The "Yeses" in Life

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow is my 80^th birthday. Birthdays are like the parables of Jesus. They seem like simple stories but they admit of a multitude of meanings that keep coming to us as our lives go on. Today, I would like to hold up an abbreviated parable of these 80 years as a mirror for reflecting on your own experiences.

On this Mother’s Day, how can we resist some thoughts about our mothers – the first carriers of our lives. From my childhood, my mother, Celia, had trouble with me. I was a contrarian who didn’t want to follow her directions. One day, when my mother was talking to a neighbor across the front fence, she called out to me “Joanie, don’t go into the street.” I stood on the curb and looked at her as I stuck my toe into the street. She turned away and laughed. That’s how life was. For better or for worse, I have put my toe into many streets of life. Did you do that?

There were tough moments when I was attacked, literally by neighborhood thugs and once by a boy in my class at school. My mother taught me courage and resilience. She stood by me just as Mary stood by Jesus throughout his life and never turned away. Maybe your mother stood by you as you grew or maybe she didn’t or couldn’t. Who stood by you at critical times of your life?

Later, when I wanted to respond to God’s call to religious life, she resisted. Celia reasoned that I would be locked away forever and not be able to taste the options of life. Years later, my mother admitted to the richness of my life, and hers as a result. What choices have you made in response to God’s call that your family could value only in retrospect?

Over the years, I have learned that the journey of my adult life is more than the first commitment I made as a Sister of Saint Joseph. That choice was certainly foundational but it swelled with other calls to welcome, accompany, discern with and integrate others into faith, other times to say “Yes.” Thinking again of Mary, the mother of Jesus, we remember her "yes" to the invitation of God to bear her son. That "yes" took her to stand on the shores of his life as he preached, taught, healed. It took her to stand beneath the cross and to experience the terrible pain of holding his dead body in her arms. Mothers never want to experience the death of their children. But she also experienced his Risen from the dead and she experienced the Pentecost coming of the Holy Spirit (for the second time for her). What has the first “Yes” and other “Yeses” of your life meant to you and others?

Here we are today – threatened by a virus we can’t see or hear or touch, but one which could overwhelm us as individuals, families, and as a church and nation. Often the cable networks carry pictures of people who have died from complications of COVID-19. Many of them were young – serving the community with their talents and desires. Why did they die and why, at 80, am I still here? What does God want of me? Why are you still here? What does God want of you?  

What does faithfulness to God and to my treasured commitments mean to me in this new context? Shall I put my toe into the street again? To borrow the question of Mary to the angel: “How will this be?” What does it mean to say “Yes” to God at my age – and you at yours?

~Sister Joan Sobala

Shepherding Us Through the New Norm

Dear Friends,

We hear people talk about “getting back to normal” after the pandemic subsides. I hope we don’t, for what was normal before COVID-19 was a time that did not treasure the poor, the homeless, Indigenous, Black and Brown people, people fleeing from persecution of all kinds. The wealthy kept growing richer. The middle class, found itself in free-fall.

What the new normal needs is a miracle of love and unselfishness.

That’s a phrase I borrowed from Walter Munk, one of today’s great oceanographers. Munk coined that phrase to describe the only way he knew to overcome global warming. That phrase also describes what we must do to emerge from this this pandemic time as well. “A miracle of love and unselfishness” needs to root itself in our lives if we and our communities are to be made whole as waves of the coronavirus, sweeping with stealth across our planet, threaten us.

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, we celebrate the one who stands with us in all we suffer. It’s well known that sheep recognize the voice of the shepherd. When someone other than their true shepherd calls, the sheep simply don’t respond.

We hear the undeniably repeated call in the 10th Chapter of John’s Gospel, “the sheep hear his voice as he calls his sheep by name and leads them out {of the sheepfold}. (John 10.3)…I have other sheep that do not belong to his fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10.16)…My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. (John 10.27-28).” Even though, as largely urban people, we have no daily familiarity with sheep, we are moved by the image of a shepherd loving his sheep so ardently.

In Pope Francis, the world has found a contemporary shepherd who speaks with the voice of the Risen Lord – a profound leader who urges the world and not just the church to live out the love and unselfishness that the Risen Jesus calls us to if only we hear his voice. Francis, in his letter on the need to save the earth, (Laudato Si’) affirms that the planet is a single homeland that calls for “one world with a common plan.” That calls for us to shake ourselves free of being grasping, selfish and self-centered and instead, make common efforts toward shaping the common good of our planet. As the virus crossed boundaries without seeing them, people in the new normal need to cross boundaries of state, class, gender and race in support of one another.

Francis is a shepherd in the image of the Good Shepherd. He urges us to be that too.

