In my daily life, let there be light.

Dear Friends,

                Did you ever go to switch on a light in a dark room, only to find that the bulb was out, or worse that a household member has stolen the bulb in question to use in another room? With incandescent bulbs, the problem was more frequent, but stealing LEDs for another room is still irritating.

You and I live in the household of God’s family. The first biblical word our God has ever said to us is

Let there be light. (Genesis 1.3  )

                To live in darkness is not what God desires for us. We are called to live in the light. Daylight. Sunlight.  Moonlight.   Artificial light. Light from without. Light from within.

                What illumination has God given us (gifts or light bulbs, if you will ) has God given us to help us in our movements  as we  inch along  or leap toward fully human lives.

v  the gift of consciousness. Sometimes we blunder through a day without even being aware of what is happening. Be present to the day, the moment. Save daydreams for another time. Be aware.

v  the gift of openhandedness. Open hands give away or receive, don’t clutch and are sometimes empty.

v  the gift of singleheartedness. The opposite of singleheartedness is dupliciousness, speaking with a forked tongue, lacking in integrity.  Jesus was singlehearted.  He looked for a  kernel  or well-grown singleheartedness in the people he called. Think of Nathaniel,  a man in whom Jesus saw is no guile.( John 1.47 )

v  the gift of being able to initiate.  Conversartions, relationships, work, To initiate is to invite into oneself, to enter into.

v  the gift of responsiveness. To respond, not ignore. To respond  requires that the other initiates. The back and forth of human interaction requires that we respond. First responders is a term coined in our day, but history is full of first responders. Jesus was the first responder above and beyond all others.

v  the gift of staying power. I can’t. “I won’t”  gives way to “I think I can.” “I think I can” gives way to “I want to . I will.” To what in our daily lives do we make these responses?

                Using these gifts, we can develop life giving patterns, Habits of the Heart, as Steve Covey puts it. But also habits of the mind, spirit, and body.  Habits can become rote. That’s not God’s gift. Repetition becomes life giving when it continues to be conscious, wholehearted and singlehearted. Here’s an  example of a life giving habit: Yesterday I found inside of me a prayer of praise for our God. Is it there today. Can I repeat it with my heart? Build on it?                                       In my daily life, let there be light.

Supporting Family Life

Dear Friends,

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing photos of Pope Francis holding a child’s hand as they walk along together. That’s only one of many images of Francis that crowd our computer screens and magazines. 

People claim a kinship with Pope Francis, calling him Papa Bergoglio, at times. Last August, at a meeting of African theologians at the Hekima Institute for Peace Studies, and International Relations in Nairobi, Kenya, Papa Bergoglio and the wealth of his message to the world caused one participant to exclaim: “We have our first African Pope.” Of course, he isn’t, but then he is, for Pope Francis belongs to every continent and family. People sense it, and are grateful for this surprising  gift of God to our world.

Recently, Pope Francis presided at the marriage of 20 couples at Saint Peter’s – not necessarily couples who lived by the norms of the church for marrying in the church. Papa Bergoglio  sent a message to the world. God loves everyone and the Church is for all its members.  These marriages at Saint Peter’s were certainly a celebration in themselves, but they were also prelude to the Extraordinary Synod on the Family that will take place in October. Watch for it in the news. 

Meanwhile, we need to do our share in supporting family life.

In speaking to the world and acting on behalf of people’s growth in love with God, Papa Bergoglio is also speaking to us in our very homes, where we share life, rest, meals, good times and bad. He says to us:

Let everyone be themselves. Live and let live.
Give yourself tirelessly to others. If one gets tired, one runs the risk of being egoistic.
Walk softly. … Move with kindness and humility, calmness of life.
Be available to your kids and family. Consumerism .. has pushed people to spend less time at home and more time pursuing wealth.
Spend Sundays (or a day of rest) with family. Make the intention to set time aside for loved ones, despite the pressure of work.
Work toward empowering young people.
Care for the environment.
Move on. Find ways to more quickly move forward after negative experiences. Forgiveness is key for this, as is having the willingness to let the next moment be better than the last.
Respect others’ opinions.
          

