Creating a New Beginning in the Same World

Dear Friends,

Today, the second day of the New Year, is, in our minds, replete with newness, resolutions and fresh beginnings – or so we think. But yesterday and today, the Gospel contains a refrain about returning, going back. Yesterday, we were told the shepherds who had come down from their flocks to Bethlehem to see for themselves “this thing that has come to pass,” then returned to their temporarily abandoned flock (Luke 2.20). Their sheep awaited them.

Today, the feast of the Epiphany is the story of the Magi, coming from distant places, following the star to the place where Jesus was. They saw. They worshipped. And at the end of the passage, we are told they returned home by a different route (Matthew 2.12).

Putting these readings together at the beginning of this New Year, the lesson is that now is the time for us to return – to the classroom, the finance office, the operating room, the laboratory and hillside, the restaurant kitchen. A return to dailiness, to begin where we left off.

Except that the world we return to need not be the same as the world we left to celebrate the Christmas season and the end of an exhausting year. Because something spiritual, deep, and mysterious happened during this holy season. It was that Jesus leapt into human life to be with us in a new and lasting way. We have seen the possible in the midst of the impossible. We have seen the face of God during these Christmas feasts, not realizing that our faces shine with the glow of that encounter. The place we are returning to will be different because we have been transformed by the star, the holy night, the face of God.

At one and the same time, we are being called to begin where we left off and yet to make a new beginning. Because of what we have seen and heard, we need not go back as the same tired, restless creatures, care-worn by life in these COVID times, lost in heart and in spirit. We go, ready to embrace a second chance at creating a newly framed world of Spirit and love.

“The routine beckons, the familiar haunts require our attention and our presence, and before long, the memory of this holy time will disappear and be packed away with the paraphernalia of the season; and yet, by God’s grace we will be open to God’s most remarkable grace and surprise in the world…Christ’s presence has hallowed all that we are and every place that we are, and by his grace the world and we can never be the same again.” (Author unknown)

            So, come with me, fellow pilgrim.
            Having seen the star
            and encountered this most remarkable child,
            Walk with me toward springtime
            and the cross and the Resurrection beyond that.

            Our pilgrimage begins with Christmas,
            but doesn’t end here.
            If we gaze at it with the eyes of faith,
            we will find the world and ourselves
            transformed by God’s embrace in the places we frequent daily.

Welcome to a vastly familiar, potentially different, 2022!

~Sister Joan Sobala

Accepting Our Imperfect Family Life

Dear Friends,

The feast of the Holy Family has the potential to make us stop to think. TV programs and ads, writers and preachers love to extol the joys of the perfect family, i.e.  husband, wife, 1.79 kids and a dog, all sitting in their spacious dining room enjoying the evening meal in tranquility.

We say, “That’s not us! That’s not our family.” In the face of the supposed ideal, discouragement threatens us, or the unwillingness to accept ourselves as we are. We need to fix us!

The good news is: that’s not the Holy Family, and not us either.

Today’s Gospel shows Jesus, about Bar Mitzvah age, exhibiting great chutzpah toward his parents. He simply stays behind in Jerusalem for three days and didn’t seem terribly remorseful when found. Frankly, Mary and Joseph could have saved themselves a lot of frustration if they had made concrete arrangements ahead of time. This is not to put down the Holy Family, but they did make a mistake in assuming rather than communicating. We know the feeling.

Luke tells us that when Mary asked the found Jesus for an explanation, she did not understand what he was saying. She had to mull it over.

Once we understand that God in the person of Jesus has experienced our imperfect family life, maybe we can accept our own situation and not feel that we must apologize for it or disown it.

A much-loved, insightful Native American, Sister Jose Hobday, author, and lecturer in the last decades of the 20^th Century, wrote that her favorite prayerbook was her family photo album.

“Three or four times a year, I get it out,” she says. “I look, I remember, and suddenly I am seeing how God has been with our family all these years. When all my other efforts at prayer fail, I bring out my family album.”

The story of Jesus, lost and found, doesn’t end in Jerusalem. We are told that Jesus went home to Nazareth with them where he was obedient and where he grew in wisdom, age and grace. This is what we are also called to do in a family: to grow, each in our own way but together with one another.

Our Gospel account today holds a deep lesson for family life in this time of stress and unravelling. Despite our failure at connecting or clear communication or recognizing one another’s pain at family disfunction, we can still become tender-hearted as we work at resolving our differences.

In this age, when some people worry that concern for the family is on the decline, a feast like this is important. It makes us take stock and take heart.

The ethician James Nelson puts it this way: “Each of us needs a place where the gifts of life make us more human, where we are linked with ongoing covenants with others, where we can return to lick our wounds, where we can take our shoes off, and where we know that within the bounds of human capacity – we are loved simply because we are. Because that human need will not die, the need for the family will not die.”