During this painful time, we find people stretching out to help one another. Let’s not stop once the immediate worst is over. Let us be changed in heart and mind and spirit, generous beyond anything we have done in the past. The new normal will take effort on everyone’s part, a miracle of love and selflessness.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Stranger on the Road

Dear Friends,

Once again today we hear the much-loved story of Jesus encountering his disciples on the road to Emmaus. Cleophas and an unnamed partner were fleeing Jerusalem, disappointed and miserable. Their world had collapsed. We don’t know who was with Cleophas, but it could have well been his wife, Mary, who had stood beneath the cross of Jesus. Let’s call Cleophas’ travelling companion by that name.

As darkness began to encroach, Mary and Cleophas were approached by a solitary stranger. They could have cut him out of their journey. Passed him by. Perhaps it was pure mid-Eastern courtesy that prevented them from doing so – more likely some deep tugging of grace. The stranger seemed to be ignorant of the things that had transpired over Passover and the Sabbath. He listened to their interpretation of what had happened. The stranger – Jesus unrecognized – was attentive to them, and then it was his turn to unfold the Scriptures for them – to offer them meaning and hope. And as they listened, something happened to them. Much later, they would reveal to each other how their hearts burned within them as He spoke.

At this moment in 2020, we are all together as a people beginning to emerge from the coronavirus. Like Cleophas and Mary, we want to run away from the place of our miseries; our hopes dashed. We might even want to run away from a God who doesn’t seen risen or present in our world, shattered as it is by this invisible enemy. Like Mary and Cleophas, we try to name the things that have happened – to us individually, to our church, our relationships, our world. What we fear is that things won’t go back to how they have been. It’s likely they will change. Maybe evolve. Maybe change radically. The stranger on the road – Christ unrecognized – will be our travelling companion. Let’s listen to Him. And when we invite Him in as a guest for supper, He will feed us with himself instead.

In the days ahead, when Eucharist will be available to us again, will we go? Maybe before all this, the meaning of Eucharist was escaping us, but how about now – in this new time. Pay attention to what is happening within you. Does your heart burn within you? Will you recognize the Risen Lord? Looking at the wounds this virus has brought us, will you see Jesus’ wounds in others? Will you come to know that we need one another in dawning new ways? Will you? Will I? Will we?

This beloved story of the disciples and Jesus on the road to Emmaus, tells us to take courage, for Christ will meet us on the way to a new tomorrow. It tells us: the stranger who walks with us and helps us understand what had happened is no stranger at all.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Wounds of Christ

Dear Friends,

For Him, it didn’t have to be this way,
Risen Christ that He was.

He could have left His wounds
in the tomb,
staining the stone,
untreasured.

But Jesus’ wounds were the embodiment of
the compassion he bore for everyone.

Jesus’ breath,
halted in death,
was fresh, deep and sweet
on this new Day.

Beyond this day, Jesus wanted His holy wounds
to touch the wounds of people where they suffered
in every time and place, as with the silent virus eroding our world.

Yes, His wounds stir life
in us who are so wounded today.
His wounds,
hands and feet and side, make us,
wounded as we are,
cleary, undeniably
one with Him.

How faultlessly wise of Jesus not to reject His wounds
for they throb with the truth of all
we can trust about Him
in this fearsome time.

Come to think of it: We might not recognize the Risen Christ without them.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Feeling the Power of Easter

Dear Friends,

This year, Easter – Sunday and Season – are inextricable bound together with the coronavirus. Some people say that the Sunday after our nation is free to move about again will be the real Easter this year. We can certainly celebrate it then, but we would miss the power of Easter if we don’t “celebrate” Easter when our nation faces death as it does right now.

Easter tells us that death is not our destiny. God gave no permission for death to hold Jesus as its permanent victim. Rather, death, like an old snake skin, lies discarded at the garden gate.

“Jesus, You live and we live because You live.
Our minds cannot grasp it, so we leave it to our hearts to embrace new life in You.”

Easter is not naive. We don’t close our eyes to the realities around us. The cross always stands in our sanctuary, even though this day, this season, it is draped with the mantle of victory.

Today, though our hearts are heavy with the anguish of many, “we celebrate Easter because we believe there are no God-forsaken places, no God-forgotten promises. Easter is the ultimate intrusion of God into places and situations we deem to be God-forsaken. Jesus lives and we live because of him.” (Lutheran Bishop Mark Harmon)

Clarence Johnson, New Testament scholar and co-founder of Habitat for Humanity writes of Easter: “On the morning of the resurrection, God put life in the present tense, not in the future. Not a hope for the future but a power for the present. Not so much that we shall live someday but that He is risen today. Jesus’ resurrection is not to convince the incredulous nor to reassure the fearful, but to enkindle believers…”

So today, let yourself be enkindled. Go outside and at least in your heart and in your imagination, meet Jesus in the garden. Like Mary Magdalen, you may not recognize Him at first, but He will call you by name. Then, like Mary, you will see Him Risen and Glorious, and your heart will be glad.

