Pick Up that Book

Dear Friends,

On July 17, the Vatican published a papal letter about reading as part of seminarians’ formation for ministry. In his opening paragraph, Pope Francis writes that his reading recommendation is really for all believers. All the baptized are in formation as disciples called to mission.

What does the Pope ask us to read? The Catholic Catechism? A Synod document? One of the four gospels? No. The pope wants us to read novels, short stories, and poems. Why? Francis explains why in his letter. Here are some quotations from our book loving shepherd.

This is a definition of literature that I like very much: listening to another person’s voice.

… in moments of weariness, anger, disappointment or failure, when prayer itself does not help us find inner serenity, a good book can help us weather the storm until we find peace of mind.

… we should select our reading with an open mind, a willingness to be surprised, a certain flexibility and readiness to learn, trying to discover what we need at every point of our lives.

… Each new work we read will renew and expand our worldview.

… access which literature grants to the very heart of human culture and, more specifically, to the heart of every individual.

By opening up to the reader a broader view of the grandeur and misery of human experience, literature teaches us patience in trying to understand others, humility in approaching complex situations, meekness in our judgement of individuals and sensitivity to our human condition.

We develop an imaginative empathy that enables us to identify with how others see, experience, and respond to reality. Without such empathy, there can be no solidarity, sharing, compassion, mercy. In reading we discover that our feelings are not simply our own, they are universal, and so even the most destitute person does not feel alone.

And so, dear friends, whatever your current read, dive back in. Pick up a novel. Enjoy some poetry. Grab a half hour for that short story. Know that any reading touches the spirit, and that fiction has a special way of opening our hearts and minds for ministry.

~ Sister Susan Schantz

PS: If you feel attracted to reading the pope’s whole letter, you can find it on the Vatican website. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2024/documents/20240717-lettera-ruolo-letteratura-formazione.html

Being Held Close to the Heart

Dear Friends, 

The locker room at the YMCA has been the locus of many conversations over the years. I’ve chatted women from other lands, various ages, many experiences. 

One woman helped me with a bathing suit adjustment early this year. She said her name was Sue, but Sue had an accent that prompted me to ask where her roots were. “Where are you from, Sue?” 

“Italy. My real name is Assunta.” 

Ever since then, I have called her Assunta. 

She likes it. 

Last week, at one moment she and I were the only two in the locker room. “Assunta,” I said. “You have a feast day coming up soon.”  

“I do,” she acknowledged happily. 

Something prompted me to share my own grasp of this feast: “This is how I think of the Assumption of Mary. Mary died and Jesus her son came to her in death, scooped her up, held her close to His heart and bore her to heaven, body and soul. Assunta, there’s nothing in Scripture that says this. It is what I imagine.” 

A look of connection to my words came over Assunta’s face. She took my hand in hers. “That is how my grandson holds me close. I lost my husband and then my son. Why me? I cried. Why me? To the priest I said: ‘Why me?’ To anyone one who would listen I said: ‘Why me?’”  

“Then as he grew to be taller than I am, unbidden, my grandson began to hold me close to his heart. I never again said ‘Why me?’.  I knew I was blessed.” 

On Thursday’s Feast of the Assumption, spend time in wonder: Who holds you close to his/her heart? Whom do you hold close? 

Can we simply rejoice in this feast of Mary as a celebration of being held close to the heart of God? 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Enough for the Crowd

Dear Friends, 

"Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" Jesus to Philip, John 6

The Gospel for this Sunday highlights Jesus’s question to Philip when they face a hungry crowd. This is a question Jesus also asks us when we turn to him for help in responding to hungry children, women, and men. 

This passage reminds me of a young man I follow on Instagram. Hamada Shaqoura is a 33-year-old chef, social media influencer, husband, and new father currently posting from a refugee camp in southern Gaza. After fleeing Gaza City, he and his wife are living with their baby in a small tent. His outdoor kitchen reveals the scarcity and generosity that characterize refugee life in Gaza. 

Shaqoura is the cook for his camp neighbors. He waits hours in food lines for bags or boxes of emergency food aid. After returning to his makeshift kitchen, he surveys the diverse supply and uses hoarded spices, experience, and creativity to produce a meal. Ingredients vary by the day, and may include chickpeas, beans, rice, grain or canned tomatoes. His knowledge of Gaza City restaurants and international street food informs his camp cuisine. He prepares tacos, hummus, soup, flat bread, or falafel. 