On this Holy Family Sunday, I hope we can recommit ourselves to work for a loving family life and growth in whatever context we find ourselves.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Seeing Christmas Through God's eyes

Dear Friends,

Earlier in December, Pope Francis travelled to Cyprus and Greece on one of his many pastoral trips to embrace the world.

He made a special point of going to Lesbos, a place he visited five years ago where, to this day, many refugees fleeing persecution disembark as they arrive in Europe. There, Pope Francis stood again amid the chaos and disorientation of the waterfront camp. Giving a reason for his return, Pope Francis told the people:

“I have to see your faces.”

Haggard faces, gaunt faces, faces full of hope, young and old faces, faces loved by others, faces alive with song:

“I have to see your faces.”

Those could have been the very words of God, spoken to a likewise fragile world of 2100 years ago. God in Jesus came to peer into the faces of the people of that day – the poor, the ill, the downtrodden, children and women, the sad, the despairing.

This is the true meaning of Christmas. God in Jesus, saying to the people then and now:

“I have to see your faces.”

Christmas means that God is present to us wherever we are, however, we live and thrive or suffer those just setting out in life. Everyone. Today, God desires to see all our faces.

For Christmas this year, look lovingly at the faces of other people with the eyes of God. With this inspired sight, Christmas may be more new, more real for us than ever before.

Christmas blessings to you and all you have come to know as yours.

~Sister Joan Sobala

What Are We to Do?

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel, three people of apparent position and status come to John the Baptist with the same question: “Teacher,” they say, “what are we to do?”

A simple question, isn’t it? “What are we to do?”

We ourselves have asked that question in one form or another over the years. When we come to a fork in the road, what are we to do? Faced with choosing between two styles, two visions of our national government, what are we to do? At Christmastime this year, with a pandemic surge complicated by the omicron variant, what are we to do? Faced with incessant holiday cheer, the yearlong impetus to compete and consume, what are we to do? The question is tinged with anxiety. Anxiety about so many things, great and insignificant, grips us. In the night, kept awake by the specter of the next day, we cry out in our hearts, “What am I to do?”

In the face of all of this, today’s first two readings tell us what to do. “Rejoice’” they say. Rejoice because, as Zepheniah says, we are loved by a God who is deliriously happy because of us.

Rejoicing is a wonderful idea – but no one can tell us to do it or how to do it or make us do it. Sometimes we are suspicious of people who rejoice too much. We suspect they are frivolous or irresponsible, have no depth or ability to suffer themselves much less to suffer with the poor of the world and its refugees.

Paul tells us in our second reading today: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Dismiss all anxiety from your minds.”

Paul and the people of his day demonstrate how ancient and absorbing anxiety is. Paul urged his followers to choose joy over anxiety. Don’t you wonder if they accepted his challenge?

For our part, as we approach the fullness of this season, we can either cultivate anxiety or let go of it, put aside the dread we feel beforehand and the undue guilt we experience afterwards. Instead, we can be content with being and doing our best.

To be content, we need to build up a context, a habit, a vision out of which we can think and act.

John, and later Jesus, would offer their hearers such a guiding vision – a vision that modifies and balances seasonal craziness or the dilemmas of life. The vision is to live with compassion and justice, to pray and to trust, to do all we can and then let go to live in peace, honor God and one another.

In our deepest being, we know that Advent celebrates our God coming – today, and on Christmas and beyond. Along the way, will we be so moved by the vision God offers that we will know what to do?

~Sister Joan Sobala

A Second Chance

Dear Friends,

There isn’t one of us reading this blog who has not had a second chance…
    … a near miss on a highway.
    … the birth that eases the pain of a previous miscarriage.
    … the disease found out and dealt with.
    … the chance to love again.
    … growing up knowing what it’s like to be trusted again after parents’ trust in them had been   shaken.

Maybe we remember being told unequivocally by someone important to us that we had to get it right the first time – whatever “it” was – and we were denied the very possibility of a second chance. Or maybe we have denied others a second chance. You and I both know people who had to walk away from a relationship and thus not be able to give this particular person a second chance. For some of us, a second chance doesn’t necessarily mean a change in direction. Maybe I’ve done something well and my second chance is to do more. Maybe I’ve done something poorly and my second chance is to do it well.

Today’s readings for the Second Sunday of Advent tell us that Advent is a time when people are given a second chance – another chance to prepare for the Incarnation – God in Jesus dwelling in our world, in our relationships, in us.

Jeremiah’s secretary, Baruch, a poet, and a prophet in his own right, tells of a people first led away on foot by their enemies and then invited to go home. Baruch says to the city of Jerusalem: “Up Jerusalem – stand on the heights. See your children are coming back to you (Baruch 5.5 ff)!” The exiles and the city both had a second chance. In a real way, God had a second chance too.

Today’s psalm bursts with the giddiness that comes with the pure unexpected delight of reversal.

“When the Lord brought back the captives of Zion, we were like people dreaming. Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with rejoicing (Psalm 126.1-2).” A second chance, recognized for what it was.

