Following Our Star in the New Year

Dear Friends,

On this first Sunday of a new year, consider the people who have influenced your life…people in your intimate family circle as well as those beyond. Those beyond could be people you can name – like Pope Francis, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They could be nameless like the Magi whose involvement in Jesus life was brief, generous, arduously undertaken and which impelled Jesus, Mary and Joseph to travel beyond their plans to spend time in Egypt. 

After following the star and a detour to King Herod, the Magi finally came to the house where Jesus was. Matthew tells how they fell to their knees and worshipped him. They believed that this child held the key to the meaning of life. Whether it was their original intention or not, the Magi left gifts that drew attention to his authority, divinity and humanity. In leaving these gifts the Magi accepted that the newborn king was not what they expected.

In this new year, is God in Jesus what we have expected? This is a question worthy of our consideration. God is in the midst of the year 2020, which we have just completed – a year that, on the cover of a recent issue of TIME magazine was x-ed out. COVID marred 2020. So did forest fires and hurricanes and floods, storms of other kinds. We may think this is the most awful year in American history, but maybe not. Maybe we need to reclaim it as a year in which God reached out to us in a unique way, not to test us but to be present to us as life became more fragile for more people.

During this year just completed, we, too, had our star to follow, dreams that spoke God’s word to us in the deepest part of our being. Perhaps the only way we could have felt unquenched aloneness is if we did not acknowledge this God who is always with us. Did we feel unquenched loneliness?

God in Christ, says to us on this Epiphany Day:

Stand firm.

Listen to the dream.

                Follow the star.

                Go where it tells you. 

                Be sure of my love for you.

                Press on beyond disbelief.

                Stay close to each other.

                 Stay close to me.

If, from a human point of view, Epiphany celebrates the human search for God, from God’s viewpoint, Epiphany celebrates that God can be found. God wants to be found by us. 2021 is a year given to us to experience God, but we have to make time to do so. Be willing to stand before what looks like unfinished pain and emptiness and recognize God’s touch, embrace, the whisper of God in our innermost being, the hand holding our own.

God is more present that any Herod that comes our way, seeking to destroy who we are and what we cling to as essential for life. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Importance of Family

Dear Friends,

Nothing is more important in life than our family relationships. Nothing. No matter how we characterize our own, family life is basis, indispensable and in threatened. Still, we have probably had more of family life during this pandemic year than we have had in any other.

Not only are young children experiencing distance learning at home, but our older children are unexpectedly home from college for longer periods. Perhaps our sons and daughters, who have lived in distant cities have been laid off and can’t afford their housing anyone. Maybe grandparents have joined us or cousins. Is the atmosphere relaxed? Probably not. Families in any circumstances need to work at their life together, but in this year of anxiety, boredom and loose ends, the work of the family becomes more arduous. However, we experience it, it’s true: We grow as humans in our family only through commitment, perseverance and courage. Whatever it takes!

It’s no surprise that the liturgists who put together the biblical texts for Holy Family Sunday include portions from Matthew and Luke, who reveal not only the covenant of love between Mary and Joseph, their moments of awe and wonder, but also the stresses they experienced.

In our own family lives, I hope that, like Mary and Joseph, we accept each other’s dreams, support each other and accept the support of strangers like Simeon and Anna.

While we can’t imitate the lives of Jesus and Mary step by step, we can be like them – open and responsive to the beckoning of God and help each other live it out. As Paul says in Colossians today, in our family interactions, let us put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Family life is precious, whether it is our own personal family, where our weaknesses are accommodated and our victories applauded, or whether it is the family of the universe to which we belong.

When Pope Francis was in Philadelphia in 2015, he focused on the family: “A healthy family requires the frequent use of these three phrases – 'May I please,' 'thank you,' and 'I’m sorry.'”

If any of us is looking for New Year’s resolutions, a holy place to start may be bringing to life in our home the examples of Mary and Joseph, the words of Paul to the Colossians and Pope Francis.

We have the human resources to do so.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Looking Up

 

Dear Friends,

My cousins, Ed and Ro, are avid stargazers. They recently sent me the image shown here of Saturn and Jupiter which will be as close together on December 21 as they have been since 1623. Go out on whatever cloudless sky we have before then and look up to see what you can see. Look up! 

“Look up!” is a good phrase to describe our best posture for Christmas. It’s what the shepherds did as they guarded their flocks by night on the hillsides beyond Bethlehem. Maybe they saw a star-filled sky and wondered about what it meant. They certainly saw an angel and then a brilliant panoply of angels in the sky, and they wondered. Wondering is a Christmas activity. The shepherds wondered what the words of the angel meant and where that message would lead if they dared to follow it. 

Somehow, they decided who would be left behind to guard the sheep and who would go to see. Seeing is a Christmas activity. The shepherds saw with new eyes on Christmas. Up on the hillside, they saw angels who told them the good news and the shepherds believed. Down in a sleeping town, they saw the star lead them to a stable. They wondered if they dare go inside.

They went in, saw, and they believed what they saw was more than what they saw…three people, somehow comfortable in these meagre surroundings: a man, a woman and a newborn. Animals were there, too, heating the stable with their body warmth and their breath. The shepherds were in awe. Awe is a Christmas word. These shepherds, poor and poorly regarded in their society, came face to face with the Word Made Flesh, tiny, unafraid, glad to finally be among his people. In their belief, the shepherds went out to tell anyone who would listen. Belief and telling the good news are Christmas activities.

• So too, this Christmas, we are called to look up, wonder, see, be in awe, believe and tell the good news.

Later, the astrologers in the East also looked up and saw the star. From different places, they set out. Led by the star, they journeyed alone and then maybe together. Journey is an Epiphany activity. One must leave the comfort of home to meet others on the way to meet the Word Made Flesh. 

One must come to trust others on the way. The Wise Men trusted too much. They trusted Herod, who was a villain, untrue to the kingly role he was given. But God’s care for the Word Made Flesh was greater than the power of Herod. Both the Holy Family and the Wise Men, warned in a dream, fled safely, but infant boys in Bethlehem did not. Great sacrifice is also part of the Epiphany experience.

• On Epiphany in this Christmas season, we are called to journey, alone and best of all together, to find the Child, to trust we will find Him, to accept the truth of dreams and be willing to sacrifice.

All season long, let’s all do our best to experience the simple-sounding, deeply revelatory calls we have from God, to be as the shepherds were and the Wise Men as well. Ask the Christ Child to show us how. It all begins with looking up. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Finding Our True Joy

Dear Friends,

The principal characters in today’s readings are Isaiah, Mary, the Thessalonians and John the Baptist. Without exception (and like us,) they lived with life-altering questions for which they had no immediate answers. They had no clear sense of what would happen, and along the way, they suffered for holding fast to their beliefs as well as what the messengers of God and their very lives told them were true.

They believed that God’s love enfolded them as they went on. (Do we?)

