalm.

Watchfulness is not easy, however fine our intentions. We miss seeing opportunity, temptation and truth for what they are, by our boredom, our limited horizons, our waning motivation and perceptions. We are sometimes so anxious that we cannot be our best selves.

If we recognize this time and place for what it is calling us to, we are in a place of rich spiritual growth. The important step is not to draw back from the potential of Advent even though the next steps are unclear.

As Advent begins today, let’s remember one thing -- God is faithful to us. God is awake to the joy and suffering in the world. God is alert to us. Should we be anything less?

~Sister Joan Sobala

Celebrating Christ as King and Lord

Dear Friends,  

On this last Sunday of a waning Church year, we celebrate Christ as King and Lord. This feast compels us to look for God who comes to us in unexpected ways. God in Jesus bids us to be ready for anything and to look for God among the least, the broken, bruised and burned. 

What Jesus asks of us is remarkably simple: to pay attention to our neighbor. Lazarus or the man born blind. The dead daughter of the synagogue official. We are to let the woman with the seemingly endless hemorrhage touch us. We are to dine with the outcasts of the world. Oh, and watch out for the barren fig tree in our neighbor’s yard! 

One neighbor. More will find us if they know we are sincere. A stranger, perhaps, or a friend or family member – someone who asks something costly of us.   

Across the way, Palestinians and Jews, Ukrainians and those who live in the terrorized parts of Africa ask us for what is costly to us. We’d rather not. We are quick to give away our castoffs, our extra money or the non-perishable food in our cupboards that is near its expiration date. But what we need – can we give that away?   

Today’s Gospel is not so much judgment of those who refuse, who fail to give of what they really need, but a ratification – a confirmation of the depths of people’s actions. What we do matters. The very acts we may have forgotten, the seemingly inconsequential deeds, make us stand out in the world of "much-wants-more." We work out our destiny by accompanying others through their pain. 

Whenever we give up our rights, our time, even our lives, using ourselves up for others, we enter the company of fools whose leader remains hidden and embedded among the unimportant ones of the world. Who is that leader? 

Jesus – the king of fools – the one who was laughed at by the bystanders even as He was clothed by the soldiers in scarlet and had a crown of thorns pressed on His head. He could have avoided the whole thing if He had not been himself. But He had to be faithful to who He was. It is He we celebrate today. Not one on a lofty throne, but a God who became so human that we would hardly recognize Him in His surprising ordinariness.  

Jesus, Servant king of fools at the bottom of the debris from buildings that have been bombed in Ukraine and Gaza. Jesus, Humble king of fools who shares His crust of stale bread and watered wine with the famished. Jesus, Just king of fools who will escort His beloved poor and suffering to life everlasting.  

If we are not these very ones, by virtue or circumstance, we are their companions.  

~ Sister Joan Sobala 

Opening Our Hearts and Minds this Thanksgiving

Dear Friends,

This Thursday, our nation celebrates Thanksgiving.

That day, prior to the main meal, talk with your family, and agree if possible to acknowledge as you gather, that the land which we call home has a rich history of belonging to others long before us: The Navajo, Wampanaug, Houma and Chinook, the Lakota Sioux and the Cherokee, who walked a trail of tears from Georgia to Oklahoma because they were unwanted in the east.

Remember the Ute and Pueblo, the Shinnecock of Long Island and the Seneca Nation of Canandaigua NY, the Keepers of the Western Door. All indigenous nations.

As the Hopi told us:
        

        “Gather yourselves.
        Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
        All that we now do must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
        For we are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Rejecting the animosity in our world, let us instead embrace all in our world and pray this Thanksgiving prayer composed by the First Nation of Canada, the Mi ‘Kmaq:

        “Creator, open our hearts to peace and healing among all people.
        Creator, open our hearts to provide for and protect all children of the earth.

        Creator, open our hearts to respect the earth and all the gifts of the earth.
        Creator, open our hearts to end exclusion, violence, and fear among all.
        Thank you for this day and every day.”