And then there is John the Baptist inviting people to receive a baptism of repentance (Luke 3.3). And what is the key ingredient in John’s baptism if not reconciliation with God and others? A second chance.

The choice is ours. Will we hide in the valleys or flee to the mountains and miss the Advent message that calls us to welcome God’s unimpeded access to move our hearts?

Paul, writing from prison in Rome to his beloved community at Philippi, encourages us: “I am sure of this. That the One who has begun a good work in you will carry it through to completion (Phil.1.6).”

What he says is true of us and yes! Of the flawed world in which we live. God is incarnate not just in you and in me, but in our world. God’s compassion puts out to the world the same potential for conversion and transformation that individuals experience. If God is ready to give the world a second chance, then every strategy for justice and peace is worth the attempt and every labor for the relief of suffering is worth the effort.

So the work of preparing – really preparing for Christmas – is strenuous.

I invite you to do this work as I will: to recognize and make tangible some second chance that will make Christmas this year taste and feel savory and new.

We can be like the captives of Zion brought back, like people dreaming.

Then our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with rejoicing.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Celebrating the Eucharist

Dear Friends,

On this First Sunday of Advent, I had planned to recall with you some of the great themes of this gentle season of preparation for the coming of Jesus on Christmas – themes like longing for the coming of the Savior, movement from darkness to light, and waiting patiently but actively for His coming again in our day. Then I heard the review of the recently concluded semi-annual meeting of the U.S. Bishops, and their major document which had been in production over the last year. It was on Eucharist, and my plans for an Advent overview flew out the window.

In this short space I can’t say much about Eucharist. Volumes have been written over the centuries. But what I do want to confirm is that Eucharist is the sustaining center of the Catholic life. By virtue of our Baptism, we are welcome at the table, not because of any good we are or do. As Pope Francis put it, Communion “is not the reward of saints but the bread of sinners.” We are welcome at the table because God, our Father and Mother, the Word made Flesh and the Holy Spirit welcome us there and has invited us to the table for the rest of our lives.

From time to time in our history as a church, emphasis has been put on various aspects of this central act in our Christian lives. Between the Middle Ages and Vatican II, for example, the Eucharist was thought of exclusively as the bread and wine changed into the Body and Blood of Christ through a process called transubstantiation. “What happens to the bread and wine?” is the most significant question in this period.

After Vatican (1963-1967), the Eucharist has come to be understood as the whole event, not just the Canon and not just Communion. These are surely indispensable parts of the Eucharist, but the Eucharist begins when people come in and ends when people leave.

Bishop Matthew Clark, in a Pastoral Letter on Eucharist to our Rochester Diocese in 1996 put this new and enlarged perspective on Eucharist this way:

“This understanding of the Eucharist as the action of the whole community gathered at prayer is the defining characteristic of our Catholic faith. In this action of praise and proclamation, offering and receiving, we know Jesus in the midst of the assembly, in the proclamation of the Word and in the bread and wine, now the Body and Blood of Christ. In this Eucharistic action we are fed and nourished to go out into the world to be the Presence of Christ, to live Christ’s dying and rising in our worlds of family and friends, work and play, neighbor and stranger.” (Incidentally, the image at the top of this blog is the image from the original text of Bishop Clark’s letter.)

When we come to celebrate Eucharist, we celebrate the generosity of Jesus in his self-giving at the Last Supper. We remember His passion, death, and resurrection. And we are caught up in each other’s lives as at no other time during the week.

Pope Leo the Great summed up rather succinctly in the fifth century, the sweeping meaning of the Eucharist in the lives of believers, but we seem to forget. Pope Leo told us, “The effect of partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ is that we are changed into what we receive.” Not just when we are together at Eucharist. We become what we receive throughout our daily lives.

In other words, “We are a sacred and precious people who come together to celebrate a sacred and precious action which spills over into our daily lives.” (author unknown)

To infuse our celebration of Eucharist with new depth of meaning and appreciation may be for us this year the best way to enter and live out Advent. Come, Lord Jesus!

~Sister Joan Sobala

Crossing the Finish Line

Dear Friends,

Today is the last Sunday of our liturgical year – the Feast of Christ the King/the 34th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Next Sunday begins Advent, first and gentlest season of the new year.

We can liken the end of this year of political turmoil and daily juggling in our household to completing a race as Paul does in his second letter to Timothy 4.7.
            Crossing the finishing line of any endurance race,
            Will the racer “finish strong?”
            Finishing strong means crossing the threshold
            With energy left,
            With a vision of more races to come…
            And win.

As we finish this especially complicated year,
Hopefully you will finish strong, but also
make room for a song in your heart and on your lips.
            A song of mercy, gratitude, and justice.
            A song of compassion and hope.
            A song that goes on singing within your being
            Even when you don’t realize that the song is an anthem
            About God’s presence in your own personal race.

