Pass It On

Dear Friends,

One of our parishioners at the church of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Brockport is a woman named Piera: willowy, an eye-catching dresser with a big smile, totally devoted to the Lord and her parish. Piera  is working through a protocol of chemotherapy  to get at the cancer that moved in without her notice. On a recent visit, as we sat in her living room, Piera’s thoughts and questions turned to…evangelization. I could hardly believe it! We could have gone anywhere in our conversation(faith, sickness, personal growth), but she had become absorbed in Pope Francis’ call for all of us to be evangelizers. What did that mean – to evangelize? And could she do it even now?

Evangelization probably doesn’t grip our minds in the same way, because it’s an unknown. Or if we know it at all, we push it off to the church professionals.

But evangelization means simply “Pass it on.” Pass on what we have “ come to believe”, as Peter  in the Gospel of John  (Chapter 6)  puts it. That’s  something you and I already do. Matthew Kelly, in his book, The Dynamic Catholic, says that every time we pass on to another person a book or article about some aspect of faith, we are doing evangelization. When we point someone in the direction of a Faith-filled website, or talk with someone about God’s Presence, recognized in a given moment, we do evangelization. Perhaps we will go beyond these small steps, but they are impotent steps with which to begin, and often, the people who need to hear and experience our words are none other than other Catholics who have lost interest or connection.  By virtue of our baptism, we are called upon to evangelize.

The word ”ministry” also comes to mind, as we talk about what we are called to by virtue of our baptism.  Here’s what a young theology student and writer named Jamie Manson has to say about ministry:

“Whenever in our work we honor the dignity of a human person with deep presence, we’re doing ministry. Any kind of work can be ministry in that way. What makes ministry particularly Catholic is when we do our work with a sacramental view of the world. In other words, we do it with an understanding that God can break through in any place, in all of creation…”

God breaks through- through us- as we offer our friend, neighbor, co-worker a fresh, unexpected glimpse of God.  We minister. We evangelize. We are God to the other.

Blessed week!

Joan Sobala, SSJ

Explore New Labels

Dear Friends,

I have been thinking, with some measure of irritation, about labels and glue. I mean the labels companies put on various products before they get to store shelves. Some people use these products without taking off the labels. In the attic, I recently found labels on package of Christmas accessories that are at least twenty years old. People also leave them on waste baskets, laundry baskets, cups, bottles. On and on. And then there’s the other side of the reality. The glue is often such that the labels don’t easily come off, especially when they labels have aged. Some need to soak in water, some require hefty doses of goo-gone.

What has any of this to do with living lives of faith? What labels do we wear, labels we haven’t taken off in years? What ideas, practices, beliefs, habits are glued to our everyday lives? And do we even know they are still in our personal world? What do we purchase, keep, hoard (maybe) or at least accumulate without testing its value against the call of Christ to study our own hearts and discern what is really of God? I was recently standing with a cousin who opened a closet door in his home to get something. Along the whole back wall, ceiling to floor, were stacks of audio tapes. Hundreds of them.  What internal glue keeps him hanging on to these things? Is his label ”collector?” Is it a label he treasures?

In a recent homily, Pope Francis encouraged his listeners with these words: “Let us prevent our hearts from becoming marketplaces. … vigilance is necessary,” he said. “The Christian is the man or woman who knows how to keep watch over his or her own heart. And many times, our heart with so many things that come and go, seem a local market:  everything ,  you can find everything there.. No!   We need to test things… this is from the Lord and this is not.”

So now that the cold of January is upon us, and the distractions of the Christmas season are past, let’s cast a look around our closets, attics, and shelves, as well as the closets, attics and shelves of our minds.

What do we need? What do we crave? What is sufficient? What enhances our vanity? What is of the Lord? What is not? What labels do I wish to carry into the still- new year? Will I dare to live simply so as to be one with the Lord? I join you in this exploration!

~Joan Sobala, SSJ

Greetings fellow- journeyers after the star, and Happy Epiphany!

