Being Saved Together

Dear Friends,

Is there anything important in life that we have not received from someone else?

As much as we like to think so, the totally independent person does not exist. True, we make individual choices, perform independent actions and create newness in science, culture, business and more, but at the core of our lives, we are interdependent. In other words, I do not exist without a we. Today’s readings assume that interdependent people will be saved together.

Popularizations of Christianity focus on “Jesus and me.” The teachers of this way of thinking propose that our personal relationship with Jesus is all that really matters. Individuals as well as groups fight against the notion of being saved together. Some would rather be lonely than to be bound to others. Others of us fear being so lost in a community that our own personal efforts go unnoticed, unvalued. Still others fear that, in carrying others, we might get swept away ourselves. But we know differently.

So much of the history of our church has emphasized personal sin and personal salvation. In many ways, our church continues to foster these viewpoints. But there is communal sin as well as personal sin – the subtle or increasingly overt ways that society has of demeaning, denying, dehumanizing and destroying people. Sexism, classism, racism, spun out to the edges of life!

Communal sin is a reality. It thwarts compassionate thinking and action. It denies others the good we claim as our own. Only when individuals reject communal sin and move toward true reconciliation with others that salvation becomes possible for all of us in our time.

Today’s readings from Daniel and Mark tell us that as interdependent people, we will be saved together, not without suffering and misery, but ultimately, we will be saved together. It’s easy to recognize disaster. It is more important to frame that disaster in the hope God offers us is only together that God and we will overcome the threatening darkness.

The Letter to the Hebrews encourages us to

hold fast to the confession of our hope
without wavering,
for the One who has made us
a promise of life is faithful. (Hebrews 10.11-14,18)

As we make our way in life, we have a God upon whom we can depend.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

The Widow's Offering

Dear Friends,

Let us consider the gospel reading from Mark 12 that is assigned for Sunday November 10, 2024.

In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds,
"Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes
and accept greetings in the marketplaces,
seats of honor in synagogues,
and places of honor at banquets.
They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext,
recite lengthy prayers.
They will receive very severe condemnation."

He sat down opposite the treasury
and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.
Many rich people put in large sums.
A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,
"Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more
than all the other contributors to the treasury.
For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,
her whole livelihood."

The story of the widow’s gift is familiar to us. Often our preachers focus on her generosity. They remind us to live and give in the same manner. When this story is read at the time of a giving campaign, it may be used to encourage donations. Some homilists overlook the story’s setting, audience and larger context. A much deeper reading is possible.

In this section of Mark, Jesus berates those in religious and political authority who place unjust burdens on the poor. Jesus condemns predatory and exploitative laws and systems. This is not a speech about personal generosity. Here, Jesus is concerned with morality of systems and organizations.

When we reflect on Sunday’s reading, let’s widen our focus. With the widow and the disciples, let’s take in the surroundings. With them let’s ask ourselves some questions. What are the unjust systems we see? Where are we called to generous service? Where are we called to courageous change?

~ Susan Schantz, SSJ

Seeing Our Stories in the Trees

Dear Friends, 

One of our Sisters, Melita Burley, is in her sunset years. Back in the 1960’s, she and I taught at St. Agnes High School. One snippet from our many conversations which has never left me was her appreciation of the month of November. Finally in November, she mused, we have a chance to see the shape of trees without the mask of leaves. 

Poetic and true. Some of the people you and I know and love are also in their sunset years and reveal the shape of their lives as their own leaves drift away. Their beautiful faces are marked by laugh lines, suffering borne, courage remembered and God ever present. All true, but there’s so much more in our friends and others who are moving on. The psychologist James Nelson gives us an insightful image when he says “Aging brings out all sorts of contradictions in human nature. You become unpredictable…all seven dwarfs at once.” Which of the dwarfs seem to be asserting themselves for your aging loved ones? In you? 

Last week, Sister Susan Schantz in this space offered a similar message: this month, study trees: short and spread out, soaring and slender, willowy or seemingly staid. They will tell you about your parents, family members, long-term or recently-met friends, yourself. In this liturgical season, when we remember our beloved dead, it’s good for us to have other images of moving on in life than dying. One’s potentials and limits have mirrors in trees great and small – towering redwoods and stubby trees like Japanese maples. Look for trees that are fully nourished, grown up. Matured. Look for saplings. You and your loved ones are there. 

One of our Sisters tells the story of an ugly tree that grew in the front yard of the convent. Over the course of several years, Kathy cut down this tree to be a stump, but she could never seem to get rid of its roots. Each year, new green sprouted from the stump. Finally, Kathy realized that it would be better to cultivate this seemingly unwanted tree than to let it frustrate her. It is thriving and shapelier with tender care.  

What people in your life have you wanted to chop out of existence? Have you made peace with that which would not go away? Jesus told the story of a barren fig tree. (Luke 13.8) The owner wanted to destroy it, but the gardener said “Let it be for this year. I will cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it.” The owner agreed to wait. We don’t know the rest of the story, but the point is clear; accept what looks barren in our relationships. Wait. Let them be. 