His Instagram and Tik Tok posts show excited and hungry children watching him work. They also show a scowling chef, whose frown is for the camera, not his guests. That angry gaze, he says, is for the political and social situations that result in hungry children in crowded camps. 

Listen with me to Hamada Shaqoura, a man of faith:

We believed we could do this, despite the scarcity of ingredients and the poorer quality of the food available due to the siege on Gaza over the last 17 years. The taste may remind people of a time before the war. You can give them a sense of hope that this war will end, and we will return one day to the normal lives we deserve. And when we do, we will eat the delicious food we used to. 

~ Sister Susan Schantz

*Photo from Bon Appetit, April 2024

Respecting Our Common Humanity

Dear Friends,

Last week, Sister Susan Schantz wrote in her blog post the poignant story of two Olympians who bonded against all cultural norms of their times and homelands. Now, in a time when wars and turmoil are experienced worldwide, communities and individuals once again take a break to cheer on athletes from around many countries, who have just gathered in Paris for the summer Games of the XXXII Olympiad. This year, 37 Olympians are refugees from their countries, including Cuba, Afghanistan, Syria and South Sudan, to mention a few, but they carry their people in their hearts, nonetheless.

The opening ritual typically shows national groups followed by their flag. While they might not think of it, here is a song of faith which rightly describes these athletes, the depth of their inner truth. If you know the tune to Finlandia, sing these words that acknowledge people’s love of their homeland:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
And skies are ev’rywhere as blue as mine.
So hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

During the games, let everyone do his or her best. Jump. Sprint. Swim. Run. Let competition be intense and strong, but not malicious. May athletes reach deep into their inner resources, but not disdain the resources of others, so that, by the end of the competition, in honesty and truth, athletes may say with Paul writing to Timothy (2nd Timothy 4.7):

I have competed well.
I have finished the race.
I have kept the faith.

Let’s support all athletes, whether they win or lose. Let’s cheer for people from other lands as well as our own. Let the awareness of our common humanity stir us to have respect and encouragement for all. This way, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

How Things Can Be

Dear Friends,

There are inspiring Olympic stories aplenty, each summer and winter game. There is one story that stays with me year to year because of the violent time in which it unfolded, a time like our own.

German Carl “Luz” Long and US athlete Jesse Owens competed at the 1936 Munich Olympic Games. Both medaled in the long jump event. Their interracial friendship shocked both Germans and Americans. Their bond was strengthened when Long was shunned by Hitler at the games and Owen’s president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, never spoke about the African American’s win.

The two men kept in touch during the war years ahead. Long went on to serve in the German Army (as any able-bodied German man was forced to do) but his letters to Owens expressed a longing for peace.

Before he died in a battle with Allied forces, he wrote a final letter to Jesse Owens:

I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. I do not fear so much for myself, my friend Jesse, I fear for my woman who is home, and my young son Karl, who has never really known his father. My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write.

If it is so, I ask you something. It is something so very important to me. It is you go to Germany when this war is done, someday find my Karl, and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we were not separated by war. I am saying – tell him how things can be between men on this earth.

Owens fulfilled his friend’s dying wish by going back to Berlin 30 years later and meeting with Luz’s son. The two formed a friendship of their own and Owens would serve as the best man in his wedding. The families of both men keep in contact to this day.

Can any words about peace ring true this summer? Can friendships be grown in Sudan or Gaza or Ukraine? In Chicago or Milwaukee? In Paris and Lagos? In Port au Prince or Moscow? If peace is possible it will come because of relationships like that of Luz Long and Jesse Owens, who showed “how things can be between men on this earth.”

~ Sister Susan Schantz

Mending Our Heirlooms

Dear Friends, 

Today’s blog is a meditation about heirlooms. Have you one or more? Treasures from your parents or grandparents or a favorite aunt or uncle or friend? We can have them, but maybe we haven’t ever considered thinking about them in a prayerful way. 