These are all so simple to say, but require daily motivation to do. You and I together can help shape the world in harmony with Pope Francis and committed people in our day if we join him in these challenges.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Waves of Life

 Dear Friends, I write this week’s blog from Mercy Center at Madison, CT, where I am spending a week’s retreat. ( Mercy Center is a warm, welcoming place, if you are keeping a bucket list.) The room where I am writing overlooks Long Island Sound, and not too far offshore is a cluster of small islands – actually more like oversized boulders. Every day, every six hours or so, I watch them give way to the incoming tide, only to reappear in due time.

What in our life is like these islands? What gets submerged in us, only to resurface later?

A whole eco-system of interior feelings, self understandings, hopes and aspirations are buffeted by the waves of life and become so submerged in us that we wonder if we had misunderstood ourselves, and we are not really the way we think we were. What submerges these tender parts of us? The unkind word, the scornful laugh., failure in some sort of test, self doubt, the challenge of the culture, the negatively critical attitude  that we cultivate in in ourselves, sometimes inadvertantly? All of these, and more.

The danger in us, unlike these off shore sturdy islands, is that the good, the true, the holy can stay submerged in us. But the good, true and holy in us are like these islands which are embedded, and while they are worn away over the centuries, they are here now and in the foreseeable future. That ought to give us heart.

As the islands are embedded in the deep recesses beneath the water, we are embedded in God. When we are threatened by forces within ourselves or from the outside  to disown, disclaim, dismiss these life-inspiring qualities in us, our culture bids us to seek help from one of the many good professionals in the psycho/social  fields. That’s a good idea. Do it, if you need to. But before you do, start in another place.

Make room in your life for being with God in the great outdoors, with its many lessons of endurance, acceptance, growth, multiplication and just plain being.

Young Anne Frank wrote in her much read diary: “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauties of nature.”

God, our shelter in a storm, our foundation is there. Here too, of course, but there in intimate, surprising ways We deny ourselves healing and deepening when we are too busy to go to these not-so-secret places where God awaits us, eager for our company.

The Cross: One Symbol With Many Different Meanings

Dear Friends,

Do you have a cross in your house?   Is it somewhere prominent, for you and all to see? Do your children and grandchildren know the true meaning of the cross in the scheme of life? When you are miserable with pain or grief, do you ever hold the cross in your hands? Kiss it?

Next Sunday, our Church celebrates the Triumph of the Cross. The only other time during the year that the cross is highlighted is Good  Friday, when it is solemnly carried through the church during the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion and the cantor sings:

Behold! Behold! The wood of the cross, on which is hung our salvation.

And the congregation responds:

O, Come let us adore.

To be sure, the cross is one of the most universally recognized religious symbols. At the same time, the cross is one of the most widely misunderstood of all symbols. On the one hand, some groups in society have adopted the cross as part of the shock jewelry they wear. For others, the cross is an instrument of execution. Sometimes, it makes people squirm. It might make us squirm, too. Maybe we would rather skip Good Friday and the cross altogether.  

For Christians who try to deepen and embrace faith in Jesus the Word made flesh, the cross is more than a symbol of execution. It is a symbol of redemption. The triumph of the cross is the triumph of love over hate, the triumph of faith over cynicism, the triumph of life over death.

Christians do a risky thing when we see this death of Jesus on the cross as an act of liberation, of deliverance, of conquest over the forces of bondage and death. Christians believe against all evidence that death is not the final word. Yet the cross reminds us suffering  and  death  were necessary to Jesus if Christ’s resurrection and our faith are to have any meaning.

The cross reminds us that God’s love does not protect us from all suffering. Rather, God’s love is a shelter in all suffering. In Syria, Iraq, the Ukraine, the Ebola ridden countries of Africa, maybe in our own neighborhood – wherever there is darkness, futility and meaninglessness, the God of the lost reaches out from the cross, inviting suffering people to dare to hope.  These women and men, boys and girls, who have no apparent advocates, are, in fact, sustained by God.