In our current repertoire of hymns is a refrain that never ceases to touch me: “All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.” As our years and our memories pile up, we can sing this song with more meaning. We sing it to God, to our treasured family and friends. We sing it to the people we have hurt and then prayed for endlessly. We sing to our deepest selves. “For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, though in another dress. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Tree Wisdom

Dear Friends,

Linus is always ready with philosophical remarks. Falling leaves and bare branches provoke reflection on my part, too. What lasts? What fades and dies? Where do humans fit in the cycles of creation? What can I learn from a tree?

As a young teacher, I encouraged students to choose a tree to observe for the school year. I told them to watch closely. Each week they and I then wrote a few words about what we saw. Some weeks we wrote about what the tree saw. What season? Any changes? Any growth?

This chaotic, beautiful autumn invites me to attend to the growing things. Here is a 1928 Robert Frost poem that may speak to you, too.

Tree at My Window

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;

But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

Creating a Civilization of Love

Dear Friends,  

Today’s first liturgical reading, the 4th Suffering Servant Song, lays out the mystery of suffering that has been the experience of people from earliest times. 

If there is any group of people who suffer, it is immigrants, who leave their homelands for a whole variety of reasons. The migration of people, which filled our newscasts in the 20th century, has carried over into this new time. Immigrants come to our own land from every direction. They come bearing the scars of war, torture, hunger, disease, the loss of spouses, children, whole extended families. Therapists, pastoral and social workers bear the sorrow of migrants as witness to their worth and dignity. It is true that some criminally-minded come, but by and large, immigrants are like you and me, ordinary people seeking to build life for themselves and their loved ones. In the words of Pope Francis, our faith calls us to “welcome them, assist them, promote them and integrate them” into their new land. Pope Paul VI said that, with them, we should work at creating a “civilization of love.” Pope John Paul II urged us to create “a culture of life.” All work to be done. All arduous. All worthwhile. 

Issues of migration are ancient. In the Sacred Scriptures, Joseph, Moses and Jesus Himself were foreigners at some point in their lives. From the very beginning, the Word of God has reminded believers to “remember you were once foreigners.” (Lev.19.33) 

We sometimes forget that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants from our earliest days, yet, today, we create limiting qualifications for newcomers – where they come from and who they are, what color they are, what they believe and how they get here. As a nation, we are weak in our sense of unity with all people when we think this way. But In Hebrews, our second reading today, we hear that, in Jesus, we “have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.” We are not alone as we seek to be more welcoming. 

When we are closed to receiving others, or setting limits, our mindset is not the mind of God.  

Jesus, in the gospel, is the servant of His Father and does not claim power to name those who are on his right or left. Perhaps there are no special places at God’s banquet table. Maybe the immigrants whom we reject or denigrate – or, even worse, are blind to – will be with us at the banquet. Maybe even closer to the heart of God than we are. 

The liberation of many is a task that is greater than the lifetime of Jesus. It takes longer and demands more than the lifetime of any individual disciple. The community that is willing to give life and not measure the return is the community that has understood the mystery of discipleship. Migration is an opportunity to build the human community in unexpected ways. You and I are part of that community by virtue of our Baptism. Will we avail ourselves of the opportunity here and now, as we vote, reach out a hand to our neighbor, reach out our hand to God? 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

*Image above is "Welcoming the Stranger" by Michael Adams

Untangling Our Prayers

Dear Friends,

How is your prayer this autumn? When I begin my prayer, I am a woman with a tangle of yarn in her lap. Each strand, each knot, each bright unraveling is a concern I bring to God. 

The world is at war. A family friend is critically ill. Abuse victims wait for a settlement. The Synod agenda is not to my liking. Our family excitedly awaits a new baby. There is famine in Sudan. The patriarchy is thriving. This autumn day is gloriously blue and gold.

In this quiet, sacred time, I pray joy and lament, anger and peace. The colored threads clash and coalesce as I sit with them. I remember and worry. I ask for courage to walk with God and the neighbor. I hope and let go. 

Let us pray.

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

How We Decide Our Vote

Dear Friends, 

Next month on this date, the elections will be over. I hope you plan to vote. But how, in particular, will you decide your choice for president? 

What criteria will you use? Strict party line vote? On the basis of your pocketbook? On the basis of our future as a nation? On the needs of the many? Will you pray about your vote and consult teachings of your own faith tradition on thorny issues? On November 6th, who shall we be as Americans? 

Returning to Rome from Southeast Asia and Oceania two weeks ago, Pope Francis engaged in a news conference. One reporter shared that he had always written in defense of the dignity of life. “With the U.S. elections coming up,” he asked, “what advice would you give a Catholic voter faced with a candidate who supports ending a pregnancy and another who wants to deport 11 million migrants?” 

The Holy Father’s response, while not given in a formal talk, is worth considering. This is the Vatican transcript of some of his remarks.  