As Thanksgiving and Advent approach,
the pandemic still has not let go of us.
It insinuates itself into our desires for an ordinary life with
Its ordinary ups and downs, its saving moments and unique pain.
            Will we finish the race of this year strong –
            With a song in our hearts and upon our lips?
            Will gratitude for whatever escapes we have experienced and
            Hopes we have seen realized
            Cause us to fall on our knees and
            Hear the angels’ voices
            Sing to God in gratitude for all of us?

Whether we have dared to be strong or
Whether weakness has so drained us,
            Will we even recognize
            The giftedness that the year has brought?
            The knock on the door
            The child’s question
            The color of the earth awash with rain
            Our loved one’s tenderness recognized
            As is if for the first time
            A lasting intimacy with Jesus?

We can, and we will recognize the holy, the life-giving,
Only if we pray as Jesus bids us:
            When you pray,
            Go away by yourself –
            Enter alone
            Into your heart
            And close the door
            Behind you –
            Wait there quietly
            For God will come…MT.6.5,6

Do that sometime today or during this last week of the liturgical year:
            Wait quietly for God’s presence to reveal itself
            In fresh new ways.

In this time when we approach
The finish line of this year’s race,
Dare to ask:
What is the fate of those who achieve
a lasting intimacy with Jesus?
            Life.
            Not life without pain or sadness,
            But
            Life in its remarkable fullness.

There will be another race to run and finish strong.

Meanwhile, keep the song God inspires in your heart.
Let it fill you with longing and wonder
For what will be
As well as deep satisfaction and thanks to God
For all you have weathered thus far.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Overcoming Tough Times Together

Dear Friends,

What was the worst day of your life?

We might say: the day I lost my spouse, a parent, or child. Some would say the day my marriage broke up or our child got into trouble or turned away from us…the day I lost my job or found out I had a serious illness. Some would say the day my faith in God disappeared or the day I experienced emotional collapse.

Common in all these experiences is a sense of numbness or emptiness. Nothing makes sense anymore. The world has become a hostile place. God seems unreal and remote. Add in the breakdowns and violence in the physical and political worlds and our helplessness is complete. Very few of us go through life without times like this.

Today’s readings are about situations like ours, people like us from another time and place who likewise have come to the end of their resources. We can learn from them on how to face our own crises as individuals and as a people.

The Book of Daniel was written several hundred years before Christ, at a time when the Jewish people were fighting for their very survival. The Gospel of Mark comes out of another time of crisis 30 years or so after Christ’s resurrection. Jerusalem was then under foreign domination and the familiar was being swept away.

Let’s look for the meaning beneath the imagery of the calamitous times described in Daniel and Mark. Today, two thoughts gleaned from Daniel and Mark are worthy of our attention.

First, In the throes of suffering, things are not as they appear. We are not abandoned. God has not lost control. In fact, God goes before us, surrounds us, awaits us, welcomes us, offers us the freedom to shape life. It’s easy to recognize disaster. It’s more important to frame that disaster in the hope that God offers us.

Secondly, it is only as a community that we come through the disasters of life. Much as we would like to think of ourselves as independent, self-sustaining and capable of working through the challenging dimensions of life ourselves, we aren’t, and we can’t be. If you still think so, name anything important in life that we have not received from someone else. I do not exist without a we.

Individuals as well as groups fight the notion of being saved together. Some of us would rather be lonely than bound to others. Some of us fear being so lost in a community that our own personhood and efforts go unnoticed and undervalued. Or we might fear that, in carrying others we might get swept away ourselves.

Today’s readings tell us that only as interdependent people will we be saved. God and we together can and will overcome the threatening darkness.

The Letter to the Hebrews encourages us to hold fast to the confession our hope inspires without wavering, for the one who has made us a promise of life is faithful.

Whatever our difficulties, we have a God upon whom we can depend.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Being Generous

Dear Friends,

None of us would have faulted the woman in today’s Gospel if she held onto her two coins. None of us would have faulted the woman in the first reading had she told Elijah to get lost as he asked her for food. Yet each gave with dignity and trust. They each intuited these times as graced moments, opportunities to place God above all things in their lives. We know nothing more about the Gospel widow. We do know that for the widow of Zarephath, the oil and flour never ran out.

Today’s Scriptures are not just stories of generous widows. These stories tell us about the big-hearted attitudes of people.

Jesus doesn’t endorse the widow’s action. He doesn’t say “Go and do likewise.” What Jesus does is to call attention to her attitude of generosity and trust and in doing so, invites his listeners to give without measuring the cost.

Generosity is complex. How do I determine how much to share – when – why – with whom? How does one create in oneself an attitude of generosity – a non-clutching, other-centered style of living? We are not sure whether to give to the panhandler, pick up the hitchhiker, believe the story of destitution and the crocodile tears. Over the years, I’ve “been had” by professional needy people. Maybe you have, too.

There’s an irony in the story of the woman who gave two coins. Later, the temple she supported with her pennies would be destroyed in a war. Was her gift in vain? Is our gift in vain if the receiver misuses it, or the object of our giving is destroyed? No. Even in times of exploitation, what matters most for our personal and spiritual growth is the largeness of spirit that goes on within the exploited person.