May Thanksgiving refresh your mind, 

heart and all your relationships.

May Our Lord open our eyes

so that we may carry forward the works that enliven and give hope.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Experiencing the November Forest

Dear Friends,
        Take three strides
        into the November forest.
        Then take three more.
                Stand still.
                Listen. Look around.
                The wind tumbles the wet leaves
                across the rutted, stone-strewn floor of the woods.
                Water-soaked, they settle into valleys
                and pile into fox holes and rabbit holes, gopher holes and the like,
                to protect the life sheltered within.
        Through the winter, the leaves will blanket and nourish the land,
        hold close the roots and self-giving plants
        taking their refuge,
        worn out from producing whatever
        they had been called to by our Creator God.
                Spring will find them
                reinvigorated or
                dead, replaced by a new batch of holy growth.
        But till then,
        in our wondrous north,
        the snow will help –
        warming when possible –
        freezing when necessary –
        hallowing all the land holds dear.
                Beyond the November forest
                stretch yards and gardens,
                crevices in the stone hedges,
                living out the same cycle of rest and revitalization.
        Don’t we do that?
        Don’t we have times of high energy and output,
        then little or none.
                We are a November people, although not sure we relish this time
                when we are like trees without leaves or camped out in forest stillness.
        Today,
        pause to experience November.

                Trust our Ecologist God
                who valued all growing things
                long before we knew how.
                Step off the path
                into the welcoming woods.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

(Photo Courtesy of Mary Lou Wenthe)

Gathering at the Table

Dear Friends,

Two ways of developing the vision and practice of faith among Catholic Christians have been occurring simultaneously this year: the Universal Church’s Synod on Synodality, the first session of which just concluded in Rome last week; and the National Eucharistic Revival, the middle year of a three-year process launched in 2022 by the American Bishops.

I talked about the Synod in my September 17th blog. Today I offer a few thoughts about the Eucharist and why the American Bishops feel such a revival is valuable. In some parts of the country, not as many people celebrate Eucharist weekly as used to. One factor that influenced this new time is, of course, COVID-19. For the better part of two years, Masses were cancelled as part of the way to contain COVID. People got out of the habit of weekly worship. But in fact, the pews had already begun to empty before then. Other activities began to take precedence in people’s lives. The valuing of Eucharist diminished, maybe not in theory but certainly in practice.

It’s an important thing to help believers return to the weekly celebration of Eucharist, as the source and summit of our lives, so here are some thoughts to consider as you and I hopefully resume coming to the Table, because “You, Lord, are the center of our lives.”

These thoughts about Eucharist come not from today’s bishops, but from a letter to the Diocese that Bishop Matthew Clark wrote in 1996. He reminded us that “The Sunday celebration of the Eucharist is crucial to our understanding of our Christian identity…God’s people gather to hear the Word, to offer themselves with the gifts of bread and wine, to remember the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ and in so doing, to join themselves to Jesus Christ, the perfect offering. We gather at table and then go forth to live what has been said and done.”

Moreover, Bishop Clark said, “We are called to be alive to the reality that we are not just individuals standing before God, but rather a community of people brought together as the Body of Christ.”

Somehow, this eludes us and it will take work to draw us together again to savor and to treasure our common Table and recognize our need to be there.

We begin with ourselves. Are we there weekly or not? If we meditate on these thoughts from Bishop Clark and resolve to come and see, we might recall what a gift it is to be there – to be a home with other believers who are struggling with life’s complex issue even as we are.

Then we invite someone else to come. An invitation might be rejected, but try again or with someone else. Afterwards, together, name the blessings of the moment. (This is not the time to critique the homily, although you might want to do that at another time.) This is the time to taste, savor. Did you watch other people at prayer? Did the fragrance of candles, flowers and incense touch something in you? Did the power of the Holy Spirit stir something in you?

Come again to the Table for as Bishop Clark reminded us: “Sunday Eucharist is the core of our life. Nothing can equal it.”

~ Sister Joan Sobala