“Both are against life. I can’t decide; I’m not American…” 

“In political morality, it is generally said that not voting is not good. One must vote. And one must choose the lesser evil. Which is the lesser evil? [to vote for] That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know; each person must think and decide according to their own conscience.” 

Together, let’s think, talk over troubling issues, highlight the good in each candidate as we see it. 

May the choice of our vote be made with faith in God and the love of one another. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Bestowing God's Spirit on All

Dear Friends,

Would that all the people of God were prophets!
Would that God might bestow the spirit on them all!

Moses was meeting with seventy designated elders of the community, when word came that two men in the camp were prophesying. Some of the elders were upset at this news. Were not these seventy elders the ones called to prophesy? Joshua, Moses’ aide, even asked Moses to stop the two who were preaching without Moses’ approval. Moses responded:

Would that all the people of God were prophets!
Would that God might bestow the spirit on them all!

The September 29 reading from Numbers 11:25-29 describes a dilemma shared by many communities of faith. Groups develop practices about leading prayer, teaching the faith, preaching, and faith sharing. Some Christian communities, including Catholicism, have developed a hierarchical structure, emphasizing the continuity with Jesus’ first disciples through ordained ministers.

There are some periods, like this post Vatican II era, when the Spirit radically refreshes our understanding of the baptismal call of each of the faithful. The ordained are called to lead the faithful in being Christ for our world. Moses’ words can become our prayer for our Church:

Would that all the people of God were prophets!
Would that God might bestow the spirit on them all!

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

Looking to the Horizon

Dear Friends, 

Do you remember the bent over woman Jesus encountered in Luke 13:10-17? She was crippled by a spirit and had been completely incapable of standing erect for 18 years. 

When she first encountered Jesus, all this woman could see was the floor they stood on together. Jesus never mentioned that this apparently incurable bend in her body might be because of some sin on her part. No. It was caused by a spirit – something from her experiences, her world that had weighed her down ceaselessly.  

I have always loved the tenderness in Jesus as he spoke to this woman, touched her regardless of the spirit holding her in thrall. But I had never articulated her bent over state the ways Pope Francis did in a talk he gave in 2017. Pope Francis said of her that she could not see the horizon. She was bound to a limited view of the present. No faces. No eyes that speak volumes of grace and love. She could not see ahead or above. No sky. Nothing of beauty to strike her with awe. Jesus set this woman free to see but also to go where the horizon beckoned. Where did she go? What did she experience? We don’t know anything more about her. All we know is, without Jesus, there was no horizon. With him she could see and experience life in new, breathtaking ways.  

These two things: release from being bent over and exposure to the horizon continue to be the gift of God in our world today.  

I saw these gifts played out recently in a film that is blessed in my memory, a Japanese film called Perfect Days (2023). The viewer walked with 40-ish Hiroyama who had left the home of his affluent, abusive father who kept him psychologically bent over. Hiroyama made his way in life, found a place to live and became a toilet cleaner in Tokyo – an apparently menial position, but one he did with care and enthusiasm. Throughout the film, Hiroyama looked to the sky, to the trees, to the Tokyo Skytree Tower that dominates the city for his encouragement and inspiration. Each day, with its routines, he was inspired by the horizon. Through a series of vignettes, we see how he lived his days with joy, how he came to serenity and accepted the Holy in his life according to his Buddhist tradition.  

What about us? Are we bent over and see only the present in a limited way? Do we accept the call to stand up straight and look to the horizon to see and choose goodness in our lives, however we find it?  

Given the challenges of this fall season, do we pay attention to Jesus bending down to us in whatever bent over ways He finds us and do we hear Him say: “Beloved, stand up straight.”?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Thoughts and Prayers?

Dear Friends, 

My social media streams often include posts about illness, violence, and natural disasters. These posts may move readers to respond with an emoji, perhaps a heart or a symbol of praying hands. “Thoughts and prayers” is one phrase I’ve seen quite often.

During COVID's early months, most people felt vulnerable and helpless. Those posted offerings of thoughts and prayers began to draw some criticism or mockery. Out of the isolation and fear of those months most of us felt hopeless. Efforts by governments and health care felt inadequate. We need action not prayer, they proclaimed. What good are thoughts and prayers?

One of this Sunday’s Mass readings is a passage from the letter of James. Faith without works is dead. I know that James would understand the frustrated social media commenters. He understood the relationship of belief and action. He knew and followed the teacher who fed the hungry, welcomed women and children, and spoke truth to power.  

In our individual and communal prayer we join God in lovingly gazing at creation. Prayer in troubled times will certainly include lament and intercession, but it will also include openness to God’s call to action. Like James we follow a teacher who calls us to action. Thoughts and prayers can help us do what is in our power to do. 

~ Susan Schantz SSJ

Be Opened!

Dear Friends,  

Taking a fresh look at this Sunday’s readings, Joe Biden came to mind. Not Joe Biden the President, but Joe Biden with the speech impediment. He was a controlled stutterer, who nonetheless has achieved much in life. One of the incidents that I recall vividly was Joe meeting a boy, 7 or 8 years old, who revealed he was a stutterer too. Without hesitation, Joe interrupted his progress to another venue. He sat with the boy and gave him tips on living with this condition and growing through it. Joe wanted this boy to succeed in life. The boy needed a reversal of both thinking and acting. The readings from Isaiah and Mark today tell us that God brings about great reversals in life. They come from God through the healing attention of others. 

