Respect the Waters.

Dear Friends ,

How seldom we think about water, much less bless it.

Humanity can’t live without it, nor can animals or plants. Water is needed before food. The Yezidi driven to escape to the Sinjar Mountains in northern Iraq gave eloquent testimony to that fact. Think of the drought in Southern California. And don’t forget ”My water broke!”

In 1998, he mayor of Bethlehem told a group of travelers of whom I was part that if there were to be World War III, it would be fought over water. Precious  water.

Recently, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio, couldn’t rely on their ordinary source of water from Lake Erie. It had been contaminated with algae blooms.

At the same time, water can destroy property. Consider Hurricane Sandy.
Every now and again, brilliant engineers try to reroute rivers. Silly  people. Eventually, rivers go back to where they were and need to be.

For years, the great Columbia River was smoothed of its rapids to the detriment of fish and animals that depended on them.. Reversal is happening. In parts of the Netherlands, the sea is being allowed to reclaim land that had been taken from it though people’s need and desire.

At a personal level, I can tell you that when I swim in Canandaigua Lake, instinctively I see it as my being held up in the waves of life by God. God is the lake.

On the second day of creation, God made the waters. After that, there are some 870 references to water in the Scriptures – positive references, such as “I will pour our water on the thirsty” (Is.44.3), and “the river of God is full of water” (Ps.65.9) and negative references, such as to the waters that devastated the land at the time of Noah (Gen.7.6 ff.) and  when as a guest at table, Jesus told his host “You gave me no water to wash my feet.” (Mark 9.41)

Today in our minds and daily usage, let us respect the waters. Respect water.

Let us bless the humility of water,                      Water: vehicle and idiom

Always willing to take the shape                         Of all the inner voyaging

Of whatever otherness holds it…                         That keeps us alive.

Water : voice of grief,
Cry of love,                                                           Blessed be water,

In the flowering tear.                                           Our first mother.

                                                                                                            excerpt from To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue

The Assumption of Mary

Dear Friends,

On August 15th, our Church celebrates the Assumption of  Mary .

The date, the feast, the meaning of it can escape us very easily. What does that have to do with my life in this world or my life of faith, for that matter?

More than we think. Here are some pieces of information and affirmation to use in making the feast one to celebrate and treasure.

Fact: The Assumption of Mary was declared a dogma of the Church in 1950. Something new in the Church’s teaching? Not really. From the earliest centuries, believers held that Mary’s body was not to be found buried in the earth, but that her body and soul had been taken up. Just as Jesus is the first fruit of the Resurrection, Mary is the first human person to be in that tradition.  A church was dedicated to the Assumption of Mary in Jerusalem in the 4^th century. The feast was observed in Rome by the end of the 7^th century . The post-Resurrection home of Mary in in Ephesus is still a place of pilgrimage today.

People have played with the meaning of Mary’s Assumption in all sorts of ways – playing to release its profound  meaning  for us in ways that can penetrate our obtuse limits.

For example, among our in-words today is “closure”. We put closure on our conversations, conferences, business dealings, and sometimes on our relationships. The opposite of closure is “without end.” Few things in life are without end. We say “I will love you forever (beyond death.) We pray to one God, world without end. It is the belief of the faith community that Mary is the first example of a human being who goes on without end… not in human memory alone but her very life, her very body, her spirit. There is no closure in the life of Mary.

When the Assumption of Mary was proclaimed a tenet of faith, the psychiatrist Carl Jung was delighted. Jung saw in this feast the Church’s belief that our bodies are part of our redeemed whole. Once in a while, it is good to remind ourselves that are human bodies are good and are redeemed even as our souls and spirits are redeemed : the bodies of our family members, babies, loved ones, wrinkled bodies that are given character through length of days, women’s bodies, men’s bodies, bodies that don’t seem to work very well, young and energetic bodies. They are all good and worthy of honor.

Contrast this way of thinking and living with the dishonor  we see in our contemporary world: carnage, pornography, sex slavery , the abuse of women and children. All of these and more tell us that human bodies are throwaways- worthless, “collateral damage,” for my use and abuse, a sales come-on. People the world over could turn this feast into an affirmation of the body’s goodness and to try making that a lasting, absorbing worldview.  

We Can Be The Light... The Hope, That Someone Needs.

Dear Friends,

Today, I want to think about the Transfiguration of Jesus with you. The liturgical feast of the Transfiguration is this Wednesday, August 6^th  (Matthew 17.1-9). Certain words come to mind when thinking of this significant event told in the Synoptic Gospels: radiance, awe in the apostles, the connectedness with Elijah and Moses, towering figures in the Hebrew tradition.. Jesus and his disciples were headed for Jerusalem, when they paused  at Mt Tabor. There Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John. In Jerusalem, dire experiences would happen, including the passion and death of Jesus. Before the Resurrection, Jesus and his followers would need the strength of the Transfiguration to steady  themselves.