Woven through all four pieces of today’s Scriptures is a strong, luminous thread called joy.

None of these – Isaiah, Mary, the Thessalonians and John – had it easy, but they were all convinced that they were loved by God. (Are we?) They dared to forge new paths and they believed in a coming yet unseen. They knew by instinct and by faith that God loved their world and they rejoiced. (Do we?)

What is joy anyway? Can we experience it even in these immensely difficult times? 

Joy is not giddy delight nor happy laughter or merrymaking. It’s not a tailgate party or the euphoria of drugs. Joy is not the response to comedians or a passing response to incongruity. 

Joy is anchored in the promise that God wills the well-being of all. It is the keen awareness that God is in our life or is coming in a new way. It is a learned response that requires time, patience and a sustained effort. Joy grows in us over a lifetime.

The person who has learned joy gazes at, walks in the world and sees God’s imprint in life and nature.

Take the beloved American poet Mary Oliver. She encouraged her readers to welcome joy. “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it…Life has some possibility left. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” 

“Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,” the psalmist reminds us (Ps.34.5).

So, do it. Look to God who is near. Don’t think your way into joy. Don’t make it a project. Don’t preprogram it. The experience will happen in the depths of our hearts despite pandemic, economic distress and personal loss. Instead, be open to the season which celebrates the coming of God.

As this season comes to flower, enjoy the music, drink in the delicate scent of fir trees, peppermint and ginger-bread. 

Look around you and see for certain that God is in love with the world.

We have great cause to rejoice.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Fearfulness and Beauty of the Desert

 

Dear Friends,

Today, in our liturgy, we see how the Israelites fleeing from Egypt, the captives in Babylon, John the Baptist and Jesus himself suffered in the desert and they found it to be a place of growth in God. But it wasn’t easy for them nor for us in the deserts of our times.

Throughout recorded history, people have known deserts to be dangerous, inhospitable, inhuman places. In ancient literature, including the Bible, deserts were peopled by demons, and therefore, a testing place. The children of Israel, on their long journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, to Jesus himself, faced the rigors of the desert. Humanly speaking, the desert is a lonely, terrifying place.

At the same time, though, as today’s first reading tells us, the voice cried out in the desert “prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40.3). The Israelites were free to come home after a 40-year captivity in Babylon, and as they travelled, the desert before them and around them was in bloom. Beauty and redemption were in the desert. 

Centuries later, John the Baptist, newly emerged from the desert, cried out familiar words: “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mark 1.1). He would be the precursor of Jesus, who would point to Jesus as the expected Savior. But before his encounter with Jesus, the wilderness, the desert had been home to John. There, he survived on locusts and wild honey. When the time came, he left the desert to preach, baptize, challenge Herod and ultimately die as the price of a dance. 

Just as John found his salvation in the desert, so do we find salvation in our modern desert. The voice of the Lord speaks to us in the wilderness of the pandemic, the awful desert of a destructive relationships. We know the wilderness of moral wrongdoing or depression, addiction, loneliness and war, the wilderness of working for justice and peace in a less than conscious world. The desert is anyplace that the integrity of our soul is tried, where the fabric of family life is stretched to tearing, where communities are tried by tragedy and the challenge to human value.

We travel through a variety of deserts that endanger or frighten us. Yet like the people coming home from Babylon we too can find great beauty, in the desert. Most especially, it is here, in the desert, that we find the comfort of our God. “Comfort, comfort my people,” says God in Isaiah (43.2).

When tempted in the desert, Jesus needed the strength of God, the comfort of God, and he was given both. The temptations were overcome, and there was joy! 

Joy happens in life, when the wilderness does not overcome us, when we reach quenching waters and they are not a mirage, but real. 

As Advent continues through this strange and unwelcome year, we are not alone in the personal wilderness of our society and world. Listen. Listen. Listen to the voice you hear in the wilderness, for surely, there will be one.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Reimagining the Lion and the Lamb

Dear Friends,

This week, enjoy these imaginative pairings of God’s creation in Isaiah 11.6-9: 

“Then the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.

The calf and young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like an ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.”

To our way of thinking, these pairings don’t fit together. They seem adversarial. They don’t make sense. Have you ever seen a lion eat hay? Yet combinations of these images appear on Christmas cards, so our ancestors in the faith made what they believed were significant connections. In the Book of Revelations, Chapter 5, Jesus is called the Lion of Judah. He is in continuity with the sacrificial lamb, Jesus, who died for us. Jesus is both lion and lamb.

But for us today, caught as we are in the throes of a pandemic, squashed in by political battles and economic hardship, we might want to think about these figures – the lion and the lamb in the more non-biblical way – as daring to thwart one another’s lives.

We could call by the name “lion” those destructive ways of being that stalk the lambs of our society and world, causing fear, anxiety, and death. The pandemic is a lion, and the lamb the fragile human bodies don’t stand a chance against it. The lion is the emotional stress we find in us that makes us attack others, even if at other times, we love them. Abuse. Physical abuse, mental abuse. They are part of our world today. The lion is that part of us that gives no peace to our alter ego – that part of us that wants wholeness and peace prevail. In this way of thinking, the lion and the lamb are, indeed, adversarial.

What can we be, become, and/or do during this Advent season in order to reclaim the biblical imagery of the lion and lamb being one – to relinquish the adversarial way we experience them in this dismal time?

Allow for daily silence. Even a few minutes away from others, the TV or the internet. Let the hidden gifts of this season seep into our consciousness. Silence contentiousness. Welcome inner quiet. Turn away from noise. Meet God in the deep silence of your heart.

Close the door to violence. We see it nightly on television. Brawls and batterings. We need not support violence, buy it, nor give it a place in our homes. Embrace peace and let it show up in daily living.

God is coming, the one who is both lion and lamb. Will we recognize him?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Gift of Gratitude

Dear Friends,

As COVID-19 keeps pursuing our bodies this Thanksgiving, let’s try to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on the big world we live in with all its graces, newness and hopefulness, as well as on our families and friends. Let’s remember that:

·         All the good done, the justice insured, all the compassion offered, all the violence rejected across the world is God’s gift to us.

·         When vaccines are proven effective and the poor are included in healing, these are God’s gift to each of us.

·         When people’s bonds are broken and they are freed to use their talents for a better life, these are God’s gift to us.

·         The surprising things that we find true, beautiful and good in our homes, relationships, neighborhoods, are God’s gift to us.

·         When illness, accidents, bad choices, unethical situations, international disasters of human or natural making have not overwhelmed us personally or collectively, these have been God’s gift to us.

·         When the situations of our lives have been graced with meaning-makers and consensus-builders, these have been God’s gift to us.

If gratitude catches hold of our hearts and minds and feet it becomes a way of living in us. When we receive with thanks and give away freely, gratitude has become a way of living in us.

When Jesus in the Gospel says to the man he cured of demons to go home and make it clear to them how much God had done for him, this was God’s gift to him and gives us an example to do in like manner.