 If the purpose of Jesus’ life is to demonstrate God’s unconditional love for us, is there a more dramatic way than the cross?

Refining and Redefining Our World

Dear Friends,

Last Saturday, Our Sister Anita Kurowski made her final profession, and what a glorious, joyful occasion it was. Thank God for moments of hope and conviction like this. We need it as we find the world around us vastly disturbed by events in Iraq, Syria, the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate, Ferguson, the Ukraine, and with the immigration issues needing attention and resolution. We are disturbed, too. Where are human rights and respect for one another? Where is the recognition that our world is held in the loving embrace of God and that we are at our best when we live as though that embrace matters?

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief, instructs the central text of Rabbinic Judaism called the Talmud.

Do justice now.

Love mercy now.

Walk humbly now.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

But neither are you free to abandon it.

The writings that eventually became organized into the Talmud about 200CE were well known to Jesus and, indeed, to Hebrews long before Jesus. They were key parts of the oral tradition that the Hebrews put into practice as best they could. We find a similarly worded call in Micah 6.8. Justice, humility and mercy were woven into the actions, teachings and spirit of Jesus

Perhaps a practice for this new month might be to read the Gospel, looking at how these three specific characteristics are exemplified on every page: What does the Gospel tell us about justice, mercy and humility?  How are they manifest and unquestionable in Jesus? What do other Gospel figures tell us, pro or con, about these virtues?

What must you and I  be and do, in our time and place, so that justice, mercy and humility refine and  redefine our world today? Do not abandon the work!
~Sister Joan Sobala

PS. Fresh Wind in Our Sails, the spirituality program of the Sisters of Saint Joseph is starting a new season.  Here are upcoming programs for Sept at the SSJ Motherhouse:

Tuesday, Sept. 16    10 – 11.30 am    How to Deepen Your Gifts for Mission Sr. Mary Lou Heffernan

Wednesday, Sept. 24   7 – 8.30 pm   Encouraging the New Immigrants Among Us

                            With Isabel Miller of Saints’ Place and Kathy La Bue of Mary’s Place

Consciousness of Labor

Dear Friends,

If I wait until next week, Labor Day will be over and we will not have talked about it.

So let’s bring it up in our consciousness this week, not as the official end of the summer season in upstate  New York, but for what it was in its origin more that 110 years ago. It came out of the struggle of working people to be treated with respect and dignity. If we are at all aware of the stories that make up global news, the struggle of workers is a work in progress.

I remember as a child, watching as my father participated in one particularly significant strike. Dad was a steelworker at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna. He and his coworkers plugged along through World War II in less than satisfactory conditions. That was part of the American sacrifice that was made during those profoundly cohesive years. But after the war, they would take no more. The struggle for justice that took up most of the winter of 1945-46 was long-remembered in Lackawanna, but it paid off in the health, safety and security benefits won by the workers. The labor union had been at its best in those years.

Since then, labor has struggled all over our country and world so that people might live  with adequate wages and benefits. : farm workers, mine-workers, teachers in our land, the shipyard workers of Poland, the sweatshops of Asia.

Today, hold these people close:

·         Workers who face dangerous conditions or hazards without sufficient protection

·         All who face the conflicts of working and caring for children without adequate support

·         Workers who cannot find work and for whom unemployment assistance is unavailable

·         Women and children caught up in the sex trade

·         Workers displaced by technical change or global pressure to relocate jobs

·         Children whose childhood is cut short because they are forced to work

·         All who face discrimination in getting work or in the workplace itself because of  race, gender, sexual orientation, or physical disabilities

·         Workers whose work is taken for granted, is unappreciated or lacks meaning.

Hold them close and pray to the son of the Carpenter of Nazareth to remind all workers

( those named above, you and me, nameless others) that God  values human labor as sacred – a reflection of the very work that God does.  Through work, we bring light, beauty and renewal to our world.

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