The experience of transfiguration is not just for Jesus, it is for us. We are called upon to witness to the transfiguration of Jesus, but also to witness to transfiguration in human life  and to help it happen, however we can.:

to be the radiance of Christ for others

            to be the voice of the Father of Jesus for others, saying to them “You are  my

                                               beloved.”

The antithesis of transfiguration is disfiguration, and so we come to August 6^th, 1945, when an atomic bomb was dropped from the belly of the US airplane, Enola Gay, over the city of Hiroshima.

On that day, transfiguration gave way to disfiguration: devastation, death, horror,

disbelief. The face of God was scarred beyond imagination.  God’s beloved, the innocent ones were unrecognizable in the aftermath .  Its horror was underscored with death- dealing emphasis on August 9, when Nagasaki was bombed with an even stronger atomic bomb.

Today, we see the disfigurement caused in newborns whose mothers were on drugs, the distended bloated bodies of the starving in impoverished parts of the world, the wounded in war-zones, our own veterans.

People of good will do not inflict diabolical evil on others. But unless we are alert and God-centered, we can and do disfigure others  by our blindness to the radiance of Christ in them. On the other hand, we can use the power for good that we have. We can encourage people whose faces are disfigured by boredom, horrendous life experiences or masked with indifference. We can bring a glow of dignity to those who have been humiliated. We can speak words of hope and bring a realization of true worth to those whose faces reflect a belief in their own unimportance.

Transfiguration is a human venture today as well as the divine experience of Jesus in distant  Galilee over two thousand years ago. “Be attentive to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” (2 Peter 1.19)

Create Your Creed

Dear Friends,

Each weekend at Mass, Roman Catholics recite the Creed – either the more ancient Apostles’ Creed or the fourth century Nicene Creed. These are among the proclamations Christians hold dear, because they contain the basic elements of our faith.

In the years that I was teaching, or when groups have gotten together for a retreat, I have  asked  participants to write their own creed, not to supplant but to supplement the historic creeds. I’ve done this myself, producing a half dozen versions of a creed, as I’ve grown in consciousness of who God is, who we are and how human consciousness is expanding. Here’s one example. Take some time to write your own this summer. It need not contain every aspect of faith, but only those which are stirring in you at the moment. If you want to be even more daring, share it with someone.

                                    I believe God, Imaginative  Creator .

I believe Jesus, our Brother and Saviour.

                                    I believe the Spirit, moving over the chaos.

           

                                    They are the One that, with us, makes life here

congruent with life hereafter.

                                    I believe that a tool of this congruence is the church,           

                                                called to welcome the stranger,

                                                offer the sacraments.

                                                practice compassion

                                                and do justice,

                                    While on its way to becoming obsolete,

                                    Overtaken by the Kindom of God,

                                                replete with harmony,

                                                with every shadow gone

                                    And life lived in mutual embrace with a tender God.

                                    Amen.

Rejection calls to everyone, but only some, choose to answer.

Dear Friends,

Rejection, itself, is well-known  to human beings. Everyone experiences it in some measure.

Some of the rejections of our everyday lives are  insignificant, a bit a humorous but nonetheless annoying.

I remember once trying to give blood. I fainted in the process. The Red Cross worker told me I was nice to offer but need not bother again. Rejection is, at least, deflating.

Some rejections are harder to take:

·         Rejection  in love because there’s no mutuality

·         Rejection by potential schools or employers that dash our career hopes

·         Rejection from receiving communion during the sessions of  Vatican II, as experienced by the women observers present.

We could multiply examples endlessly from various perspectives.

Here’s the point to hang on to when we experience rejection: it is not an absolute.

Rather, it can become the beginning of a transformation.

Jesus was rejected by that portion of his people who had an addiction for the way things were. They placed Law over Love, questioned the mercy and love Jesus showed others, chose Barabbas over Jesus when both stood before Pilate. Yet the rejection of Jesus by the naysayers among His people was not the last word. Jesus was raised up. Rejection and death gave way to transformation and life.

The followers of Jesus – including you and me – are gifted with these same possibility:

Rejection -> Transformation - > New life.