Let’s go back to the pertinent lines in Isaiah: 

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be cleared. Then will the lame leap like a stag, and the tongue of the dumb will speak. 

We might think of this as beautiful poetry, but only poetry.  

But God, in the Scriptures, brought wholeness to people so they could see, hear, leap, sing.  

We see in Jesus the primary example of one who makes great reversals happen. There is something especially poignant about the sensitivity of Jesus in healing the deaf-mute in today’s gospel: 

Jesus drew him away from the crowd to save him embarrassment. As the deaf-mute watched, Jesus spat to communicate His intention to heal. Spittle was understood to be curative. 

Then Jesus touched the person’s eyes and tongue to underline His intention. Jesus looked up to heaven to indicate that what He did, He did through prayer. The man – a foreigner, no less – was made whole. 

Talking about deafness or blindness or any physical limitation of people is a delicate issue. Friends, like Father Ray Fleming, himself deaf, remind us that, for them, deafness is normal. For Joe Biden and the little boy, stuttering was normal. Jesus, in the Gospel, is not reported to have cured every sick person he met. Physical healing is not necessarily the goal. It is reversal that is important – and the gateway to reversal for everyone is in the phrase:

                                                     “Ephphata! Be opened.” 

“Be opened!” are wise words for us in this post-Labor Day time, when we settle into a more patterned way of life than we experience in the summer season. Be opened to the deeper meaning of the stories that people tell us, more opened to the changes at in our society that we experience, so that we can support or challenge them, be opened to those who are rendered dumb because people in power refuse to listen. 

Be opened, in our personal lives means that that we stop living on the surface of life and open ourselves to limitless hope, deep and compassionate love and the embrace of this God of ours who inspires great reversals in our lives. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Welcoming a New Year of Life

Dear Friends,

Every September begins a new year for me. My birthday is in mid-August, so I enter the month a year older. Labor Day allows for a bittersweet goodbye to summer. The first day of school overflows with memories of my years as student and teacher. And in early September 1964 I began life as a Sister of Saint Joseph.

I had just graduated high school. It was an SSJ custom that new members arrived on September 8th. At the beginning of that month, I received a letter changing the date to the 12th. Our class’s move was postponed so that Motherhouse kitchen remodeling could be completed. 

What did I do with this bonus time? One memory I have of those four days is Robert F. Kennedy’s September 9th campaign visit to Rochester. He was running for US Senate against a popular Republican incumbent, Kenneth Keating. My friends and I took the bus to downtown Rochester and waited with the crowd. His motorcade paused right near us. We waved and screamed and cheered for him. 

Sixty years later, I realize that the Kennedy brothers were my heroes because they were dynamic, Catholic, and courageous. I began high school in the year John F. Kennedy was elected President. It had been only nine months since his assassination and here was RFK, willing to pick up the torch. I, in my own way, was beginning a life of service.

With years and experience, I’ve developed a more nuanced view of politics, religion, and heroes. The school of life has taught me hope and skepticism. My membership in this nation and Church continues. I’m one of the old women in the crowd now, cheering a little less noisily, but excited to welcome this new year. 

~ Sister Susan Schantz

Drifting to Embrace God's Anew

Dear Friends,  

Have you ever drifted with the current in a river? I have. Up in Canada one year, after a strenuous white-water rafting of rapids, the guide told us to jump into the water and “go with the flow.” The scenery passed by with all its rugged beauty and we didn’t even have to think, until the guide told us to turn and swim, because a quarter of a mile ahead was a waterfall. The drifting was over. 

Today’s readings have something to tell us about drifting and waterfalls in our own lives, and how we have to turn to embrace God anew. 

Joshua’s companions, who crossed into the promised land with him, included the generations after the exodus had begun. Apparently, many of them were drifting along without the benefit of a personal commitment fully their own. They had not embraced the conviction that God was committed to be their God and they were called to be His people.  

When Joshua saw that this sensitivity was lacking, he said to the people: Decide today whom you will serve and be faithful. 

Our second reading picks up the theme of choice and fidelity when Paul says: Defer (i.e. submit) to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

(It’s regrettable that the author of Ephesians takes for granted the subordination of women. While such an understanding was part of the time, it is not true of ours. We don’t accept the subordination of women today, and because we don’t, we are in danger of missing the point of this passage.) 

In asking us to defer to one another, the author of Ephesians is asking that, in our intimate relationships, we put aside self-interest and choose to live generously the commitments we have made. No drifting. Choose and be faithful.  

Finally, the Gospel offers us a graphic picture of the conflict that the words and deeds of Jesus have caused. For the last four weeks, we have heard how the claims and promises of Jesus aroused cynicism, ridicule and contempt. 

“This sort of talk is hard to endure,” the people said. Many of them left the company of Jesus.  