We thank God, too, for poems that urge us to be grateful and which speak to us of what we know in more pedantic ways. These are also God’s gift to us.

                “…For vows of marriage, vows of silence, 

                    vows of chastity that bend the starlight to earth…

                    For holy names and graves…

                    For the grace of growing old 

                    And thinking that it’s wisdom.

                    For that share of intimacies

                    I don’t share with words

                    But share with sadness and content.” (William O’Leary, 2017)

On Thanksgiving Day, may we roam among the snippets of thought, the sacred spaces of this earth and be deeply aware that God has given us hearts that are capable of enlarging with gratitude.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Working Together for the Common Good

Dear Friends,

On the Sunday after his election was confirmed by his victory in Pennsylvania, President-elect Joe Biden went to Mass. Certain things would not change for him. Joe Biden was a man of faith before his election. Afterwards, he would need God’s guidance to put together a government that would be fair to all, respectful of and embracing all Americans, without exception. Ahead, there will be successes in this agenda. There will also be missteps, blind spots, and pain. After all, Joe Biden is human. So are we.

As he spoke in victory, I was appreciative of President-elect Biden’s desire to build up the lives of all citizens and newcomers alike. But he is not alone in this task. You and I need to share in that profound work. Like Joe, we can be confident of the wisdom of God, the constant companionship of God as we go forward. But we need to be open to it, access it, activate it, renew it daily.

The American project of growth and outreach stretches before us. President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have to surround themselves with knowledgeable people for whom the common good is the acknowledged goal of service in government. We will need to do in like manner, so as not to grow sour because of political differences or be entrenched in old ways that did not serve life for all. 

In his recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis emphasizes social friendship as a blueprint for healing the many scars from wounds inflicted, even within families, during the election process. Pope Francis highlights the virtues of compassion, solidarity and dialogue.

Recently, the Bishop of San Diego, CA, Robert McElroy, in a talk given at the University of Notre Dame, built on the words of Pope Francis: “We, as people of faith, must demonstrate how our nation can be rebuilt by citizens who identify with the vulnerability of others precisely by refusing to channel our compassion and compassionate action along the lines of party and class.” On solidarity, Bishop McElroy said that Americans, beginning with Catholics, must learn to put the common good above self-interest. (This may be the hardest task of all!) And when it comes to dialogue, he said, a new tone of encounter needs to be embraced. “It is vital,” Bishop McElroy said, “that we be less magisterial and more dialogical even on those issues on which are convictions are most profound.

To do these things with fruitfulness, you and I need to give up Redundance, Rebukes, Regrets, and Recurrences of destructive patterns. Instead, we must be Resourceful, Re-creative, Respectful, and capable of Renewing with the Holy Spirit the face of our nation and ultimately, the earth.

Let it be so.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Keeping Our Lives Well Oiled

Dear Friends,

The early darkness of standard time has descended on our land. In delicious contrast, today’s Gospel is from Matthew 25 where Jesus tells the story of the bridesmaids who were sent out into the night with oil lamps to be kept burning while waiting for the bridegroom to come.

In our day, bridesmaids are family members or friends who precede the bride up the aisle. They assist her in a variety of ways and add to the loveliness of the occasion. In Jesus’ time, however bridesmaids had one outstanding duty – namely, to light the way as they escorted the bridegroom to his bride. Each woman chosen to be a bridesmaid knew she had to bring a lamp and enough oil to see to her duty.

Jesus’ hearers knew that if the bridegroom was late, he was with the bride’s father, working out the details of her dowry. The longer the negotiations took, the higher in esteem the bride was said to be. In a subtle way, Jesus showed how much he valued women, for as he tells it, the negotiations took the better part of the night.

When the word came that the bridegroom was on his way, there was a scramble among the sleepy-eyed bridesmaids. Some of them had remembered to bring extra oil. Some forgot or made a poor judgment about how much oil was required.

The five wise bridesmaids had to face a difficult choice. They could light the way for the bridegroom and risk losing the friendship of their unprepared companions, or they could share their oil and have it run out for all of them. In choosing not to share but to be ready to escort the bridegroom, the five wise bridesmaids also chose to live with the tension their refusal created.

We know about tension. Some tension is good, like tension that keeps us alert on the highways, competent in our professional lives and physically at our peak, the tension of being a good spouse and parent, a good Christian and a good citizen. All of these tensions are exacerbated these pandemic days.

We too need a lot of oil for our lamps so that we can function meaningfully in the months ahead, mostly by staying the course of our lives. Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has just recently been named to Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. That means he is in charge of making strong the Roman Catholic Church of Jerusalem. In describing what Pope Francis asked the archbishop to do is to “stay” where he was in a new role. To stay.

Archbishop Pizzaballa wrote to the people: “{Stay} is a verb of matured patience, of watchful waiting, of daily and serious fidelity.” He then invited his flock “to remain with me, in the same decision.”

As today’s oil bearers, you and I are called to stay in the moment, stay with the call, stay in whatever ways we need to, despite the temptations to do otherwise.

Today’s first reading teaches us that wisdom so generously offers us none other than God’s Spirit, given to help us make life-giving, life-sustaining choices in the face of the tensions of life.

Bring along enough oil. Stay the course.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Guiding Ourselves Through Grief

Dear Friends,

Both personally and on the news, I have listened to people lament loved ones who have died alone – without being there to hold their loved one’s hand, to whisper words of love. Many of these stories had to do with COVID-19 patients suffering their last hours in ICU. Even though nurses and doctors did all they could to be present to the dying, it wasn’t the same. I’ve listened to others whose loved one died alone when they took their own life in suicide. Survivors are bereft, feel cheated, abandoned.

Father Ron Rolheiser describes us when our loved one dies in these ways. He uses the word “helpless.” We can do nothing for them or for ourselves in the face of such irreversible loss.

Sometimes we are incapable of uttering any words. Sometimes we wail, or keep repeating the story of our loved one’s last day to the extent that we know it. The empty place at the table on the next holiday looms large before us, even though the event may be months away. Helplessness prevails.

Last week, I listened by phone to a woman whose beloved sister died of COVID-19 in a distant country. This tenderhearted woman lovingly and extensively talked about memories of her Sister, what she would miss. She wondered what she could do, not just to assuage this life-altering change for herself, but also for her Sister’s family. She talked about being mad at God and not finding any solace in prayer. The loss was overwhelming.

Here are some of the coping mechanisms we talked about:

Grieve. Let grief take its course. Believers know that “The souls of the just are in the hands of God. No torment shall touch them. They are at peace. (Wisdom 1-2)” This belief coexists with our grief.

Eventually, call to mind the best gifts of character your loved one possessed. Which one or two of these qualities would you like to embody in your life, so that his/her gifts go on feeding the world with truth, beauty and goodness? Ask your loved one’s family members to do this as well. And relish what each survivor has chosen.