All kinds of stories have been told about the Magi. The Christian centuries have passed on their names and homelands, something about their background and what happened after they left Bethlehem. There was even a story about a fourth Magi who got to Jesus only in time to see him hanging on the cross.

However charming or gripping these stories might be, they are stories. We know almost nothing about the personal lives of the Magi. Neither are these stories the substance of Epiphany. Read the story on your own (Matthew 2.1-12). Walk along with the Magi. Stand with them before Herod. Go with them to the house where Jesus can be found.

For now, we want to focus on what the magi symbolize for us in the human search for God. Like the Magi, we wonder where God is to be found in our life and in our world, as if it is up to us alone to find God.

We try to discover God’s purpose and make it our own. We puzzle over how best to use our gifts in helping the reign of God to happen fully. There may be long periods in our life when the directions are not clear – but like the Magi, we find companions with whom to share the journey –strangers or acquaintances, and sometimes friends, with whom we can talk about things that really matter. We, too, if we are wise, ask others for their insights and seek out spiritual guides to see us on our way.

We have our own epiphanies – times when we recognize the revelation of God in some ordinary or surprising moment. Sometimes, there are only the faintest signs, like a star against a night sky – but as TS Eliot reminds us

‘The hint half guessed,
the gift half understood
is Incarnation.”

If Epiphany is the feast of the human search for God, it is also the feast of finding God. Epiphany assures us that God can be found – wants to be found, wants to be revealed to us. God is always the end of our journey.

Epiphany is the feast of the impractical. Practical people don’t just drop everything and set out as the Magi did on a journey so lacking in clarity. But people with an openness to God do that.

Epiphany is the feast of the unexpected: God calling the Gentiles to be co-heirs with the Jews, as Paul says  in the second reading for the feast. Who would have thought it?
God is for everyone- Jew and Gentile, women and men, prisoners and the free, the young, the old, the embattled, the peaceful. God is for Pope Francis, for Syrians and South Sudanese, for infants and the dying, for you and me, for all we love and for all we don’t.

Go out the first night this week that the sky is clear and the stars are visible. Look up! And thank God for including us among the Magi.
~Joan Sobala, SSJ

As Another Year Comes To a Close..

Dear Friends,

Here’s a prayer I found and then edited. Edit it more, if you wish, and use it as 2013 slips away:

Gracious God, father and mother of us all,

We thank you for the year that’s behind us and the year that lies ahead.

Throughout the coming year, help us to fret less and laugh more. Let us take time to teach our children to laugh and love, by laughing and loving with them.

Help us to hear your love song in every sunrise, in the chirping of sparrows in our backyards, in the stories of our old folks and the fantasies of our children.

Thank you for new chances every day and second chances when we need them.

We pray for peace, light and hope for ourselves, and that we might spread these gifts to others.

Forgive us for falling short this year that is passing.

We leave the irreparable past in your hands,

and  step out into the unknown new year  knowing you will go with us.

We rejoice that Jesus the Word Incarnate is with us.

We promise to follow the star.

We embrace the cross and the Risen One.

May You Spirit be welcome in our world of violence and greed.

In the year about to unfold, may we know when to say  Yes! No! Welcome! Enough!

Amen!  Amen!

Christmas Spirit

One of the characters in Joyce Carol Oates' work Heat was talking about an importnat historical moment: "I wasn't there,but some things you know"

It's true, isn't it?
We know in some mysterious way the import of Christ's coming
We weren't there.
But we are here.
And Christ is here.
In war ravaged Syria and with the homeless in shelters around our country.
Christ is here.
And Christmas continues to come
In the face of hatred and warring-
no atrocity too terrible to stop it,
no Herod strong enough,
no hurt deep enough,
no curse shocking enough,
no disaster shattering enough.
For someone on earth will see the star,
someone will hear the angel voices,
someone will run to Bethlehem,
someone will know peace and goodwill:
the Christ will be born!

someone will hear the angels

Hum A Happy Song to the Lord

Dear Friends,

Some spiritual writers have a honed ability to sum up the “big” aspects of faith in small packages. In two short paragraphs, the Latin American theologian Gustavo Gutierrez helps us to understand the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke in terms of the adult dynamic of growth, change and suffering.

