Be Merciful

Dear Friends,

First and foremost, it is God who offers the world mercy. God does so, because it is in the very nature of God to be merciful. God can do nothing else but be merciful. You and I, in imitation of God, are called to develop mercy as a way of being, thinking and acting in our everyday lives.

It takes effort and courage to follow God’s example offering  mercy, not judgement, not condemnation,  to others, who have fallen in some way, or whom the Law says have fallen or whom we think have fallen. Mercy is not what comes to mind when faced with people who are not law-abiding, or who don’t belong. We figuratively cross the street like the priest and the Levite, leaving the injured man by the wayside. But the Good Samaritan was merciful to the injured man, and the world continues to find his generosity of spirit worthy of imitation, though very hard to do. Mercy leaves no one behind.

German-born Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of the more vocal members of the Extraordinary Council on the Family, spoke at Catholic University of America last year. He included these thoughts on mercy:

“Correctly understood, mercy is not a yielding pastoral weakness nor is it a softening agent eroding God’s dogmas and commandments. Mercy is itself a revealed truth and can for that reason alone not be played out against the truth. It does not abolish justice, but outdoes justice. Justice is the minimum of mercy we owe to one another; mercy is the maximum of justice of what I as a Christian can do for another human being who needs me. It is more than pity; it becomes concrete in active engagement for others… With mercy as the key word of the pontificate [of Pope Francis,] the question of the Church too is redefined. When Jesus says we are to be merciful like our father in heaven (Luke 6.36) that applies not only to the individual faithful but also to the Church as the communion of believers.”

As the Synod on the Family moves through various stages of preparation for the October 2015 meeting, watch for the ways in which hierarchy, theologians and the People of God struggle to be merciful with the alienated, the hurting, the distant, the left out. It isn’t easy. Of the 62 issues discussed during the Extraordinary  Synod last year, only three did not have two-thirds support: divorce and remarriage, cohabitation and homosexuality. These are all against Church Law - thorny issues that defy easy solutions. Yet Pope Francis, during a Lenten  Penance Service at St. Peter’s  last March, reminds everyone that ”No one can be excluded for God’s mercy.”

It’s frankly around these three issues that families can be divided, and family members judged. Both Church and families need to be pastoral in their approach to people whose lives and goodwill have taken them in directions traditionally unsupported by these institutions (family and church) upon which they have depended.

I recently studied a letter from the Hindu father of a man who wishes to marry a Christian woman. The letter of the father was full of anguish and disbelief. He cannot forgive his son for his choice of a wife, for the father’s hurt is soul-deep. This issue of mercy is not just Christian. It pervades the human family. We must be soul mates with all people in our expression of compassion and mercy.

Pope Francis has designated 2016 as “The Jubilee Holy Year of Mercy.”  No one is excused from the work of becoming merciful. Be merciful, as your father in heaven is merciful.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Pamper Your Spiritual Self

Dear Friends,

The summertime lectionary readings offer us deep insights into Jesus’ interaction with people and a compelling set of characteristics of the true disciple of Christ. Pamper your spiritual self. See how this is true in the Gospel passages for the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th Sundays of  Ordinary Time (B Cycle, where we are right now.)

Together, these three readings give us a primer in discipleship, for if we, as Christians, are anything at all, we are disciples of Christ, who follow His generous, tender example. Baptism was our initiating moment into discipleship, but we choose, all our life, the discipleship to which we have been called.

Just as Jesus sent his disciples out (15^th Sunday), so, too, we can expect to be sent to our back door neighbor or to a new colleague at work, to a fellow parishioner or to someone who is sick, to people near and far, going with others or alone. Disciples are, by definition, on mission.

We can also expect to live without a great preoccupation for the world’s goods. Jesus tells his disciples to travel light. We are tempted not only to accumulate, but also to support by our purchases goods made by international companies that uphold racism and poverty.

The disciples in the Gospel took Jesus seriously as they went out to minister. When they came home (16^th Sunday) they were weary, full of stories, anxious to debrief with Jesus, and most of all, to rest.

For his part, Jesus knew that in the tempo of life and service, his followers needed to be restored. Neither the biblical disciples, nor we ourselves can go on endlessly.

Disciples who take God seriously can expect to rest.

Mark paints a chaotic picture of the scene as the disciples returned. “People were coming and going in great numbers, and the disciples had no opportunity even to eat.”(Mark 6.31) So Jesus and his followers went off in a boat to a private place. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But guess what? It didn’t last. The fourth thing a disciple can expect is to be pursued into the wilderness.

We’ve been to the wilderness. Not necessarily places that are physically forbidding, but the world around us, fraught with social and political destructiveness. Sometimes the wilderness is in ourselves- the places to which our inner journeys take us where we feel desolate, lonely, unloved or frightened.