If you have a gift that your loved one has given you, however insignificant, use it, put it out where you can see it, carry it with you…whatever seems appropriate.

And if you can’t pray, say to God, “I can’t pray!” That in itself is a prayer.

People, in deep concern for us, often say things they think will help. “God doesn’t give us more than we can take.” “God leads us to what we fear most, to show us we have nothing to fear.” “God held your loved one close even as (s)he died.” All true, but not helpful at the time of our deepest grief. All we can do is grieve and wait until we emerge from the immediacy of the pain. Sometimes the cloud will lift once and for all, and we can go on. Sometimes the cloud lifts but keeps coming back to haunt us at unexpected times.

But just as your beloved was not alone in death, but was being held lovingly by God, so too with you. You, in your grief, are being held by God, your family and friends. Give God your helplessness.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Recognizing That We Are One

Dear Friends,

Many Americans have already voted. Each of our votes count, yet it’s worth remembering that we don’t vote in isolation, but in solidarity with others who make up our nation. While voting is on our minds, this is a good time to deepen in ourselves the awareness, the conviction, the joy that arises from the understanding that all of our fellow voters and we ourselves belong to a big family person. We are all siblings of one another. The anatomy of our bodies, the types of blood in our bloodstreams, the fact that all of us feel anxiety, delight, too cold, too hot, all tell us that we are more kin than we want to acknowledge. As far back as Exodus 22, read in today’s liturgy, God reminds us that we are not aliens, foreigners to one another, and that God’s wish for all of us is that we understand that we are, indeed, all one.

Speaking of the “Human Family,” Maya Angelou tells her readers:

                “I note the obvious differences in the human family.
                Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy…
                The variety of our skin tones can confuse, bemuse, delight,
                Brown and pink and beige and purple, tan and blue and white.
                I note the obvious difference between each sort and type,
                But we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

We do know what it means to be a stranger, an alien, a foreigner, but so often, when life changes for us and we become an insider, accepted for who we are, we forget how it used to be. We don’t zero in on Jesus’ call to us in today’s Gospel. “Love God with your whole heart, your whole soul and your whole mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” How we act, going forward as Americans after this election, depends on how well we have internalized the compassionate love of God.

Martin Luther King Junior helps us look ourselves in the eye and consider our motives as we respond to the questions of our day:

                “Cowardice asks the question ‘Is it safe?’
                Expedience asks ‘Is it politically correct?’
                Vanity asks ‘Is it popular?’
                Conscience asks ‘Is it right?’”

Why will we do what we do in the next four years?

For us to become a great, and I daresay, a nation at one with God, our country must take positions which are not safe or popular or even politically correct. We must take a position because it is right. Right and just and true, just as God is right and just and true, and who we are. That is the only way we can love God and our neighbor.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Understanding God's Vision

Dear Friends,

Here’s the emperor’s coin, Jesus. Are you for God or for Caesar? Here’s a woman caught in adultery, Jesus. Do you support the law i.e. stone her, or do you favor mercy for the accused?

If we were to quiz Jesus today, we’d have a lot of questions. Jesus, are you pro-choice or pro-life? Are you liberal or conservative? Jesus, tell me where you stand on the environment, racism, sexism, gun control, capital punishment, the size and shape of the federal government. And Jesus, would you have us stay in the World Health Organization? What would you do with terrorists? The questions are endless.

The difference between the Pharisees in today’s Gospel and ourselves is this: The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus. The Gospel says, “They plotted how they might trap him, and Jesus knew their malice.”

Our questions, on the other hand, arise out of an honest searching for truth in a complex society. They are not meant to trap or embarrass Jesus, but only to better understand God’s vision for our world.

Society, in the midst of this election season laced with a stubborn pandemic, has ready answers to our questions – social media, podcasts, supermarket tabloids, talk show hosts, the tough kids in school bathrooms. They all speak with great authority and conviction.

But if we are a believing people, how do we form our consciences? How do we arrive at out decisions about voting, living, changing?

As we approach contemporary questions, here’s a possible framework for our thought and decisions.

First of all, in any decision-making process, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. In Isaiah today, God says to us: “It is I who arm you, though you know me not.” God’s wisdom, God’s presence in each of us is a given in every situation.

Secondly, Jesus’ design for each of us is contained in the Gospel. The gospels are about daily life in this world, not about life within a sacred precinct. Jesus, after all, tells more stories about workers and housewives, farmers and merchants than he talked about appropriate behavior in the synagogue. Our challenge is to apply a gospel vision to all the tough questions we face today.

Finally, attempting to deal with today’s thorny issues by ourselves makes no more sense than trying to be our own physician. This is one of the key reasons we come together for worship weekend: to hear God’s word, to taste God’s life in Eucharist, to look to one another for support.

He might reply to our questions today by saying something like this: I can’t prepare you for every choice you’ll need to make, or every situation you’ll encounter along the way, but remember God’s words spoken in Isaiah: “I am the Lord. There is no other. There is no God besides me.” Without me, there is no peace, no happiness, no satisfaction possible for you. But with me, you’ll have everything you need to discern how to live, though you might want something else or more. God also says to us in Isaiah, “I have called you by your name.” I know you. You belong to me. You are important to me. I will never forget you. You are never alone. I love you.

Despite our COVID-19 fatigue, how different our lives would be, how much more full and happy if we really took God in Jesus at his word. You, Lord, have the words of everlasting life.

~Sister Joan Sobala

God's Vineyard

Dear Friends,

This is the third weekend that the Gospel readings have involved vineyards, their management, the way family members understood them, the way they have been used and abused. Yet, what is most valuable to know is that the vineyard is the house of the Lord.

Here in the Fingers Lakes, our lush vineyards are being harvested as we read this. In northern California, its vast valleys and hillsides are being decimated by wildfires. It’s timely for us to consider vineyards and grapes.

Here are three thoughts:

Grapevines do not respond to our particular demands. Isaiah, today, tells the story of a vineyard owner who took great care to plant and nurture a proper vineyard. What’s more, the owner had expectations about this crop. This vineyard was to bear fine grapes, but in the end, there were only wild grapes.

We know about wild grapes…perhaps some of our children, siblings and maybe even our parents, who have grown in ways different from our expectations. I am not talking about destructive, addictive patterns of living, but just not matching our expectations. “What more could I have done for my vineyard that I had not done?” we might lament, and fail to value the rare tang and see the beauty of the wild grapes in our family.

We need to treat the whole vineyard as if it is ours. The children in our communities, the immigrants, the poor and hungry, the mentally ill, the robust. They all belong in the vineyard and therefore to us. The task of creating communities of trust is ours, where people on various sides of an issue can be safe, speak out their concerns and be heard. In these strange days of 2020, when the bruised, wounded and suffering seem to be increasing exponentially, we need to treat the whole vineyard as if it is ours.