Matthew tells of Joseph magnanimously agreeing to divorce Mary
 in private rather than to press

Mary Visiting Elizabeth

charges, until an angel shows up to correct his perception of betrayal. Luke tells of a tremulous Mary hurrying off to the one person who could understand what she was going through: her relative Elizabeth, who miraculously got pregnant in old age after another angelic annunciation. Elizabeth believes Mary and shares her joy, and yet the scene poignantly highlights the contrast between the two women: the whole countryside is talking about Elizabeth’s healed womb even as Mary must hide the shame of her own.

Over the centuries, we’ve sanitized the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. Gutierrez continues,

We observe a mellow domesticated holiday purged of any hint of scandal. Above all, we purge from it any reminder of how the story that began at Bethlehem turned out at Calvary.

In the birth stories of Luke and Matthew, only one person seems to grasp the mysterious nature of what God has set in motion: the old man Simeon, who recognized the baby as the Messiah, instinctively understood that conflict would surely follow. "This is the child destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against…” he said, and then made the prediction that a sword would pierce Mary’s own soul. Somehow, Simeon sensed that though on the surface little had changed – the autocrat Herod still ruled, Roman troops were still stringing up patriots, Jerusalem had still overflowed with beggars – underneath, everything had changed. A new force had arrived to undermine the world’s powers.

If you haven’t done so already, read the Infancy Narratives this year as speaking directly to adults trying to take the Holy One seriously in our lives which are entangled in cultural perceptions and values Which diminish the their meaning.

Hum a carol as you continue Advent,
~Joan Sobala, SSJ  

A Christmas Gift for Your Spirit

Dear Friends,

Are you steadfast? That’s a word we don’t use in today’s parlance, but it’s worth including.

Steadfastness means that we keep on keeping on. Sometimes, the word “patience” is used in place of steadfastness. The problem is that “patience” has overtones of “putting up with.”

When my high school friend, George, was voted the most patient in our class, he didn’t like it one bit. Patience is just not as rich a word as steadfastness. One ingredient in being steadfast is the capacity to work at seemingly impossible things. Isaiah offers us an array of surprising and impossible images: the wolf lying down with the lamb, the baby playing in the cobra’s den. Impossible! Get real! Everyone knows that a lamb in a wolf’s lair is lunch.

The steadfast are ready to live through seemingly impossible things. The steadfast also hang on when it is tempting to let go, walk away, cave  in. I think of hospice workers who tenaciously serve the dying who have no personal or familial claim, or government professionals who work behind the scenes preparing the way for peace accords and breakthroughs.

John the Baptist is certainly an example of steadfast love. His vision of God’s reign led him to preach and act with conviction. He would not be dissuaded, even though his words led to his death.

Being steadfast is no easy thing. Some days, we have no vision to draw on – only a glimpse, if that. In fact, some days all the steadfast person can do is to put one foot in front of another. We may think they don’t, but the steadfast need encouragement. On the day after Thanksgiving, the steadfast women and men camped on the National Mall in Washington calling for immigration reform. That day, they received encouragement from Michelle and Barack Obama, who came to sit with them, to  listen, and to talk. The president said to them: “Don’t ruin your health.” The fasting men and women then passed on the call to fast a day at a time to supporters.

There are many ways to be steadfast. Not every life situation requires us to be steadfast. It is not virtue to stay in an abusive relationship. Cut loose, for the sake of life.

You and I are not born steadfast. We become steadfast through practice. We learn the meaning of steadfastness from others, figures like Mary, Joseph, and John the Baptist. Choose steadfastness among other Christmas gifts for your spirit. Priceless!

~Joan Sobala, SSJ