A Call to Believe

Dear Friends,

The home of Jesus’ friends, Lazarus, Martha and Mary was in Bethany, about two miles from Jerusalem - close enough for the news about the raising of Lazarus to travel quickly to the high priests in the holy city. These religious officials quickly convoked the Sanhedrin and together, they decided that it was time. Jesus must die.

As he wept with Martha and Mary over the death of their brother, his friend, Lazarus, Jesus also stood at the opening of his own grave. His own did not want him.

Raising Lazarus from the dead set his own passion in motion. Soon, you and I will walk with him through the tomb into new life.

We get so absorbed in Jesus and Lazarus in this account that we fail to notice Martha and Mary. They must have consoled one another with a mantra, for each of them said separately to Jesus when they ran to meet him, overcome with grief: “Lord,” each said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

That’s how Martha and Mary thought of Jesus – as a wonderworker. But Jesus called Martha to a deeper faith. He called her to believe that he was God. The giver of life. The one who would die on the cross and rise again.

“Do you believe this?” he asked Martha.

Earlier in John’s Gospel (Chapter 6), Peter made a profession of faith in Jesus. Now, closer to his entrance into Jerusalem, Martha made the same profession of faith.

Will we?

Closing in on Holy Week with its drama, awe, sadness and bleakness, will we make a profession of faith in Jesus? Will we say:

~Jesus, I believe in you. Help my unbelief.

~Jesus, your own death helps me make sense of the many deaths I know in life. Help my unbelief.

~Jesus, let me come with you into the garden, into your trials, into the way of your cross. Help my unbelief.

At the tomb of Lazarus, faith rose up in Martha. She believed and invited us to do the same. So come, with Martha and Mary and their raised-up brother, Lazarus. Let us go forth towards Holy Week.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

A New Bishop for Rochester

Dear Friends,

The illustration above is provided by the Vatican office of the synod. I love this portrayal of a dynamic journeying church, a church on the road, a church energized by baptismal call. It is a church I recognize locally and worldwide. It is a church of disciples accompanied and led by bishops walking among us as servant leaders.  

The retirement of Rochester NY Bishop Salvatore Matano and the appointment of Bishop John Bonnici are occasioning local media coverage. Here are some resources to supplement that coverage. 

1. Speech by Pope Leo XIV on the role of the bishop

2. America Media podcast episode on role of the bishop

3. Links for streaming the March 19, 2:00 PM installation ritual:

www.dor.org

www.sacredheartrochester.org

www.catholiccourier.com

4. Mailing address for messages to Bishop John Bonnici or retiring Bishop Salvatore Matano:

Diocese of Rochester

1150 Buffalo Road

Rochester NY 14624

In hope,
Susan Schantz SSJ

Listening for God in Unexpected Conversations

Dear Friends,

Two stories of chance encounters at places of refreshment teach us the need for both speaking up and listening.

In today’s gospel, Jesus showed a lot of imagination and took a big risk in talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, asking her for a drink of water. It was not the done thing. The woman was dumbfounded that he would talk to her. The disciples were dumbfounded too.

A number of years ago, Bill, a young medical student at Cornell and recently engaged to Anna, was assigned to an extended research project at Yale. Understandably, he was not happy about being away from Anna for three months. Without enthusiasm, Bill boarded a bus for New Haven.

Somewhere along the way, a short layover found him dejectedly seated at the lunch counter in the terminal, drinking coffee.

Sitting next to him was a middle-aged Black woman. She looked at his unsmiling face and said to him. “Honey, what’s wrong? You look so unhappy!” “I am," he said. She pushed on. “What’s wrong, honey?”

He told her the sad story of needing to leave behind his fiancé for three months. The woman said, "Show me her picture.” Bill obliged. “Oh, she’s beautiful,” the woman exuded. “Honey, marriage is wonderful. You’re going to have a long and happy life together. Now you just gotta do what you gotta do.”

Bill watched her board her bus, having taken in her message. Thinking back to that moment after being a compassionate physician for many years, Bill knew that that single encounter changed his attitude, his outlook, his sense of God’s presence.

We have a lot in common with the Samaritan woman and Bill. One came to fill her bucket with water, the other wanted a cup of coffee. Each was wrapped up in their own concerns: she with the scars of five marriages, he with the youthful loneliness of Anna’s absence. In a moment of grace, the Samaritan woman met the one who is the source of life and hope. Bill met the messenger of the one who is the source of life and hope. In their chance encounters, each met God in a whole new way. It changed them for the better.

This third week of Lent, beginning today, will we be ready to meet God or the messenger of God? Will we accept the potential the encounter offers?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

It is Good to Be Here

Dear Friends,

This Sunday’s gospel reading is Matthew’s account of the transfiguration.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother,
and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them;
his face shone like the sun
and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,
conversing with him.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Lord, it is good that we are here.
If you wish, I will make three tents here,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

                                                                        Matthew 17:1-9

Peter’s suggestion sprang from the instinct to mark a site of spiritual struggle and revelation with a sacred artifact. As I read this week’s gospel story, I remembered the story of a simple chapel on the Scottish island of Orkney. It commemorates the faith experience of WWII military prisoners. Even in crisis, they experienced God and realized the holiness of the site.