Jesus turned to his closest disciples and asked if they wanted to go away too. Then Jesus waited for their response. He didn’t back down from what are called his “hard sayings,” but he waited for his disciples to choose, and he waited for us.  

Some of us have gone away from the daily company of Christ. Maybe our feet still take us to church, but our hearts are elsewhere. We may be drifting toward some unseen waterfalls ahead. 

When we can’t begin to find words to respond to the God who wants to know whether we will go or stay, we can at least borrow from the words of Peter to make our own: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are God’s Holy One.” 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Pick Up that Book

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Susan Schantz

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

Being Held Close to the Heart

Dear Friends, 

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

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

“Italy. My real name is Assunta.” 

Ever since then, I have called her Assunta. 

She likes it. 

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

“I do,” she acknowledged happily. 

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Enough for the Crowd

Dear Friends, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Susan Schantz

*Photo from Bon Appetit, April 2024

Respecting Our Common Humanity

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Joan Sobala

How Things Can Be

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Susan Schantz

Mending Our Heirlooms

Dear Friends, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Refreshing the Word

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

Mk 6:1-6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Sister Susan Schantz

One Nation Under God

Dear Friends,

This Thursday, our country celebrates its 248th birthday. How do we honor our nation which has been designed as a place of liberty and justice for all, yet has seemingly lost so much of its singular focus? Some would argue that the United States never did have a clear sense of solidarity. Mountains of evidence of inclusion and exclusion exist, but so do even higher mountains of people working together for the common good, for ideals that are worth our personal dedication and for harmony. God has been in the mix. “One nation under God,” we say in the pledge of allegiance. But whose God? Everybody’s God. And how much do we personally and as a people recognize God in our midst?

On this coming holiday, let’s be open to and invite one another to:

Be who we are, who we say we are. Sit a bit and think about the goodness we have seen and known, the good people we are. We are so often negative in our outlook and words. BE.

Be real. Honest and sincere, not cheaters who cut corners every chance we get.

Be aware. We have periods of ebb and flow, as individuals and as a nation. We surge toward an idea, a leader, a style, a song, but then we flow on, or those things that grabbed us yesterday flow on. What is lasting, anyway?

Be human. That means to recognize goodness and vulnerability in ourselves and others. As Vespatia says to her husband Victor in Anne Perry’s A Christmas Gathering, “Can you really forgive, if you have no need to be forgiven?” So much forgiveness and reconciliation is necessary in our land.

Be careful. Respect boundaries. Treat others’ gifts and lives with honor.

Be connected. Our blood can be used for other people when they need it. Sharing blood is a symbol of all the things we share.

Be humorous. Pope Francis recently told 105 comedians from many nations that “they had the power to spread peace and smiles.” The Pope highlighted “the unique role of laughter in bringing people together in the face of conflict.” We can’t all be comedians, but we can spark laughter instead of anger.

Be quiet. We don’t have to have the last word, or a handy rebuttal to every argument. We do need to speak when needed and to know when not to.

Be happy. Happy that you are here and that you belong to a land that is feeding so many parts of the world as well as caring for its own. We can rejoice because we live in the land of the free because of the brave.

Happy 4th and happy 248th!

~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>>~>~>~>~>~

On another topic, after 11 years of weekly blogs, I am happy to welcome as a writing partner Sister Susan Schantz. A Sister of Saint Joseph with whom I have lived and worked over many years, I know the convictions of her mind and heart, her talent for writing and staying power. Susan and I will be alternating weeks beginning next week. I am looking to her insights for my own personal refreshment as well sharing them with you.

~Sister Joan Sobala

Getting Through the Storms of Life

Dear Friends,

I once read that in any large gathering at least 25% of those present are dealing with some serious situation in life. It might be health-related, a marriage difficulty, challenges of their children, mortgage payments, job security or, if you’re young, challenges with parents. You may be facing some difficulty that seems insurmountable. That’s why today’s readings may resonate with you.

Today’s first and third readings are about the storms that threaten life. We read of upheavals in the sea. In the Hebrew Bible, only God had power over the sea. We see this in Job, where God directs the movement of the stormy sea:

Thus far shall you come and no farther.

Here shall your proud waves be stilled.

After the storm described in today’s Gospel, Jesus showed God’s very power over the sea. After the storm, the psalmist concludes with awe “God hushed the storm into a gentle breeze.”

The storms in these readings catch listeners’ attention. They deal often, if not daily, with personal, communal storms. God may seem to be asleep in the Gospel, silent and indifferent to the fear of the moment. Afterwards, the people who experience the storms experience new potential, fresh starts, new insights.

Knowing and believing that God is present in our most ferocious storms can give us an unexpected serenity, a calm that no storm can disturb.

The point of these readings can’t simply be that God will create smooth sailing for us if only we ask. Job knew better than that, as did Mark, the writer of today’s Gospel. So do we.

We like immediate responses to our prayer, but to live through the aftermath of storms, we need patience. Patience in our longing and patience in our belonging. Patience in our actions and in our waiting. Patience in our minds and our impulses.