There is no neat, tidy formula or answers to detailed questions about generosity. But I do know this: each of us has a head and a heart, an intuition or a hunch. Each of us carries the Gospel within us. If we rub our experiences against the Gospel enough, the rubbing can generate sparks to see by, and by which to act.

One contemporary story of generosity comes to mind. Last year, a single mother I know with two young children found life challenging given a recent divorce and the stress of the pandemic. In previous years, the family had supported a needy family at Christmastime.

This year, the organizers suggested that, due to her new circumstances, the mother might not want to take part in the program. “Absolutely not,” the mother replied. “I want my children to learn that Christmas is not just about us being taken care of. We’ll cut back somewhere. But we will adopt a family this year.” 

For those of us who try to hear the Word of God and keep it, the generosity of the widows in today’s readings are a reminder and a promise:

-        a reminder that what we have is not ours to covet or hoard, and

-        a promise that in some unspeakable way, the good we have and are will not run out in the sharing.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Remembering the Saints in Our Life

Dear Friends,

The number is over 730,000. That’s how many Americans have succumbed to the pandemic: famous people, your relatives and friends, mine as well. In many cases, death came to them without the presence of their loved ones.

On All Saints’ Day (Monday) and All Souls’ Day (Tuesday), the Church – all of us – take time to say “thank you, God” for their lives, for the lessons they taught, the goodness in them, the hard things they struggled to overcome.

It's easy to limit the notion of saint to the canonized and the worldwide, but the saints are all who have gone to God in the sure and certain hope of eternal life. These days, bask in their victory over death. Honor them for their faithfulness. Call on them to stand by you as you make your way.

Let’s think of our loved ones who have died – our own local homegrown saints. We can say that when they died, they crossed a threshold. One’s loved one is not where he or she was. That’s why the Risen Jesus told Mary Magdalen in the garden not to cling to Him (John 20.11-18). He had crossed a threshold. She still wanted Him back where He was. In order for Mary to continue in this new moment with the now-Risen Lord, she too had to cross a threshold. That’s the key to turning life-draining grief into new life. Not only do our loved ones cross a threshold in death, we must do so as well as they’re dying.

Another helpful thought comes from the Celtic branch of Christianity, where people speak of the “thin veil” that separates this side of eternity from the other. As the days grow shorter and the winter winds gather strength, let’s pause to peer through the thin veil. Consider our loved ones. They are closer than we think. Think of great ones whom you know only from a distance. Their greatness hides in us as well, waiting to be set free.

These are not the days to think of our loved ones with sustained sorrow, nor to count the saints or to name them. These are days to celebrate the full flowering of humanity as we take God‘s promise in Christ seriously.

This is the meaning of this day.

Now go out and join the saints.

Be saintly.

What a daring thing to do.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Accepting Our Sight from Christ

Dear Friends,

Jesus asked the same question in last week’s Gospel as He does today, “What do you want me to do for you?” Last weekend, Jesus directed that question to James and John. It was clear they wanted power and glory for themselves. They didn’t want to see, grasp, understand, absorb the mission, mystery and message of Jesus. They wanted control for very selfish reasons, and Jesus denied them their wish.

This week, as Jesus left Jericho to go up to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus clamored for attention, shouting until he was heard. The blind man, who was an embarrassment for the crowd, was suddenly urged forward by that same crowd because Jesus had noticed him.

Again, Jesus asks: “What do you want me to do for you?” This time the answer is very different. “I want to see,” Bartimaeus declared.

More than physical sight, Bt (let’s call him that) wanted to make sense of his life, to find meaning and purpose and to cease being a beggar. The Gospel tells us that, as soon as Bt saw, he began to follow Jesus up the road. The blind beggar had become a disciple – a disciple unlike James and John. Even in their closeness to Christ, James and John lacked hindsight, insight and foresight. They had trouble dealing with their blind spots about Jesus and themselves.

The one thing that Bt knew about himself that the others did not see in themselves was vulnerability. In this, he was like the people whom Jeremiah describes in today’s first reading – people in exile, unable to move at will, without resources to extricate themselves from their captivity.

Vulnerable people seem to remember God’s faithful promise more easily than people who are sure of their own power, abilities, successes. They remember and they draw from God’s own promise the courage to go on.

In a world of vulnerability caused by the pandemic, with its economic stresses, racial and gender tensions, as well as changing societal values about life and death, that question, “What do you want me to do for you?” is crucial. Christ continues to ask each of us this question when we present ourselves as wanting/needing something.

Is the boldness of Bt in us, not only to acknowledge our own vulnerability, but to know what to ask for and then what to do? Do we really want to see? To have others see?

Some would say that Bt was lucky. He asked and got his sight, with all that that implied. We ask, and God seems to say “NO.” But is the answer really “no sight” or is it “no sight now” or “other sight?”