And yet, it is not ours. It is also important that we treat the vineyard as not ours. Sometimes all we can do is watch and pray. It is a privilege to watch. Whom have you watched and prayed for and prayed with? We don’t need to use today’s political buzz words to know that things are very wrong in our country. Yet we need to act on the belief that this country of ours can become fresh, new, true to our guiding principles. In faith, we believe that this transformation can happen because the vineyard that is the United States is God’s vineyard.

God is a tender, attentive vineyard owner who invites us to likewise be attentive and tender. Through the words of Paul, we are invited to put the vineyard into perspective.    

        Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure        

        Whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence

        And if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things

        Keep on doing the things you have learned…And the God of peace will be with you

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Internalizing the Mind of Christ

Dear Friends,

The pandemic and the election season are crowding in on us. So, too, are fears about our families, schools, job losses, daily living. Can we have any peace of mind in the midst of all of this turmoil?

In today’s second reading, Paul offers four ways to let God’s peace be real for us in these troubled times.

First, he says, dismiss anxiety from your mind. He doesn’t say hate anxiety or fight it or destroy it. Dismiss it, he says. Let it go. Open yourself and let it go.

Secondly, Paul says, “present your needs to God.” Do you ever pray by speaking to God out loud? Yes, out loud. It doesn’t matter if any human person is there to hear you. God is with you. Say what you need out loud so you can hear it and say, “Yes. I really need that” – or “No, I had better find another way to express what I need.” We may not get what we ask for, but let us at least turn to God, the companion of these difficult times. Maybe we can learn to be continually turned toward God. And that is what really counts. We can only embrace God if we are first turned toward him.

Thirdly, Paul echoes here what he says elsewhere, namely to put on the mind of Christ – put on his lifegiving, compassionate way of thinking. God tells us in Isaiah, “I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction.” When we learn to think God’s thoughts, peace is not far from us.

Paul tells us plainly today, “your thoughts should be wholly directed at all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous or worthy of praise.”

Finally, Paul caps all of these admonitions with the challenge to live according to what we have learned to believe.

It’s a clear and almost trite thing to say that we are all different: Black, brown, red, yellow, white, educated and uneducated, pizza lovers and those who fancy Thai food. We love jazz and classical music, pray as Muslims, Jews, Christians and so on. We are all different. Can we accept the dignity of each person or do we judge people’s differences as wrong, lacking in value? Writing in a new book called “Graced Crossroads,” Ted Dunn says, “What divides us is not our differences. Rather it is our condemnations and attempts at coercion that are the cause of our polarization, rising tension and violence.”

One important way of moving toward acceptance of one another in our country is to internalize the mind of Christ – to accept protestors’ ways of calling attention to injustice, to value the work people do on behalf of building up loving and compassionate communities. What those with a destructive frame of mind do is to tear down and steal, under the cover of the efforts the hurting make up front.

To be good and do good requires that we also realize with Thomas Merton that there is a chain of links that we need to dismantle:

                “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves,

                  And we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”

Let’s get to work. The mind of Christ is ours for the asking.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Power of "Yes" and "No"

Dear Friends,

One commentator I read recently referred to today’s Gospel as “The Better of Two Bad Sons.”

The first son said “yes,” he would go work in the vineyard, but he didn’t. Talk is cheap. There was no commitment in this man to follow his words with actions. The second son said no – but later went. He didn’t want to work. He didn’t want to do what his father asked. Maybe he was lazy or preoccupied. But then he went. Conversion. The second son had changed.

In this parable, Jesus is talking about those powerful words Yes and No. Yes, I will obey. I will cooperate. I will go. I will come. No. No, I won’t. No, I don’t want to. In Jesus’ way of talking about life, Yes and No are about hearing the word of God and keeping it. 

As Jesus travelled, spoke, challenged his hearers, he met people who relied on their track record of responding to God’s word. They claimed they were obedient, cooperative, indeed, fastidious about living according to God’s law. At the same time, they scorned the tax collectors and prostitutes – the ones who had said "no" to God, no to accepted religious practice, no to the values that the self-righteous had espoused. But these very people, the ones who had apparently said No had changed in the warmth of God’s love. Their behavior had changed. They went into the vineyard and worked hard, loved hard, became committed.

The thing to note about these two sons in Jesus’ story is that they were free – free to say Yes or No. They were called to obedience, but there was no manipulation or coercion involved.

The question that was put to the two sons in Jesus’ parable today is the same question that was initially put to us at our baptism. We spend a lifetime answering Yes and No, because the questions keep changing with the times. In this new moment, will we be faithful to the Yes of our baptism, as others want to destroy the community through attitudes and practices which disparage people because of their race, gender, economic status?

As the pre-election season heats up, it will be important for us not just to hear what the candidates say, but to study the implications of their platforms for the good of all. Over lunch with a group of women recently, we got onto the economy. One of the women was adamant that the economy was just fine, “After all,” she said, “look at your portfolio!” But a healthy portfolio for one or a few is not equivalent to a robust economy which makes all ships rise. We don’t have to say No to “What’s in our wallets?” in order to step into doing all we can so that the poor are less poor. “Yes” to doing what we can so that others may live securely is a Gospel Yes.

The conversion that Matthew speaks of the Gospel today is individual conversion. Ezekiel, in the first reading calls for corporate conversion. We are in this moment, this ongoing economic crisis together. Yes to one another is Yes to God. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

God's Generosity

Dear Friends,  

The vineyard owner in today’s Gospel is in a hiring mood. He hires new workers all day long until the last hour. The story flows along with a certain ease when all of a sudden, it develops a twist that brings us up short and makes us question the fairness of the owner. Our sense of justice is offended. We are indignant with the owner and we feel empathy with the laborers who seem to be victims of unfair labor practices. “Call in the union! Call in the arbitrators!” we might want to shout.

For once, Jesus had it all wrong. Or did he? 

Where did this strange little story come from anyway? What was the context that gave rise to it? Why is it in Matthew’s Gospel and nowhere else? And why, in this moment of history, should we care anyway?

It’s important to know that Matthew’s Gospel was not written by some isolated individual who decided by himself what to include. Matthew was part of a community of believers which consisted of Jews who had become Christian. Their Christianity had deep and lasting roots in the Jewish tradition. The temptation for them was a sense of privilege. Matthew’s community had to face and deal with the acceptance of new people who wanted to be numbered among God’s chosen – and these newcomers lacked an unbroken pattern of lifelong piety. The parable points out discreetly that it was time to put exclusivity and division among people aside and welcome into the family of believers, sinners and tax collectors, Gentiles and the unclean.

The parable has nothing to do with justice or labor practices. Instead, it teaches us a most astounding lesson, namely that all generosity is unfair, and it is surprising.