There, in the wilderness, the disciples thought they could do no more. They were used up. But Jesus took over. He simply couldn’t resist acting in love. And so, Jesus did what His disciples could not (17^th Sunday). He fed the hungry in the wilderness until they had their fill and there were abundant leftovers. The fifth thing that disciples can expect is to participate in the imaginative generosity of God .

Here’s our checklist for discipleship: sent without pretention or hoarding, rested,  pursued into the wilderness, caught up in something more than we could ever imagine or be or do on our own. Dare it all.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Myths of Summer

Dear Friends,

One of the myths about summer is that it’s a time for relaxation, visiting friends and family, adventures to fill the mind and heart with newness. Summer, we like to think, is a microtime that packs into a few short months, the lifelong desire to be happy, to be content without being complacent. We want to enlarge our lives without arrogance, to see the incongruities of life and be able to laugh at them. But these things are not easily achieved. Moreover, they are not achieved by grasping them straight on. In order to live happy, contented, big lives, we need to learn how to suffer as well. Therein is the paradox.

In all of us, the initial impulse is to run away from suffering. In part, we’re right in that impulse. The fact is: we all suffer and we all suffer differently. What crushes one, hardly touches another.

Suffering doesn’t take a summer vacation and no matter the time of year, we don’t have to go shopping for suffering. It is something we all experience. It comes to us.  The American black population whose ancestors were slaves brought here to benefit their white slave owners, suffered from then until now. To prepare for an unknown work in an unformed future is to suffer. To feel  isolation, mental stress, misunderstanding  or misinterpretation  is to suffer. To be sick of mind, body or spirit is to suffer.  To live in a world of violence and destructiveness is to suffer. To reach out to someone and find them absent is to suffer. To experience death, untimely or not, or illness that saps life, is to suffer.

 I had a friend, now deceased at an early age, who once told me: “I live my life as a tragedy.” I could not find anything redeeming about this viewpoint.  She chose to interpret her life that way. It paved the way to her death. When we take on the world, messiah like and we are overwhelmed, we suffer. The person who weeps at the casket of a family member, whom they have neglected for years, suffers, but it’s too late then.  Self- chosen suffering is self- centered.

The soundest attitude toward suffering is evidenced in Jesus, who alleviated suffering wherever he found it and accepted suffering when it was the only way to go forward. Nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus say “Live with your suffering.”

     

            The Gospel reminds us in straightforward  ways and in stories that we cannot be happy, content – our  world  cannot be happy- unless we allow ourselves to be pruned, chipped away at,  rubbed  against,  resized.  Happiness is not the goal of life, although many think so. Life to the full is the goal, but the way to fullness of life is not easy. 

                

       All that we can say of human suffering can be said of the suffering of Jesus. So when we are put upon, when our world knows the ravages of the demonic, turn to Jesus as he is in the Gospel, and as He reaches out to us all . That is not trite, though people may think so. To know Him deeply, to follow His way puts human suffering in perspective. It is an insightful  human step on our way to the reign of God  when we realize that the paradox of suffering is in the air we breathe.  

            ~Sister Joan Sobala

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What Do We Do About the "Nones?"

Dear Friends,

I’ve been waiting for this to happen and a few weeks ago, it did. 

Self-identifying Catholics in the USA have slipped from second to third most numerous religious group in our country, with Evangelical Christians first.  In second place now are the “Nones”.  It’s not that the Nones have come exclusively or predominantly from the Catholic Church, but a good number have.

I was with some of them over the last few weeks, during hospital visits and anniversary celebrations. These good young people were the children of practicing- I would go so far as to say ardent Catholics – men and women who are not Catholic because they were raised that way, but Catholics because they found the person and message of Christ compelling for them. They have found companionship in ministry and friendship in the faith community. Theirs is a commitment to Christ through the community of believers that we call the Catholic Church. Their faith and practice has affected their lives deeply. But their children have made other choices, among them to be “None.”

These are not the only Nones I have met over the years, nor are all the Nones young people.

Some became Nones because they simply drifted away and found no cause to come back. Others had a demeaning , ugly, inappropriate experience once in the person of a church worker. That experience, coupled with unprocessed doubt, was enough to take them away. Some Nones arrive at that position because they went searching and found that no religion was satisfying in the way that being spiritual but uncommitted did. Beyond these reasons are a plethora more.

Do practicing Catholics just let Nones with Catholic roots be, in the hope that the doors between them and us stay open? Do we lecture or proselytize? Do we express disappointment or anger? What?

How about staying the course in faithfulness and love of God and them, and wait for God to provide an opening? How about encouraging them to take a deeper look into their Catholic heritage before  throwing it away definitively , since so much of what we internalized as children and youth doesn’t fit our adult minds, hearts and spirits. What if God never provides the opening we seek? With all due respect, that’s up to God and the None. We might not be needed, strange as that  might seem.