During World War II, several hundred Italian prisoners of war were transported from North Africa to the sparsely populated Scottish Isles. They were forced to erect sea barriers to block invading Axis navy vessels. The prisoners were exhausted, cold, and lonely. They wondered if they would ever return to their lives in Italy. Their military chaplain had been captured with them and the men gathered regularly to pray.

Soon they had the idea of building a small chapel. They received permission to work after hours, using scrap materials. The men salvaged scraps of metal and wood. The camp commander gave them two Nissen huts to create a chapel body. They made cement to fashion walls and a church entrance. Pieces of glass were painted for windows. A fresco replicated a prayer card carried from Italy by one of the soldiers.

For the prisoners, their exile was a time of deep community. Together they experienced God and the island was a holy place. Like Peter in the gospel, they may have prayed, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

Rescuing God from Smallness

Dear Friends, 

Many years ago, when I was a fledgling in religious life, I came across a slim volume by the biblical theologian J.B. Phillips entitled “Your God Is Too Small!" In it, Phillips described the many ways people have reduced God to a manageable size and then ended up not liking this crafted God very much.

The title and the challenge of J.B. Phillips’ book have stayed with me all these years and I find wrestling with God to release God from smallness an apt Lenten practice. Since Lent is a preparation time for Easter and the full-blooming of the Risen Lord, it’s only appropriate that our own Lenten practice should lead us to a new depth of relationship with Jesus who has conquered sin and death, and with the God he incarnated.

True, on Ash Wednesday, we are encouraged to fast, pray and give alms, but to what end? To be able to say at the end of Lent, “I’ve done it!”? In our spiritual growth, learning to let God be God – learning to treasure and love this God who is beyond all our designs – is an indispensable work on our part. 

Recently, Ron Rolheiser offered his readers some understandings that help us treasure the God who is and not the one of our own making.

Writing in Insane for the Light (a strange title for a book unless you know that phrase is a line from Goethe’s poem “The Holy Longing"), Rolheiser encourages his readers to rescue God from narrowness – or on the language of Phillips, a God who is too small.

As we fast from confining ideas, pray for wisdom, and give away all we can so as to travel lightly toward God, we might want to employ our energies to understanding a bit more the attributes of our very big God. Rolheiser says, first of all, that “our God has no favorites. No one person, race, gender or nation is favored more than others by God. All are privileged. Secondly, God is scandalously understanding and compassionate, especially toward the weak and sinners…Moreover, God asks us to be compassionate in the same way. God does not have a preferential option for the virtuous. In addition, God is critical of those who, whatever their sincerity, try to block access to God…Finally and centrally, God is good news for the poor…These are the attributes of God, whom Jesus incarnated. We need to work always at rescuing God from narrowness, even as we are sensitive to proper boundaries and the demands of orthodox teaching.” (pp102-103)

In these six Lenten weeks before us, let’s enlarge our hearts to embrace the God who is: big, generous, compassionate lover of all creation, all people without exception. Let us bless God for all God is and let us open ourselves to God’s companionship even more.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Chocolate in Lent

Dear Friends,

On a spring Saturday morning in the early 1960’s, at the four corners in Pittsford, a man in his late 60s boarded the East Avenue bus. Within a half hour, he was in Sibley’s Bakery picking up a seven-layer mocha cake. Outside Sibley’s he caught a #10 Dewey bus. Carefully balancing the cake on his lap, he traveled another half hour to a bus stop in the Maplewood neighborhood. He walked to the Schantz home at 380 Seneca Parkway, walked up the porch steps, and rang the front doorbell. “Is your dad home?” he said to my brother who opened the door. “I’m his Uncle Herb.”

Herb had never met me or any of my seven siblings. His brother Rupert died when my dad was seven. Grandpa’s family became estranged from my dad’s mother due to their cultural and financial differences. After thirty years’ separation, Herb had recently reached out to my dad, but this first visit was a surprise. Herb became a beloved part of our family, along with his sister Irene. 

This winter I am identifying with Uncle Herb and his desire to reconnect. I reflect on my own family bonds. They have been weakened in recent years by geographical distance, family deaths, and infrequent gatherings. As Lent begins, I am drawn to find ways to reconnect. What can I do to strengthen loving connections?     

Is there anyone you are missing in your own life? Do you feel drawn to make a journey, too, carrying the sweet gift of connection?

In hope, 

Susan Schantz SSJ

A Season of Choosing Love

Dear Friends,

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day and the season of Lent, beginning on February 15, here are some ideas for celebrating both:

                                                                       

Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend.

Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.

Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer.

Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in a word or deed.

                                                                       

Keep a promise. Find the time. Forego a grudge.

Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong.

Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands of others.

Think first of someone else.

Appreciate, be kind, be gentle. Laugh a little more.

                                                                       

Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice.

Decry complacency. Express your gratitude.

Worship your God. Gladden the birth of a child.

Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.

Speak your love. Speak it to God. Speak it to your neighbor.

Speak it again. Speak it again. Speak it again.

Speak it still once again.

                                                                     

Author unknown, but a worthy challenge to live out the valuable little things in the ever-growing life God has given us. Live it. Pass it on. Happy Valentine’s Day. Expand your sense of Lent.

~ Sister Joan Sobala