You and I, too, have been the recipients of God’s generosity. Yet we might want to look askance on others who came after us who have received the promise as fully as we have with less time on the job, so to speak. The lesson for us as we go on and on in these pandemic times with its economic and climate woes is to learn to be generous as God is generous. As the landowner gave equal pay for unequal work because he was generous, so too, God gifts all of us seasoned or fledgling disciples equally for unequal efforts. Let’s do in like manner. At first, we might have to swallow hard, but wholehearted practice can bring us to a similar generosity.

Perhaps, most of all, we need to learn to relax and trust this God of ours who does such topsy-turvy things with our expectations and in our lives. Let God bring in others. We just need to welcome them as God does.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Restore the City of God in Rochester

Dear Friends,

We’ve watched numerous cities of our country and world, during the last half year, become places where  “violence and strife make their rounds day and night.” (Psalm 55.1) Portland, Minneapolis, Beirut, Kabul and Kenosha, Tulsa and Rochester.  Yet we can say with Isaiah, ours “is a city that is not forsaken.” (Isaiah 62.12)

It’s important to love our cities as places where God dwells, and people make their way toward goodness, justice mercy, and compassion – all those things which speak of wholeness in the community.

Two efforts you and I need to make to restore the city of God in Rochester.

Honest Dialogue. Not waiting impatiently for the other to finish so that I can have my say. Not seeking agreement with what I say, but searching for a common ground – a space between us that is empty and awaits a new reality. If we have honest dialogue, there will be a new reality. Gone will be the original orientation. gone will be the disorientation that violence brings. There will be a new and seminal orientation. Black and brown will not cease to be black and brown. White will remain white. But there will be appreciation for the rich and varied colors and all they bring to the city we are rebuilding. Let’s not skip over talking respectfully with one another about the racism issues of our day.

Work Toward  An End To Systemic Racism. From our founding as a nation, whites have considered black and brown people less intelligent, less than human, less capable. Some white people, to the horror of other white people, experimented on blacks at Tuskegee. We used the services, the bodies of black and brown people for our advantage. What makes this way of treating our brothers and sisters of color so awful is that we hardly adverted to this use and misuse. It was our normal. We may not think of our nation as systemically racist. But consider our American culture, our nation’s policies and institutions. They are woven through with racism. Developers mark out whole suburbs where blacks are not wanted, businesses have no black or brown people in administration. We could go on, but the point is for us to become color brave and nor color blind. To change our cities together, find at least one organization that is committed to life-giving change and participate. While the pandemic goes on, such organizations offer ways to participate from home by internet or by phone. Make the effort.

Finally, let’s pray together Psalm 122 (selected/paraphrased):

                          Our feet are standing on your streets, O Rochester

                          I pray for the peace of this city.

May all who love you prosper.

May peace be within your walls and security for everyone.

For the sake of my relatives and friends,

for the sake of all who dwell here, I say

“Peace upon you.”

For the sake of God, who dwells among us,

I will seek your good.

~Sister Joan Sobala

                               

                        

Finding the Light Within the Cracks

Dear Friends,

In his poem, Anthem, Leonard Cohen tells his reader,

“There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That is how the light gets in.”

Don’t miss the cracks in our world. Despite the call to be socially distant, we are called to draw near to one another in support and compassion. Even though familiar routines have disappeared, new ways of being and doing are emerging. Despite the limitations of this pandemic, we can pause to listen, look, reach beyond the moment. 

There is a crack in everything. God is in the cracks.

    God, who teaches us the unruly freedom of the Word

    God who inspires the dignity of each person and who teaches us what it means to live a 

    connected life in a global world

    God, who gives us the Incarnation in a human scale and not as an abstraction

    God, who bids us to accompany one another in the darkest of days so as to find the cracks 

    and so enter the light

    God, who travels with us even when we travel in disagreement with one another.

This is our God. While human leaders stir fear in the people, God stirs hope. While human leaders hold back life to the full from all, God gives life to the full to all. While human leaders can give mixed messages, God offers truth.

“Ring the bells that still can ring (Cohen continues)

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That’s how the light gets in.”

Come on, sister! Come on brother! Let’s look for the cracks together and not give up.

Beyond the isolated and insular is light. And the light shines in the darkness. Ring the bells. Tell everyone who will hear to listen. God is new in our midst.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Balancing Individual and Community Life

Dear Friends,

Two things vie with each other for the soul of the American public in our age as well as in our history – and I daresay, in our future. Of course, there are more than two, but humor me and let’s pay attention to these two. They are the good of the individual and the good of the community.

To be totally absorbed in the good of the individual can lead to selfishness. To be totally given over to work for the good of society can leave one empty.

The important thing is to keep a balance between these competing claims.

I once heard a story from the lore of a far distant land. It goes something like this:

On this particular day, the word went out throughout the village that Sarah was about to give birth. For days, as her time grew near, the sage of the village pondered what the name of the child of Sarah and Ben should be. The sage prayed, consulted the stars, and listened to the wind. On that new birth date, the whole village fell into silence, as it always did when a birth was imminent. Necessary messages were given in whispers, and even the children seemed to learn early on that the whole village must direct its energies to the birth of the new one of theirs.

As soon as the child was born, the sage whispered the name of the baby to Sarah, who first whispered it to the baby and then to Ben. Ben, in turn went out to the grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins and whispered the name to each of them. And they, in turn, went out into the whole village to whisper the name to everyone.

As soon as the whole village knew the baby’s name, they converged on the house, stood around it and chanted, sang the baby’s name.

This was a loved child, a welcomed child, a child who belonged not only to Sarah and Ben, but to the whole community, where, as the child grew, its destiny and contribution to the life of the community would become clear.

The lessons are clear: Without the individual, there is no community. Without the individual, called by name in baptism, there is no church.

The civic community and the church welcome the individual and offer that person everything they need to grow and become more and more fully who they are. The individual also has a responsibility for the community and the church.

“If one is to do good,” says the ethicist William Blake, “good must be done in minute detail. General good is the lea of the hypocrite, the scoundrel and the flatterer,” he concludes.

But the movement from general good (e.g. I wish no one evil. All lives matter.) to the particular good (e.g. What must I do…) requires the sacrifice of some of our apparent individual goods. Therein is the rub!

To break down isolation of people by race, income and culture, to bridge the widening gaps that separate rich, poor and the shrinking middle class, to advance liberty and justice for all, we need to step up, step out, step in. Our baptism calls us to do nothing less.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Lessons of the Women Disciples

Dear Friends,

Last Thursday, the 20th of August, was the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting the women the right to vote. It all came down to Tennessee’s ratification, which was achieved with effort, determination, and belief that the vote would bring women to a new moment in the national move toward equality of women with men.

Last week was also the virtual Democratic Convention which confirmed Kamala Harris as Joe Biden‘s vice presidential running mate. 

Both of these were key elements in moving toward life to the full for American women.

But the story leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the choice of a woman of color seem to have no clear overt reference to the Gospel which undergirds and sustains our faith lives. Is there none? Do believers find cause to support women’s issues, women’s presence in shaping the life of our nation politically? Yes. Just take a long loving look at Jesus.