Pope Francis  calls for “a more incisive female presence in the church,” and in The Joy of the Gospel, says  this about himself: “How I long to find the right words to stir up enthusiasm  for a new chapter of evangelization full of fervor, joy, generosity, courage, boundless love and attraction!  (n.261) ” I’m with him.  So are the women of the Church, given the chance. So much to do, and we are willing. Yet, some Catholic women in our times experience the Church as a home where we are not quite at home. Our gifts and very call to serve the faith community with a fullness of ministry are rejected and denied. Shall we stay or shall we go? My own hope is that we stay and continue to defy the unequivocal no from various parts of the Church as if it comes from Jesus. No is yesterday’s word, grounded in yesterday’s  culture. expectations  and lifestyle. “Come and see” is of Jesus. I invite our whole Church to  reject any claims that limit the potential given by God  to women as well as men  and, instead,  be  transformed into a new people of God, where, finally,” there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,  male nor female but all are one in Christ. (Galatians 3.27-28)”

Shake The Dust From Your Sandals

Dear Friends,

As you schlep around in your sandals this summer, consider Moses. He was upwardly mobile in the court of the Pharaoh, when his sense of justice and the connections of his Hebrew heart were challenged. Moses came upon an Egyptian striking a Hebrew. Moses slew the Egyptian and then, realizing his deed had dire consequences, fled into the desert.

Before long, Moses found himself in another fight, this time on behalf of seven young women set upon by thugs as the women drew water from a well. In gratitude, the father of the seven gave his daughter, Zipporah, to Moses as wife.

Finally, all seemed peaceful and normal, as Moses, wearing his sturdy sandals, tended

His father-in-law’s flocks in the fields. There, Moses came upon a burning bush which was

not consumed as it burned. Vastly curious, Moses came closer. Then a voice spoke to him from

the bush:

           

             “Moses! Moses!” God called out.

            “Here I am,” Moses replied.

            “Take off your sandals,” God said, “for the place you are standing is holy ground.”

We – you and I- are like Moses, moved to justice, unaware that God walks with us in the flow of our lives,  sometimes  powerfully confronted by God’s presence, yet unaware the bush is burning with meaning for us. God says to us as God said to Moses “Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”

Sandals – or shoes if you will- insulate us. They remove our feet from touching the ground. Surely, they protect our feet from cold, heat and dangerous objects – but sometimes, as in this story, they keep us separated from ground which can only be experienced as holy when our feet touches it .

Each of us is Moses. Make no mistake about it. The burning bush appears in our daily lives. Sometimes the holy ground is being in the presence of the dying or recognizing the holy in a stranger or friend. The Scriptures are Holy Ground, the Eucharistic meal is too. And more. You name the places and ways.

At other times in Scripture, we are encouraged to keep our sandals on. When the disciples  were sent out for the first time to preach and teach, Jesus knew they would not be accepted everywhere. He cautioned them “If any place does not welcome you, walk away and shake the dust from your sandals.” (Mk.6.12)

What is the dust that clings to our sandals? Certain ideas about God that render God unloving, distant, uncaring? The criticisms people level against us that make us stumble? The sheer weight of the stuff we carry with us because it’s ours and we don’t know when we’ll need it again?

As summer continues, our sandals become well-worn from daily use. Look at them. Hold them in your hands. Think about where you have worn them. Have they taken you to the burning bush? Have you had to leave some mental, emotional or physical places without being welcomed? Did you try to be God’s word there? Did you shake the dust from your sandals?

Are you ready to go on?

Sharing Our Declaration of Independence

Dear Friends,

Last weekend, at several Fourth of July gatherings, I invited the guests to tell us all what country their ancestors came from and approximately when. They happened to be largely from Europe. Only one had native American roots, but we were almost all of immigrant stock. At one of those gatherings, an Italian-born man with a lilting accent stood up .He had become a US citizen in 2004.  Each year, since then, on July 4, he has read aloud the Declaration of Independence. At our celebration, he recounted the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of in 1776. The silence was profound as we listened to him   read excerpts from the document. 

Someone had to make room for our ancestors, welcome them, give them clothes and shoes, if only hand-me-downs.  Sometimes breadwinners came, who then earned enough to send for the rest of the family. Cousins and folks who had come from the same towns back home helped, too. A leg up. Whole families came.

For the last few weeks, our newscasts and newspapers have been full of stories about immigrant children who fled, largely alone from Central America. A few adults came with them. Some children told how they had been marked for death by gangs. Survival meant to flee to the north, across Mexico, which also had its share of dangerous gangs.

The scenes are stunning. Bravery, trust in God and the clothes in their backs  was all some of them had.

Hear Jesus and take his words to heart.

                “Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples               rebuked them, but Jesus said, “ Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the    kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”     (Matthew 19.13-14)

Courage will be required of us if we are to speak publicly about welcoming today’s immigrants, most especially the children.  Carry the word to your neighbors, families and friends, as well as to the officials whom we have elected to serve the common good. Our God and our church encourage us: Do not be afraid.