The storms of life that engage us are sometimes interpersonal. Sometimes, we face life’s societal hardships, like the migrants fleeing from oppression in their homelands. Sometimes, our problems are daily hassles with the computer, with processing the next steps at work, small storms which are just too much for us to bear with equanimity.

In each storm that threatens to swamp us, here are a few things that might help:

Practice deep-breathing. Teach your body and mind to become calm when there is no calm around you.

Include God in your consciousness, for God does not abandon us as we are seemingly overwhelmed.

See your situation with new eyes. Treasure the residue of the storm.

Be grateful when the storm has passed.

Know this for sure. God doesn’t jump ship. God is your co-pilot as you steer the craft in the storm.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Our Gardener God

Dear Friends,

The idea of praying to “Our Gardener God’ is not uniquely mine. If you go to the web, you will find many images and articles about “Our Gardner God.” It is a way of welcoming God who creates, recreates and treasures our earth. Because it’s summer, whether we are outside or not, it seems right to pray to our “Gardener God,” for so God is.

In today’s first reading, Ezekiel lingers over our Gardener God who values the majestic cedars so much that He cuts a portion off and takes it to the mountains, where it will grow unchallenged, and welcome other creatures of the earth for countless generations.

Lavish, generous Gardener God!

No wonder Jesus describes the reign of God with parables taken from gardening and farming:
        The wheat and the weeds that grew up together
        The seed that produced 30, 60, 100–fold,
        and of course, today’s Gospel stories describing the reign of God as
        The seed scattered and left to grow on its own
        The mustard seed: tiny, tiny, so tiny - yet capable of immensity.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the lessons taught to me by scratch - gardeners. These patient images of God start seeds along about February or March, coaxing tough little seeds into life. Eventually, when they are judged sturdy enough, the fledgling plants are brought outside in the daytime to harden them.

Humanly speaking, I think God doesn’t want us to be hardened, but hearty and hardy. You and I are made hardy and hearty by God’s gardening.

Godness or God-likeness, grows in us almost imperceptibly, in weakness, poverty and smallness, like vulnerable plants. Such growth is a gift. Pure gift.

On this Father’s Day, I think of how men grow into fatherhood. God is their gardener, whether they perceive it or not. The work is slow and the questions are many. Some questions go unasked. Some can’t be answered except when life is seen in retrospect.

Children need fathers to help plant the seeds of truth-telling and respect for all people. Children need to know they are loved and yet there are times when their father needs to stand back and watch his children grow without him or in spite of him. Today, we bless the fathers who continually deepen who they are for their children. What do you best recall about your own father?

There are boundless life-lessons to learn from the garden and the farm - from our Gardener God who teaches us all two important lesson today:

        ~Growth happens slowly and imperceptibly and often goes unnoticed, but involves others.
        ~The result is bigger, more remarkable than we can imagine.

Today, let’s offer a confident work of thanks and praise to our Gardener God for creating, pruning, bringing forth fruit, sustaining our growth in life and the life of our world.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Seeing the Value in All Creation

Dear Friends,

The great holy days of spring are over, and our liturgical calendar moves into Ordinary Time. During these long, wide-open weeks until Advent, I like to explore other themes in the Christian life as well as ideas that run in currents through our culture.

Here’s one such thought that popped into my mind recently.

            What do these things have in common?
                        the quality of the wine at Cana
                        the birds of the air
                        the wildflowers
                        the barren fig tree.

Jesus, during His public ministry, paid attention to these apparently small matters in nature and life, which, in the grand scheme of things, were not life and death issues, not issues of exclusion or injustice. Jesus cared about people enough to seek them out, recognize His kinship with them, heal them, bring them to life literally and in new ways that stirred their being. But in His love and kindness, He also focused His attention on the ordinary, the insignificant, things that might otherwise be discarded, deemed irrelevant or crushed underfoot. Jesus knew that God, His Father, looked upon all creation and saw that it was good (Gen.1.31) and from Psalm 24 that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that it holds.” He knew from the Wisdom of Solomon that God, His Father, “loves all things that exist and spares all things” for they are His (Wisdom 24, 26). Jesus, who knew the Scriptures, treasured all creation as His Father did.

We love Jesus for the way He healed Bartimaeus and the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, how He welcomed Dismas on the next cross over and Nicodemus who was skittish and uncertain about whether he could follow Jesus openly. But He also cared enough about bread, vineyards, lakes and fish to include them in His life and teachings. Jesus was not so people-centered that He missed the value of the rest of creation.

I like to think of the barren fig tree, revived and in full bloom, standing sentinel at the gate of heaven, a welcome to all who recognize the breadth of Jesus’ love for all creation.

Given what we are coming to know and love about Jesus, and His Father’s care for all creatures, will you, will I look at creation with new eyes this summer?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

*Image above is All Creation Sings His Praise, a painting by Jen Norton

The Blood of Christ Sustains the Flow of Life

Dear Friends,

Last week a story on the national news told of pregnant women with a life-endangering illness being saved by the infusion of whole blood. So much can be done when the component parts of blood are shared. But this crisis required whole blood.