In our world, with all our vulnerability, will we be curious enough to ask who is passing by as Christ comes up the road? Will we dare the crowd which want no part of the challenge? Will we know what to say when Christ asks us, “What do you want me to do for you?” Will each of us accept the sight we have been given? Will we follow Christ along the road?

~Sister Joan Sobala

Living More Simply While Helping Others Live

Dear Friends,

One day last week, I met the adult children of an elderly couple who were moving into an assisted living facility. “It took 10 days to empty their house,” one of them said. “I plan to begin divesting this winter!”

The accumulation of stuff creeps up on us. Some of it we really need to keep: seasonal furniture, sports equipment, clothing and decorations. We’ll use them all next year.

But we also put into basements, attics and self-storage units, things we may never use again, and if the truth be known, maybe we never did use. Some things we bought on a whim, other things relatives and friends gave us, and we couldn’t say no or didn’t want to say no. Some things are mementos of another time, another family.

Buying, storing, and keeping are ordinary human activities. There is nothing wrong with doing these things unless the buying, storing and keeping overtake our minds and hearts, and become excessively important to us or we accumulate without the realization that we could become tethered to stuff.

Pope Francis reminds his readers that, “The human person cannot do without material goods…These goods are absolutely indispensable to feed himself, grow, communicate, associate with others and achieve the highest purpose to which he is called.” Jesus never denied people what they needed to become all they could be in life, but He had no use for acquiring more and more without weighing the cost of the acquisition. Nothing that we have can earn God’s love for us. What makes a difference is who we are and what we do with what we have.

Here are some thoughts about dealing with the things we have in our lives in order to live more simply.

First, if you get a new shirt, slacks, coat, whatever, give away one that you have had for a while. Get a new one, give an older one away. Did you know that the average American discards about 70 pounds of clothing annually?

Secondly, share with those who could really use no-longer-needed, clean household items and clothing. New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced that 200 Afghan refugees will be coming to the Rochester area in a few months. Take what you wish to contribute to their households to Saint’s Place or Mary’s Place* in Rochester, where newcomers can get what they need to start out anew.

Develop or use a lending center for tools as a way of reducing unnecessary multiplication. Make it a place for sharing learning as well as tools.

Have you seen those neighborhood curbside lending libraries? Take a book. Don’t bring it back. Leave another. Build a tiny library near the road near your house.

As you look to downsize, be as generous as you can be so that others may live. Give, but don’t buy more or more often. Think with Jesus about where the real treasures of your life are.

~Sister Joan Sobala

 *Saint’s Place, 46 S Main Street, Pittsford, NY 14534     585.385.6860

  Mary’s Place, 414 Lexington Avenue, Rochester, NY 14613     585.270.8626

The Value of the Rosary

Dear Friends,

When our Sister Mary Kay Ryan was presented at her wake and funeral last week, she had in her hands a rosary that was passed down through three generations of Sisters of Saint Joseph before her – all relatives who had spent their lives in our Congregation. The practice of holding these beads in the coffin is a longstanding practice among some older Catholics. But today, many younger Catholics are unfamiliar with the rosary, its value and meaning. They don’t pray the rosary and might not even know how.

This blog is not intended to be a primer, but an encouragement to use this simple tool – the rosary – to keep before us significant events in the life of Jesus, and to honor Mary, His Mother, who had said the “Yes!” that brought the Word of God into our human reality in a way that has been decisive for all time.

Long before Saint Dominic gave us the rosary in 1214, meditations on the life of Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Angelic Salutation to Mary by the angel Gabriel were commonly used in prayer. In the rosary, Dominic gave people a way of organizing these prayers in an attractive way.

The Rosary was sometimes called the Psalter of Mary, because like the 150 psalms, the rosary was comprised of 150 Hail Mary’s, prayed in decades or groups of 10, between an Our Father and a Glory be.

After the Battle of Lepanto in the Gulf of Patras on October 7, 1571, when the Catholic European nations (The Holy League) defeated the Ottoman Empire, Pope Pius V declared October 7 to be the feast of Our Lady of Victory, because praying the rosary was understood as a significant religious reason the battle was won. Later, the name of the feast was changed to the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and this is how we know it today.

Because he believed that some important aspects of Jesus’ life were missing from the traditional way in which the rosary was prayed, St. Pope John Paul II, in 2002, added the “luminous” mysteries which focused on Jesus’ life from his Baptism by John to His self-giving at the Last Supper. After that, as a church, we lost the “Psalter” concept, but came to pray in a fuller way the meaning of Christ’s life.

As the beads slip through my fingers while saying the rosary, I sometimes concentrate on the mystery, sometimes on the words of the Hail Mary. There’s no one right way to say the rosary, but I have found, over the years, that the rosary takes me to another level of thought and prayer and gets me out of my own local world, local prayer, local needs. The rosary is a portable tool for prayer. We can carry it in the car to use as we drive along, on our bedside table to use while going to sleep or in our pocket for anytime, anywhere.