Today – outside – feel the pull of the resurrection and let courage stir in you to meet the days ahead.

May God Easter in You Today.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Mind of Christ

Ah, God.

Today begins Your week.

Oh, I know that every week is yours,

but this week is yours

in a more distilled way.

You’ll be more on my mind this week

than in an average week.

Help me to drink deeply of Your passion,

let the alleluia stir in my depths,

so that next week

it will rise in me

like the dawn.

Dear Friends,

To learn how to suffer this pandemic time, we must learn how to stand in Jesus’ place – to bear pain, abandonment, cruelty, distance, condemnation. Through all of it, Jesus was faithful and true. May it be so with us.

He trusted and obeyed his Father and broke the power of sin and betrayal. In the great and little tragedies of life, let this mind of Christ be ours as well. May it be so with us.

Love led Jesus through to death to life. His love. His Father’s love. May it be so with us.

That is our last word.

Next week, Jesus has the first word as He Easters over the world.

All week long, let us live into His New Day. Alleluia.

~Sister Joan Sobala

To Whom Do We Belong

Dear Friends,

Since the unfolding pandemic began, I have been home – like you, grateful to have a place of safety with people to whom I belong.

But then, events as seen on various media outlets started me thinking about the question, “To whom do I belong?” The answers to that question seem simple, but they are not, for over the centuries of human life, belonging has happened unbidden, been cultivated, limited, enlarged, denied and sometimes forgotten about.

With you, I wonder to whom do we belong, for how long and how? Are we ever finished belonging or belonging anew? As I write this at the end of March 2020, with the pandemic touching more and more lives, insightful leaders have encouraged us to act on the belief that we belong to everyone. We are in some measure, responsible for one another’s well-being, life or death. Belonging is not earned. It is freely given or it is withheld.

Belonging requires perseverance on our part. We could say: “this belonging that I experience today is not what I thought it would be, so I am going to move on and care only for those whom I choose.”

Belonging sometimes comes as a surprise. We would not initially have thought we belonged to this one or that. Mid-20th century, our Sister Rosalma Hayes was studying in Europe. One day, she came around the corner of a public building in Paris. Toward her came a Sister of Saint Joseph in a similar habit. They did not know each other’s language, but they recognized each other, kissed each other’s brass bound crucifixes worn with the habit, and kept going. France was a homier place to be because of that encounter. It takes courage to belong to anyone, however fleetingly.

Sister Rosalma Hayes

Before this pandemic struck, our Congregation was preparing to celebrate 80 years of serving in Alabama. Eighty years of working with, loving and encouraging the black community to be all they could be. We came to belong to the black community, and they to us. Belonging meant that we came to be part of something greater than ourselves as we lived life beyond the greater Rochester area. That belonging in Selma was put to the test when in 1965, the civil rights march made its way across the Edmund Pettis Bridge. We were prevented from marching by the dictate of the archbishop of Mobile. Instead, with desire, we watched the marchers pass by our convent. They were ultimately attacked on the far side of the bridge. At Good Samaritan Hospital, which we ran on behalf for the black community, our Sisters tended to the great John Lewis and his confreres immediately after the attack. Our belonging to the black community of Selma was sealed in those days.

Sister Barbara Lum at the Good Samaritan Hospital Nursing Home in Selma, AL

Sister Kathleen Navarra and Sister Patricia Flass (not pictured) continue to mission in AL

Whether moved by a humanitarian perspective or by the sheer love of God, you and I – every person – belong to a far greater community than we realize.

Writing in the March 2020 issue of The Atlantic, David Brooks reminds his reader that “for vast stretches of human history people lived in extended families consisting not just of people they were related to but people they chose to cooperate with" (p64). That same unity of cooperation was unique to Jesus and His followers long before our day. Paul expressed it as all of us being members of the Body of Christ. “There are many parts but all one body” (1Cor.12.20).

That’s where we are today: “members of one another” (Marshall Sahlins). We are called to experience the “inner solidarity of souls” (J Pretz – Johansen). The maturity that such connectedness requires comes only with suffering together through destructive times, and not allowing our spirits to be crushed.

That moment is now. This pandemic will either make rise in us a new sense of universal belonging or it will make us fall back into ways that are not of God. In our age, many of our contemporaries and maybe we ourselves have trouble with the reality of God. We may want to deny the truth of God, the faithfulness of God in these devastating times. But pause, drink in God’s Spirit.

Perhaps this is our time’s new admission that we do belong to God. Not a God who commands servitude but a God who honors our capability to embrace one another. It takes courage to belong to anyone, much less God.

So we come to it. Belonging to people. Belonging to God. Work the phones, send e-mails, use social media as a tool for engaging the other. Pray with someone else’s prayer or our own. These days are too precious to waste marking time.

~Sister Joan Sobala