I thought of “whole blood” when I started preparing for this week’s blog. When tragedy strikes, people give blood, which they associate with the gift of life.

Blood sustains the flow of life.

The Blood of Christ sustains the flow of life in the church and in the world.

A few weeks ago, a nurse practitioner from my insurance carrier came to do a home visit. After a series of routine tests, she wondered if I would allow her to take a test which measured whether there were differences in the blood flow in each of my arms and legs. I was curious, to say the least. Much to my delight, the graphs were identical for each appendage. The blood flowed consistently throughout my body.

Does the Blood of Christ flow consistently throughout the Church and the world? No. We know it doesn’t, because in some instances Christ is ignored, unwanted, misunderstood, rejected when understood. The whole Church and the whole world are inconsistent hosts for Christ who gives us His blood to sustain us and His Body to nourish us.

How do we come to value and cooperate with the truth of Christ’s Body and Blood as lifegiving for us? Certainly, and as often as possible, by coming to the Table of the Lord. But there’s more. As we plunge into our lives, day after day, we can work politically, economically, and socially to stanch the loss of lifeblood in the many clear and hidden ways that happen. We can work locally, nationally, and globally to enhance the flow of blood to all those people and places where the need is greatest. In this way, we become Christ for others. We bring Christ to others.

The Body and Blood of Christ are always given together and received together. Wherever people move in the world, Christ is there, offering His very self that we might live. We give Him to others when we act generously, speak lovingly, look upon others with love, treat them with reverence.

As we accept the call to receive Christ, we become what we receive. We become Christ, and give Him to others, hopefully without holding back. Christ says to us: “You share my life and my love when you do these things in memory of me.”

On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, will you join me to pray in great thanks and reverence:

                    Bread of Life,
                    Jesus, Holy and Risen One,
                    Keep us as fresh as the bread we break
                    and the wine we pour,
                    that like these simple gifts
                    which become Your Body and Blood,
                    our lives may become a source of freshness
                    for all we meet.
                    Amen.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

A Circle of Kinship with God

Dear Friends,  

I just read an interview with Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson, eminent theologian recently retired. Elizabeth tells that she had no intention of writing another book, but God had another idea. She was inspired to go the route of a book of meditations on God and the earth. Its major title is “Come, Have Breakfast,” drawing on the words of Jesus to his disciples, who met his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection.  

Jesus invited them to breakfast, which he made himself, doing woman’s work with ease and divine/human dignity. 

Once again, Jesus breaks the mold of what we believe God does.  

“Everything we say about God is limited by our own finite experiences,” Elizabeth Johnson says. “God is infinite. So we have to keep breaking open our categories and letting our spirits soar into the actual mystery of God.” 

Ours is not the only generation which has stereotyped God, placing God in a distant place with words that render God unreachable -- all-mighty, ever-lasting and all-powerful, to mention a few. At the same time that we have relegated God to a distant heaven, people have created our own gods to worship. Wealth, fame, prestige, power and beauty rank high as cultural idols. We don’t need such gods. We need to make space for our humanity and space for the real God.  

Do you know the hymn that begins “Lord, You are the Center of My Life?” It evokes an intimate image of God’s presence and a truth that we welcome if we want to grow in faith. But the image of the disciples, sitting with Jesus at the seashore, offers an image we might not be used to. God joins us in the circle as we breakfast together while sitting on the earth by the sea. This does not place God in the center of our circle, where there is still a distance, but God next to us. God at our elbow. God stretching and reaching for another morsel of food. God eating fish and bread with us.  

We are in what Elizabeth Johnson calls a “circle of kinship” with God. God loves all people and all creation with a closeness that is immediate and unflagging. We are kin to one another and to God as we live, whether we are on the beach or in any other place. 

Today, Trinity Sunday, let’s celebrate God with us -- the real God and not our own version of God. Part of our circle of kinship. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

* The photo above hangs over the altar at Our Lady of Lourdes in Brighton, NY.

The Voice of God, Heard by All

Dear Friends,

Rushing wind, spreading fire, the Spirit that enabled courage. All potent aspects of Pentecost.

Here’s one more to consider, namely that everyone heard Peter speaking in their own tongues – their everyday language.

There was no official language for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Not imperial Latin or universal Greek or local Aramaic or the language of the political/religious parties of Galilee and Judea.

Think about it! Everyone heard the voice of God through Peter in the language of the streets, the idioms they used, their nuances expressions, their slang. God is revealed on Pentecost as a God without borders – a God who rejects sameness as a rule for everyone. There is no one right way to speak, to be human or to be in touch with the living God. Everyone has a take on personally Who God Is and why we need to treasure and make the most of God-with-us. Everyone can ask questions of the Living God and of Jesus, the Risen One. Everyone has insights about God to share. Everyone can speak to God in his/her own tongue.