I realize that I have given you little detail about saying the rosary. Go ask someone to help you with that. My wish today is to encourage you to find or find again value in this form of meditative prayer. Pope Francis openly says, “The rosary is a prayer that always accompanies me. It is the prayer of ordinary people and saints. It is a prayer from my heart.”

Like Pope Francis, the editor of Give Us This Day, Mary Sommes, encourages us to pray the rosary. “These mysteries – sorrowful and joyful, glorious and luminous – are full-on encounters. Encounters with Jesus and Mary, with the Communion of Love within the Trinity, with the Communion of Saints in heaven. And on earth.”

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Helping Heal the Wounds of Divorce

Dear Friends,

Over the last several Sundays, the readings have dealt with issues of human interaction – in the name of God – or not. Last Sunday, those who considered themselves the bearers of God’s word wanted to reject those whom they thought did not have the right to speak God’s word. The week before, we saw Jesus reject the uselessness of children in the grand scheme of religion. Today, Jesus holds up the ideal of marriages that last. Next week, Jesus will ask us all to be willing to let go of everything in order to follow Him.

Whew! So much to take in and to use as the measure of our own lives. 

But let’s concentrate on today’s Gospel. Jesus is deep in conversation with the Pharisees about divorce. In Jesus’ day, only men could initiate the divorce procedure. The reasons for divorce could be flimsy (e.g. she’s an awful cook) or serious (adultery).

Specifically, in this Gospel, Jesus addressed the implications of divorce as it related to women. For a woman, divorce meant total disgrace in the community, loss of income and loss of children. Divorce was a catch 22: it was socially unacceptable for a woman to be on her own. No respectable man would marry a divorced woman. Marriages in Jesus’ time were arranged between families, so in the event of a divorce, whole families were negatively affected. In short, Jesus was addressing divorce, not as we know it today, but as a situation in which a woman was treated as an unwanted possession. Jesus took his listeners back to Genesis (today’s first reading) and reminded them that God made woman and man to be lasting companions, helpmates and partners.

Today, the divorce process is generated by the man or the woman. We know divorce through the experiences of our children, parents, relatives, neighbors, friends. Maybe our own divorce. No one enters marriage planning on divorce. No one enjoys divorce. It is a devastating experience arising out of human frailty, and its causes are numerous.

At its best, the Church needs to be a community of compassion and acceptance for all its members, including those whose marriages have fallen apart. Believers do not accept that our Church is always at its best in the way it handles marriages that end in divorce, but our belonging to the Church does not dissolve because of that. We believe that God is present to the couple who marries, whether the marriage entered into survives or not. God promises to be with us in our life journey, celebrates our victories and holds us up in our defeats, laughs with us in times of joy and cries with us in our moments of sorrow and sadness.

The Scriptural passages having to do with marital fidelity as the ideal are ultimately set against the background of God’s fidelity to the human community, the fidelity of Christ to us all, even in our most pronounced frailty.

The Church continues to look for ways to help heal the wounds of divorce. Some believers have found its solutions helpful. Others have not. The dialogue necessarily goes on. The promise of God to be with both the whole and the broken goes on. Let us be aware enough of the desire of God to hold all of us close that we hold one another close as well.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Enriching Our Faith Community Together

Dear Friends,

As we inch our way out of the pandemic and reopen our parishes, we can harbor two attitudes toward pitching in. The attitudes are jealousy and apathy. They are played out in both the first reading and Gospel today. In the reading from Numbers, the Spirit of God came to rest on Medad and Eldad, two men who were not part of the original prophets. Joshua wanted Moses to stop them, but Moses welcomed their participation. In the Gospel, the disciple John wanted to prevent a man who was not in the intimate group around Jesus from casting out demons in Jesus’ name. But Jesus said: “No, do not prevent him.”

The ugly head of jealousy reared up in both instances. “Hey. Wait a minute You are invading our turf. These works are our responsibility. You’re going to get credit for something we think we ought to do and get credit for.”

When we encounter interlopers like Eldad, Medad and the unnamed person in the Gospel, we, the builders of the community, are resentful. We are authorized. These others are not.

People jockey for power and position everywhere, even in the church. As we do the work of building up the faith community, today’s readings say there is no room for jealousy. Move over. Let others who so desire help.

Once, when a very talented singer came to a parish where I was the pastoral leader, he did not offer his talents as a cantor or in the choir. I asked him “Why not?” He told me he had made the offer in a city parish where he had lived previously. The music leader had told him, “We have enough.” You can believe that we did not exclude him in our parish.

The funny thing is that, years later, as I lived in another parish in retirement from full time pastoral leadership, I offered to be a lector. “Oh, Sister,” the coordinator said, “we have enough.”

“Deja vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra once quipped. The jealous guarding of our work in the church detracts from the newness of the future.

The other attitude embedded in the readings is apathy, passivity. The apathetic person says, “I have nothing to offer, nothing to contribute. No talent. No skill. I’ve never done this before. They wouldn’t want me. I’d be of no help. Besides, I don’t want to. Let the others do it. They are enough.”