In a time when men only counted, Jesus interacted with both Jewish and Gentile women…the Samaritan woman at the well, with her many layers of experience, the Canaanite woman in last week’s Gospel, strongminded Martha and Mary, and the woman with the unending hemorrhage. Jesus touched the dead body of the daughter of Jairus and was touched by the woman who anointed him at the table of Simon the leper. Jesus had a group of disciples who were women, who did not run away in the face of his death, but stayed with him at the tomb when his male disciples did not. The most notable of the women disciples was Mary Magdalen. Mary, his Mother, was the first beloved woman in his life.

Jesus learned fresh, clear lessons from interacting with women – his mother whose awareness of a wedding need moved him to turn water into wine. He came to a new sense of ministering to foreigners because the Canaanite woman wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Jesus told stories about resourceful women – the persistent woman who stood before a judge until she got a satisfactory answer and the woman who swept and swept until she found the missing coin.

There are other women who might be your personal favorites.

All of them, partners of Jesus in daring, steeped in the depth of compassion, mercy and love, witnessed by their lives the love of Jesus for women. Later the church suffered from a convenient amnesia. It forgot that women were not second class in the eyes of Jesus. He accepted them and their lessons, their capabilities and faithfulness.

As women today go on to seek equality in all spheres of life possible, we have an indefatigable, faithful partner in Jesus – our God, yes, and our brother as well.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Lord, Help Me

Dear Friends, 

In our everyday world, people are divided into insiders and outsiders. People are enemies or allies, acceptable or not, Protestant or Catholic, educated or not. How we understand heaven can divide Muslims from Christians. Sometimes workers and management see each other in hostile ways. The divisions in Congress are evidence that people cut each other off from working together on problem solving for the common good.

But division/divisiveness is not of God.

Consider the 1st reading today from Isaiah: “the burnt offerings and sacrifices of foreigners who join themselves to me will be acceptable at my altar.”

So much of Paul’s letter to the Romans, part of which we hear today, invites us to give up divisions and be reconciled with one another.

And the Gospel tells a story we very much need to hear, so that we know that Jesus, too, had a hard time becoming wholeheartedly inclusive.

At the beginning of this account, Jesus wears blinders. He has been immersed in a ministry to his fellow Jews. But now, he crosses a geographic boundary into a foreign territory. A Syro-Phoenician woman calls out to him, but he did not respond. 

In last week’s Gospel, Jesus was able to stop the wind and waves, but now, he could not stop the woman’s persistent appeal for help. Mothers worldwide, in every age, will do anything they can to achieve their children’s well-being. She would not take no for an answer. Even the insult Jesus sent her way would not deflect her from her point, as she deftly turned Jesus’ words into a compliment of sorts.

“Lord, help me,” she begged. We heard the same cry for help on Peter’s lips last week, as he took his eyes off Jesus and sank into the turbulent waters.

Why should Jesus help Peter and not the Syro-Phoenician’s daughter? Why indeed?

What impresses me about this woman is how she did not let secondary issues distract her. She could have walked away in anger because Jesus was treating her in the stereotypical way women were treated then. She could have taken him for an arrogant Jew who looked down on Gentile foreigners. Sexist and racial exclusion are worthy of our combat. But she didn’t. She stayed on point, and her daughter was healed.

In our church and in our world, upholding life values requires that, as John Lewis reminded us, we need to keep our eye on the prize and make good trouble.

The Gospel shows us that inclusiveness in our mentality and practice is hard won. We are challenged today to have God’s own attitude in us toward humanity: to be welcoming and open, not closed and prohibitive. To do this with courage, we need to pray the prayer of Peter and the Canaanite woman: Lord, help me.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Finding God's Help Amidst a Storm

Dear Friends,

It is a paradox. God is not in the storm in the story of Elijah; God is in the storm in Matthew’s gospel account today.

Where is God most present? In Elijah’s flight from his enemies? In the disciples’ struggle with the storm? God is always present, but the way God is present varies. 

In the silence, the voice of God sends Elijah back to the fearful and violent place from which he had fled. Peter and Jesus get back into the boat. They don’t go to shore. The boat is where the others are, and even though it is a place of danger, they are all in it together. (We keep hearing that same phrase these days about life with the coronavirus: We are all in this together.)

Our own impossible situations are dramatic in an analogous way, and we are invited by the Gospel to imitate Peter and call out to Jesus, “Help me!” And Jesus, in turn, will stretch out his hand to catch us.

A week before my mother, Celia, died, I recall being indescribably weary as I arrived at the elevator door. The accumulation of Celia’s demanding illness interwoven with my three cancers and a broken leg had pretty much leveled me.

As I rode up on the elevator at the nursing home that day, I leaned my forehead against the wall. “I can’t do this alone today,” I prayed.

A little while later, along came my mother’s brother, Adam, who had only come three other times in eleven months. I recognized him for who he was: the outreached hand of Jesus. God provided in my storm.

Going back to the Gospel, Peter, the fisherman, is remarkably more aware of the storm’s treachery than he is confident of Christ’s summons, until Christ reaches out to him.

But the import of this story is not for individuals alone. Muchmore than that, the boat can be seen as a symbol of the church threatened by persecution and trials that sought to destroy it in the early church. Our church is that way today. Destruction threatens. The uncertainty the church faces about its strength and direction is real and absorbing. Will we become more centralized and authoritarian as some would wish, or will it become more collegial and embracing of people’s lives and gifts? One danger our church faces is missing the boat – not recognizing what Jesus is calling us to be and do. Another danger is an unwillingness to enlarge the crew for the boat – women and men, married and single. 

With our mind’s eye, if we sweep across the ministry of Jesus, we find that he had a way of being active and alert with the very mind and heart of God. He would be where he was needed most, in the way he was needed most. His last promise to his followers was, “I will be with you always.”

Jesus, the Holy One, Our God made flesh, will be with us as a faith community and as individuals.

The great truth concealed beneath the waves of the storm that threatened to engulf the disciples is this: Jesus, the Christ, will bring to the moment peace, calm waters and a future to unfold.

Whether we recognize the coming of our God in a tiny wisp of wind, or in a voice in a stormy night, or in a raging pandemic, our God will come to us.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Divesting for the Sake of Others

Dear Friends,

I bet many of us have had this experience. We come to a stoplight, often near an expressway exit, and there, looking directly at us is a disheveled individual, usually male, holding up a sign that says, “Hungry! Anything will help.”

My first reaction is to look at the stoplight and urge it to turn green so I don’t have to see this man anymore. Then I try to look away, fidget with something on the dashboard, try to ignore the person. Occasionally, if I have them in the car, I give the man a package of breakfast bars, or suggest that he go to the House of Mercy. The light turns green and I drive away, feeling sad, guilty, helpless.

How can I do anything in the face of this real life situation?