This breath-stopping thought about how God honors all existing languages in this Pentecost moment is not mine. It drifted into my computer from an unknown source and I have kept it because of its simple but profound insight. The anonymous author of the article that embodied this thought put it this way:

“On Pentecost, God gives the divine voice to the language 

of a bunch of nobodies and a crowd of commoners. 

It is an act of liberation, both for humankind and for God.”

Think about the ways nations have tried to suppress the language of conquered people. One language, those in power say – one language is all we need. Our language. Yet even in English, how many words come from conquered people, indigenous people, people who have been told their language is inferior and too difficult to learn. When language dies, culture dies. People whose culture dies lose heart.

Again quoting the unknown author of this insightful piece,

“Pentecost was a rebellion against those who would 

 restrict God to a single, respectable or official language, 

 of a single, righteous people or a single systematic theology. 

 Pentecost was a protest in which God refused to be silenced 

 by the language of the powerful. Instead, on Pentecost, 

 God spoke. And the people in the street understood.”

And then the people in the street spoke with the voice of God-reaching out to others in Word and Spirit – with the very conviction of God.

The people of Gaza and the Ukraine, the people of Haiti and other battle – weary countries cry out to the world with the voice of God.

On this Pentecost Day, may we hear the voice of God in them and wherever compassion and mercy are preached and lived. May our world be suffused with Pentecost fire, light, hearing and courage.

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Celebrating Mother's Day

Dear Friends, 

Happy Mother’s Day to all who nurture: those who, in unity with the Holy Spirit, nudge, inspire, heal, encourage and return our cherished ones to God. Mothers and others who nurture are worthy of being celebrated for all they are, do and represent. We are forever connected with our mothers, though our relationships with them are psychologically complex and spiritually challenging. Some have pushed us hard or perhaps left us to fend for ourselves. But the connection remains. Not all mothers are perfect, though some are nearly so. One child, when asked what would make her mother perfect, replied “I would like her to get rid of those invisible eyes at the back of her head.” 

In many ways, Mother’s Day stops at being a sentimental day of giving flowers, cards, and gifts. Then it is Monday, and all is back to normal. But anyone who says negative things about Mother’s Day, itself, risks the annoyance of people for whom this day is an important gesture of reverence for the one who bore them. Writers about Mother’s Day, walk a fine line between praise of the day and the woman and saying hard things about the need to reclaim and indeed, find new depths in the meaning of mothers in our fast paced “I’ll think about that later” world. 

The word “Mother “is not always used in respectful terms.  

Mothers move between heartache and joy in their lives. 

With today’s news reporting people frantic over the availability of abortion in many US states, Mother’s Day takes on layers of sadness, pain, despair, relief, guilt, emptiness, emptying, and more. Still, the nation celebrates Mother’s Day. 

Today’s mothers of infants through teens juggle work and home. Changing cultural values make it important, indeed necessary, for women to rethink, reinterpret, articulate, and reclaim the meaning of motherhood. Women who have strong roots in their religious traditions are called to understand, uphold and live by the richness of their faith, as they live public/civic and domestic lives. 

Catholic Christians have long had a devotion to Mary, the God-Bearer and our Mother. My friend’s Italian grandmother prayed to Mary as an “earth mother” who knew birth, human work, human delight and death. Mary is mother, sister, icon, friend to all who welcome her strong but gentle presence. We celebrate her today as well. 

The mothering qualities we treasure – steadfast love, generosity, openheartedness, tenderness – are first found in God. 

And then there is Jesus, described by St. Anselm in the late 11th century. And, you, Jesus, are you not also a mother? Are you not the mother, who like a hen, gathers her chicks under her wings? Truly Lord, You are our mother…”                                      

Thank God we are never done with mothers. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

Jesus, Our Faithful Brother

Dear Friends,

Recently, as part of a committee, I wrote a prayer for a non-liturgical service, in which I included the phrase, “Jesus, Our Brother and Lord.” Someone else, typing up the text in the program, edited out “Our Brother,” leaving only “Jesus Our Lord.”

I was befuddled. Isn’t Jesus our Brother as well as our Lord? Or are we uncomfortable calling Jesus our Brother?

He is our Brother. By virtue of our Baptism, we have been incorporated into Christ. He is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8.29)

Recognizing Jesus as our Brother opens the door for a greater affection for Jesus, a wonder in us that He has welcomed us in this way.

When we call Jesus our Brother, we do not reduce him to “bro” – which is affectionate but not necessarily reverent. Rather, He elevates us to a place in the family of God, offers us an intimacy that in humbling, constant and life-giving not only for ourselves, but for all we welcome into our lives.

If we are aware of the power of Jesus being our Brother, we might be more inclined to treat others more as we treat Jesus – with reverence, delight in His company.

There’s more. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to His disciples, “I no longer call you servants/slaves. I call you friends.” (John15.15)

Today, Jesus bids us to regard Him as our companion and friend. Add to that the realization that Jesus is Our Brother as well as our Lord.

What wondrous thoughts! By Jesus’ very invitation, we are called to live in intimacy with Him.

~ Sister Joan Sobala