When either attitude prevails, everyone loses. If we leave the work to others, we deprive the community of our talents, our humor, our zeal for God. If we insist on doing it ourselves (because, after all we know how it works, we know the history and know the people), we deny both our communities and ourselves the gifts of others.

Paul tells us unequivocally, “To each of us the manifestation of the Spirit in given for the common good” (ICor.12.7).

Believe it. We can each enrich the quality of our local faith community by helping and by inviting others to help. Stand up or stand back. There is a time for each attitude, each posture in our lives.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Finding Our Childlike Faith

Dear Friends,

Let the children come to me…whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it (Luke 18.16 – 17).

Let the little ones come to me; do not prevent the, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it (Mark 10 14 – 15).

Unless you become like a little child, you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and whoever receives a child such as this in my name receives me (Matthew 18.3 – 5).      

In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls the children to Himself, and, apparently, they came. The children recognized Jesus for who he was – loveable, attractive and welcoming.

Today people have conflicting views of childhood. On the one hand, our culture has created a rich set of childhood possibilities for children to enjoy, ranging from Mr. Rogers, Disney World, SpongeBob SquarePants, to Barbie dolls, video adventures and games. We somehow believe that a happy childhood is a guarantee of a better future for people. Yet some of these very children, gifted with so much, become demanding teens, full of unfulfilled demands. Self-centeredness is a real danger.

Which child is Jesus talking about? The innocent one or the rebellious one? Actually, neither. The modern fantasies of our day did not exist in Jesus’ time. In drawing the child to himself, Jesus was comparing the adult person’s faith in God to the unspoiled child’s embrace of life.

Childlike faith requires an insatiable curiosity and wonder, questioning authority, scientific knowledge and the nature of things with that overarching question, “WHY?”

Children also have the courage to explore the unknown and confusing. They suffer injuries and embarrassment, yet they plunge on. True heroes. We do well to emulate the courage of the child, as we confront injustice, the powerlessness of the weak and the temptations that urge us to cut corners, or to accept power that dominates.

Endearingly, children put their complete trust in the people who love and care for them (until that trust is violated). They don’t know how to play games with their relationships. They are not calculating. Their commitment is total because trust is unwavering. In the best of all possible worlds, we see and honor all these characteristics in children, and if we are clear-eyed and uncompromising, we come to realize that the Christian faith requires that same unwavering commitment of a child.

 “Cynics have scorned religion for its childishness. They urge religious people to grow up and take responsibility for themselves. Sad to say, too many Christians are childish in their faith – avoiding responsibility and giving up freedom. But Christ does not call us to be childish in our faith. Rather, He calls us to be childlike – to be full of wonder at what God is doing in our midst, courageous and committed as children are.” (found in my notes; author unknown) Will you? Will I? Will we?

~Sister Joan Sobala

The Power of Remembering

Dear Friends,  

During this last week, our media has been full of remembrances of 9/11 – the stories of victims, heroes, hero-victims. We remembered, we prayed and rededicated ourselves to the sacredness of life. 

I want to add still one more story from a distant land. Ireland. In October 2019, I was part of a group of tourists travelling with Father Joe McCaffrey and friends from Nativity Church, Brockport, NY. Michael, the driver of our coach for that whole week, took us one day to a place that was not on the itinerary. 

Up we went, driving on a country road high above Kinsale Harbor, above the waters where the Lusitania had been sunk in 1915. Michael told us the story of the Garden of Remembrance we were about to enter. 

A local woman named Kathleen Murphy had spent 30 years as a nurse in a New York City Hospital. She had also gotten to know Father Michael Judge, the Franciscan chaplain of a firefighters’ station in the city. Many of the wounded, including Father Judge, were brought to the hospital from the Twin Towers. Kathleen was among the dedicated staff who did all they could for the dying and those who would recover. 

Later, Kathleen, herself suffering with cancer, went home to Ireland. She had inherited a parcel of land which she wanted to turn into a remembrance garden for the 343 first responders who had perished on 9/11. Neighbors, family, friends, strangers from across Ireland and beyond, came to help. Three-hundred-forty-three trees were planted, each one dedicated to a particular fallen hero. We walked in silence through the gates into the garden. An appropriate drizzle had begun. Family and friends of the men memorialized there had come since the garden was completed in 2010. They bore and left here photos, dog tags, letters of love, other memorabilia, prayers. (Go back to the photos above.)  

Kathleen Murphy was not at the dedication on September 10, 2011. She had died and now was also memorialized in this garden, so far from New York. 

Later, we who had been there, spoke of the power of remembering and the deep connections between our nations because of the compassion of Kathleen Murphy.  

For all the deliberate destruction terrorists inflict, the tender mercy of God, holding the suffering close, becomes evident in people like Kathleen Murphy. Thank You, Lord, for her and for all whose caring is greater than death. 

~Sister Joan Sobala