Then we hear today’s Gospel and I feel even more guilty. Jesus saw the crowd: poor people, homeless people, sick people, people without hope. The Scripture says, “Jesus’ heart was moved with pity.” Even though Jesus was still sorrowing over the beheading of John the Baptist, Jesus was very much present to the moment. He was a compassionate person. Compassion means “to suffer with.” Jesus was compassionate to the core of his being.

How do we imitate the compassion that Jesus shows in today’s Gospel? How do we do that in today’s society? I can see and fully understand why any of us might be reluctant to deal with that person at the stoplight or the one who stops us on the street and asks for money. We don’t feel safe. We are uncomfortable facing what may be potential danger.

So how do we, in this time and place, imitate the compassion of Jesus?

One of the leaders of the church in the 4th century, St. Basil, wrote, “The bread that you don’t eat is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the naked. The shoes you do not wear are the shoes of one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked up is the money of the poor.”

Once in a while I watch an episode of a home improvement show just to see what I would do as a home designer. More often than not, closets are overfull with racks of clothes and boxes of shoes, storage areas are full of bins of “stuff,” rooms are full of children’s toys that the youngsters have outgrown and the garage and kitchen are full of generations of tools.

For us today, to act with the compassion of Jesus, perhaps we could take St. Basil seriously.

What, in the last two years, have you and your household not worn or used? What have the children outgrown in toys? All of these might go elsewhere, to be better appreciated and put to use. Package them carefully and discard what is clearly beyond anyone’s use. Make this a family effort. You and unnamed others will both benefit. This is not to make space so you can buy more. It is not the same as helping the man at the streetlight. His may well be a problem of mental or psychological distress. Thank God we have volunteer groups in Rochester who help gather the distressed and get them to safety.

May compassion of Jesus take root in us, and the ideas of St. Basil move us to divest for the sake of the lives of others.

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Power of Wisdom

Dear Friends,

Today’s first reading from 1 Kings 3 gives us a snapshot of Solomon, Son of David, as he ascends the throne of Israel. “O Lord, my God,” he prayed, “I am a mere youth, not knowing how to act…Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” God was touched by the generosity of Solomon’s request, and it was given to him.

Fast-forward to 2020 – to two recent situations – one here in Rochester and the other in Atlanta. They both have to do with wisdom, i.e., an understanding heart. On Friday, July 17, the front page of the Democrat & Chronicle newspaper in Rochester carried the photo of John Boedicker and Charles Milks, two white men in their 20’s, carrying a statue of Frederick Douglass to be erected in Maplewood Park. The backstory is a lesson in wisdom, for when John and Charles had vandalized a similar statue two years ago, they could have been penalized and no more. But wisdom prevailed in the Center for Dispute Settlement and the Re-energizing the Legacy of Frederick Douglass Committee. These groups created a restorative justice program for John and Charles, who went through a series of experiences that did not punish, but restored these two men to life in a multiracial community. That’s how they got to carry the new statue of Douglass into Maplewood Park.

Calvin Eison, chair of the Douglass Committee, was able to secure from Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley a pledge that prosecutors would try to use this restorative justice program with defendants of color who commit similar crimes.

Wisdom restores, plants understanding in wayward or lost hearts and creates new life.

The day this article was in the newspaper, John Robert Lewis, icon of the civil rights movement and last remaining member of the 1963 March on Washington, died in Atlanta at the age of 80. Lewis was gifted by God with an understanding heart from his youth. Once he realized that, he never wavered, though he was beaten multiple times in his call for justice and could have said, “I have done enough.” The word “enough “was not in his vocabulary. The historian Jon Meacham calls Lewis a saint who shaped his life on the beatitudes.

The life of John Lewis is a thread through our Congregation’s life, for the Sisters of Saint Joseph ran the hospital in Selma, Alabama where John Lewis was brought after the attack on the far side of the Edmund Pettis Bridge. He is one of our heroes.

These stories of recent events give us inspiration to ask God for wisdom if we think we don’t have it. The letter of James offers us this encouragement: “If any of you is without wisdom, let him {her} ask it from the God who gives generously and ungrudgingly to all, and it will be given him {her}” James 1.5.

In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus tells the parables of the buried treasure, the merchant searching for fine pearls and the net thrown into the sea. “Do you understand these things?” Jesus asks his disciples? Given the examples of the restored John and Charles and in the spirit of John Lewis, Jesus asks us the same thing. How will we shape our life going forward?

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Ambiguities of Life

Dear Friends,

Just under the surface of all our lives is a thing called “ambiguity:” on the one hand, it could be like this. On the other hand, it could be like that.

Who is to decide? Which is real? Which is better? Which can I be sure of? Why is it that what you are sure of, I am not? And what I am sure of, you cannot see at all?

We would like life to be certain, clear, and unambiguous. If the truth be known, we try to rid ourselves of the muddy waters of ambiguity.

One thing we hope will help us do away with ambiguity is a sign. If only we had a sign, then we would be sure, but then signs themselves are ambiguous.

Consider Elijah in 1 Kings 19. Elijah was fleeing from Ahab and his queen Jezebel. Exhausted from his journey, Elijah made his way up to Mt. Horeb, seeking God and some sort of sign from God about his next steps. “Go outside, God said to Elijah. Stand before the Lord and the Lord will pass by.” There was successively a fierce wind, an earthquake, and a fire – but the Lord was not in any of these. Then there was a tiny whispering sound. And in that moment, Elijah knew God’s presence and what to do.

Listening to God in these days of pandemic and pain multiplied in a variety of ways in people’s lives, with so much that is unsure, what next steps do we take? In John 11, the story of the raising of Lazarus begins with Jesus getting word that Lazarus was ill. But Jesus did not rush off immediately to see his beloved friend. Jesus did not go to Lazarus until it was apparently too late. Instead, Jesus went when he thought he ought to go.

“Ought” has to do with a deep down sense of God’s presence that moves us if we are willing to be moved. The light comes to us and we walk by that light. “This is what I think I ought to do.” That’s the best we can do. We have read the signs of our world and life and have heard some small whisper that moves us to the next moment.

We do have to trust that God is with us, even though death seems to shroud us as it did Lazarus, and that life will emerge despite the contradictions, interruptions, disappointments, frustrations and risks that pepper our lives.

Even Paul was subject to the ambiguities of his life. “We see in a mirror dimly” he reminds us in 1 Cor. 13.12. Yet he went on without the full accurate picture of his journey. Lacking assurance and direct knowledge of this next steps, Paul opted for conviction. As the author of Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen” (Heb. 11.1).

So what we are called on to be today are people who trust that God is with us, and that the steps we take in harmony with God will lead us on, not necessarily to where we want to be but where we ought to be. So let’s be courageous, inquisitive, creative, self-examining, and loving. Let us walk with the clarity of God’s presence in the shroud of ambiguity around us.

~Sister Joan Sobala