At the beginning of each summer, I take out of storage a crocheted bedspread my mother made between 60 and 70 years ago. Having been washed and folded away over the winter, the bedspread tends to be small, shrunken to barely cover the top of a queen-size bed. Within weeks of use, it stretches out to hang over the sides of the bed and nearly to the floor.  

The ability to stretch is my first lesson from this heirloom. Physical therapists tell us that stretching helps keep our bodies healthy and supple. Creative teachers tell students to use their imaginations to stretch their thinking. The Holy Spirit inspires us to stretch our embrace of God, by recognizing life’s situations as God-moments instead of just everyday realities. 

The picture above is a small portion of that bedspread. Threads have broken – no surprise after so many years. It’s time to go over the whole bedspread carefully and mend portions that need it. This is not the first or only year I have picked up needle and thread to mend the lace. It won’t look as neat as the original, but the stitches will hold the whole together, without more loss, more integrity at that one spot. Attentive stitching is necessary. 

The need to mend an heirloom is a second lesson worth considering. Faith is an heirloom. So is the Church. Personally, and together, we have received faith and life in the Church from our ancestors. Parts of it have become unraveled, pulled apart. Maybe those parts were weak to begin with, and they need attention to restore wholeness. New threads can help. In our faith lives, what has given way? What needs a mender’s hand? Can we do the mending ourselves or is the work in need of a more skilled hand? Who do we know who can help? And even more basically, do we even want to restore it? 

Finally, I am tempted not to use the bedspread – just keep it in storage. It could fall apart beyond mending. It’s a chance I wonder if I want to take. Should I just keep it as part of my past? I could glance at it every now and again when I am looking for something else. But treasured heirlooms, which are used, hold a greater measure of meaning than stored heirlooms. Use and mend. Use and mend. Use and mend. Visible. Touchable. 

The third lesson from our heirlooms is to use them and mend them. Let faith and the Church, ever ancient, ever new, be out in the open, whatever that might mean. Add your own stitches. Mend it over and over again. Make it real for the next generation. 

Take time this week to find and bring out into the open your personal heirlooms. Hold them and wonder “What do they say to me of faith and life?”  

Bye for now. I’m off to mend my heirloom. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Refreshing the Word

Dear Friends,

Have you ever been with family or friends when someone embarks on a retelling of an old story? You might respond by settling in for a pleasurable reminiscence. Or you might drift off a bit because you know how this one ends. Maybe you get restless and wish you had left the room before the storyteller got started.

Sometimes even a Sunday Gospel story feels a bit stale for me. I hear the familiar words and I remember the sequence of events. I may even recall a preacher’s interpretation from another year. I already know what’s coming for Jesus. The Good News doesn’t seem to spark a response. I’ve heard this one before. My mind wanders.

How can we experience a very familiar story as a fresh sacred text? At a Sunday liturgy, two designated ministers are there to help us hear the scripture. The reader and the preacher have a role, but it’s our work, too. Each of us is a minister of the Word. Let’s read the Sunday, July 7 reading from Mark, a familiar story about Jesus’ rejection in his hometown.

Mk 6:1-6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.

They said, “Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?”
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Here are some suggestions for rekindling the fire and light of this Gospel story. I’ve included some of my own thoughts in italics.

• Read the story the night before, or while you sit and wait for Mass to start.

• Read it aloud to yourself, as if you were reading the story to an eager child.

• Imagine one of the story’s scenes in your mind as if you were photographing or sketching it.

• Live the events of the story as if you were one of the characters. For me: A childhood friend of Jesus. His mother. His Torah teacher. A new disciple.

• Recall a quote that touches you. For me: A Nigerian proverb: Home is not where we live. Home is where we belong.

• Search your own mental playlist. Are there favorite hymns or songs about homecoming? I think of the Cheers TV theme song.

• Are there words from a favorite poem? I love these lines: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost’s 1915 poem The Death of the Hired Man.

• Is there a book title that resonates with this story? For me there are two: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

Of course, the next step is to spend time with the story, holding it close with these other words that give us a new lens. Perhaps some of the above deep reading approaches will help you as they do me. You may want to share an idea or two in the comments. Always open to God’s good news, we’ll refresh the stories. The Word is very near.

~ Sister Susan Schantz