And for those who are on the brink of becoming Nones, here is an excerpt from an article Hans Kung wrote in America (March 20, 1971 )at a time when this priest scholar was a center of controversy. Eventually he would be stripped of the title “Roman Catholic Theologian”. He has remained active in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue and has continued to be an important unofficial voice in the Church.

                “Why am I staying Catholic?” Kung writes.” Because in critical loyalty, there is so much in this community and its history that I can affirm, so much in this community from which I can draw life. I am staying in the Church because, along with the other members of this community of faith, we are the Church…I am staying in the Church because, with all the strong objections against it, here I am at home.” 

~Sister Joan Sobala

Enhancing and Honoring Our Freedom

Dear Friends,

The work of launching  American Independence 239 years ago was personally costly. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, five were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned, two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed their names and they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. It was serious business.

Is it as serious for us? The early patriots set the stage for the life we now live.  What are we willing to do to enhance that freedom that was so dearly earned? We are still fighting battles, but now, as in intervening years, the battles are largely not mounted from domination by foreign powers. They come from within, from fellow Americans who would deny freedom, opportunity, a future full of hope to certain members of our society. 

The most recent national  tragedy at Mother Emmanuel  Church in Charleston speaks volumes for what is lacking and needed in our life together. We hope for a breakthrough, but the work, the national conversation, is ours. Each of us has a piece to offer the creation of a new American future. What is it?

Over the holiday we enjoy so much,

• make time to search out a personal way  to combat continuing  prejudice, bias, hatred and discrimination.
• ask how you and all of us can pursue the values of justice and peace and how we can work with other families, business and government to overcome poverty and injustice?
• summon up the will to say no to indiscriminate violence or violence to settle apparent disputes?

The quest to diminish evil and to promote the good is no mere human enterprise.  You knew I’d come to that. It’s true. That’s why you and I worship as often as possible:  to pray that we might recognize our part in all that is to be done to bring forth human harmony. We recognize ourselves as  being children of the same God, present and active in our midst as we live this third American century. In his message to the people on March 30, 1863, Abraham Lincoln prayed “that we might not imagine that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom or power of our own.” 

Freedom claimed is not necessarily freedom retained. It takes discipline on our part, awareness of who is out there working for the common good, and a willingness to join our efforts to theirs.


        Gracious God, may the recognition of your presence to us, everyday
        move us to stretch out our hands to others who also call themselves Americans.
        Let this simple gesture be a symbol of our desire to be one with each other in You.
        May we honor the many cultures, traditions and roots
        we carry within us, no matter where we or our ancestors came from.
        May the great diversity we have not frighten us,
        or make us withdraw into being with people
        we believe are just like us.
        Hold us open, Dear God. Hold us open.  Amen.

~Sister Joan Sobala

A Sea of Change - A Reflection on the Pope's Encyclical

Dear Friends,

For the ancient world, the sea was a dangerous place, capable of swallowing up travelers. It was full of evil spirits, who had caused the upheavals in the sea.

In the Hebrew Bible, only God had power over the sea. God, in the Book of Job, says to the stormy sea:

                                           Thus far shall you come and no farther.

                                           Here shall your proud waves be stilled.

But in our contemporary times, we think we can tame nature to do our will, to make it perform, give up its treasures, become what it was not intended to be. Then, along comes a  leader like Pope Francis, relative in faith to Il Poverello, Francis of Assisi.  Writing in his encyclical Laudate Si,  Pope Francis, in effect, says to the world about our faulty environmental ambitions:

                                             

                                         Thus far shall you come and no farther.

All contemporaries who want creation to be shaped to our brilliant designs, our re-routing, our dreams of conquest, Francis, Bishop of Rome says: Our goal …is to become painfully aware, to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering, and thus, to discover what each of us can do about it. (Laudato si, n.19)

To go back to the water imagery with which these thoughts began, Pope Francis calls us to a sea-change – a change that is significant beyond our expectations, arises turbulently, when we are not fully aware that it is coming.

The disciples of Jesus in the boat on the Sea of Galilee experienced the roiling water and the threat of personal destruction – they, whose numbers included fishermen, grew frightened by the ferocity of the storm. But Jesus was not distressed. He was asleep in the boat. What this storm offered the disciples is what it offers us:  the potential for new thinking, new being, new acting, fresh starts. Jesus says to us, as He did to the waterlogged disciples

                                      

                                                Why are you so terrified?

                                                Why are you lacking in faith?

God had not abandoned them at the height of the storm. God will not abandon us or our earth as it and we experience upheaval. Not one to mince words, at the end of his strong call letter to the world on behalf of our common home, the earth Pope Francis reminds us that our common human quest is not for the sake of death, but for life: May our struggle and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.  (Laudato si, n.244)

Let’s get into the boat with the sleeping Jesus and his fearful disciples. Together with them and our human family, hope can be ours as we sail to the opposite shore with our common good in mind.

~Sister Joan Sobala