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Reflection for Sunday April 19th, 2015 by Ewelina Frackowiak

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Reflection for April 19th, 2015 by Ewelina Frackowiak

Third Sunday of Easter

For printable version: Reflection for April 19, 2015. E. Frackowiak

 

The disciples are startled and terrified. Jesus comes and says: look at me, experience me, touch me, remember what I told you when I was still with you! He appeals to senses and intellect – two ways through which we, human beings, know things.  So the disciples know now that Jesus is not a ghost (he eats and has flesh like theirs), and his story is logically connected with some passages from the prophets and psalms.  What is this knowledge good for? Well, for nothing yet. What follows the showing, touching and talking is the opening of disciples’ minds by Jesus, opening of minds so they can understand.

Opening of minds – what does it mean? Certainly more than acquiring knowledge by intellect and senses. Let me look for an explanation, an explanation that will come from my insight, and experience and which you are more than welcome to examine against your insight, intellect, and experience. The Buddha said: “Believe nothing until you have experienced it and found it to be true…”[1]

So, opening of minds to understand. Let’s call the result of it spiritual knowing in order to differentiate it with the other types of knowing that did not release the disciples from fear. John in the letter we have just heard in our second reading also differentiates between two types of knowing – false sense and true sense of knowing. Let’s read again: “The way we may be sure that we know him [Jesus] is to keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar (…)” (1 John 2. 3-4). Spiritual knowing then goes hand in hand with action, spiritual knowing compels us to live out Jesus’s commandment, which is the commandment to love one another.

Is this what happened – the disciples were empowered to love, recognized each other in the uniting light of love when Jesus opened their minds? We do not know for sure. What had happened must have been beyond the words of the evangelist, of words of anyone in fact. It must have been a mystical experience.

Each of us can ask oneself what the nature of spiritual knowing is because such knowing is accessible to all of us. It may also be different for each of us. I will characterize it in the spirit of the psychologist and peace activist Jorge Ferrer[2]: First, spiritual knowing is presential – “one knows X by virtue of being X”. (To think about it, how intimately we are invited to know God and each other in the Eucharist!) Second, spiritual knowing is transformative – it is an overcoming of narrow self-centeredness and thus a liberation that transforms both us and the world. (Wasn’t Jesus teaching transformative and still continue to be as such? Saint John says we ought to live as he lived – we need to transform, change, and challenge the status quo just as he did.) And finally, spiritual knowledge is enactive. Through it we are no longer alienated observers but direct participants in all life with which we now identify.

In my life, the moment in which spiritual knowledge replaced some false knowledge was the moment when I realized I have the right to love as anyone else has. It does not matter that I, a woman, fall in love with women, something intrinsic to what I am but still seen by the institutional Church as an objective disorder. Before I allowed myself to love, I had trusted in what the Church taught: that God does not want me to find a loving companion for life and that He gave me a special test, the test to live in celibacy. And believe me, my mind created many justifications that such teaching was right, and I became defending these ideas fiercely, avoiding anything that could challenge them. I could not even take a gay and lesbian newsletter in my hand out of fear that it would be a sin. I was living a life of mind, very rigid, very predictable, and as such close to awe and spontaneity. And then my mind, heart, and soul opened. I began to let go of beliefs and to question what I had been taught. I realized I could not NOT love because that would be a spiritual suicide. I allowed myself to fall in love. I have been transformed by love ever since.

Spiritual knowing is not knowing of precepts, rules, and doctrines. It emerges from our participation in always dynamic spiritual power.[3] We are active participants in Jesus’s vision when we nurture the love for God and for one another, and when we take responsibility for one another and all God’s creation.

 

 

[1] Quote from: https://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/buddhapage.html

[2] Ferrer N. Jorge, (2005). Spiritual Knowing: A Participatory Understanding, [in:] C. Clarke (ed.) “Ways of Knowing. Science and Mysticism Today”. Imprint Academic, UK.

[3] Ibidem, p. 2

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Fr. Andre Boyer’s Easter Sunday Homily

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Easter Sunday Homily

April 5th, 2015

For printable version: Easter Sunday Homily2

 

On Good Friday, we left this place in silence and darkness. Today, the Gospel of Luke also begins the Easter story in darkness. Luke says, “At early dawn, the women went to the tomb.” Every one of us knows those moments of darkness

  • Earlier this week, a woman was called into her supervisor’s office to hear that times were hard for the company and they had to let her go.
  • Earlier this week, in a doctor’s office, someone learned that their cancer had returned.
  • Earlier this week, a man heard the words “I don’t love you anymore. I want a divorce.”
  • Earlier this week, parents were disappointed by children.
  • Earlier this week, someone else’s dreams were ripped away.
  • Earlier this week, someone’s hope was crucified. And the resulting darkness is overwhelming.

As Craig Barnes says, “No one is ever ready to encounter Easter until she or he has spent time in the dark place where hope cannot be seen. Easter is the last thing we are expecting. And that is why it terrifies us. It’s about more hope than we can handle.”

It’s hard to know what Mary was thinking when she headed down the road that day, toward the tomb. When she arrived at the tomb, things were not in order. She had expected the tomb to be closed as any proper tomb should be. Instead, it was open…the tomb was empty.

Of course, the disciples had to run to the tomb to check things out. Then the nameless disciple said, “The tomb is empty, he must be gone.” And then, having proved to themselves that the tomb was indeed empty, they headed home.

Of course, that wasn’t good enough for Mary. It would have been easy for her to leave with the men. But she couldn’t leave…this was all so awful.  And so, in the midst of her weeping and her hopelessness she found herself bending down to see the black emptiness of the tomb again. Maybe the sad truth would sink in with just one more look.

Of course, she was in for a shock. The tomb wasn’t empty at all – two angels in white were sitting where Jesus’ body should have been.

She turned away from these men in white only to find another standing before her. Unlike the angels, he was dressed in simple clothes – “a gardener,” she thought.

“Mary”, the man said. It was Jesus…alive. In that moment, Mary’s hope came back to life. Her expectations were rekindled. She was in the presence of the risen Christ.

And to think, if she had gone home (like the men), if she hadn’t hung around, if she hadn’t been willing to take another look and stare at the gaping hole of death in the face, she would have missed him. It took a second look, a second glance in the midst of her pain, to hear Jesus call out her name and see his face come into view.

Why then do we bother when hope seems gone? We bother because we believe in a God of second looks, a God of second chances. We bother because we know that there is so much more to the story that we can’t head home until we’ve seen Jesus face to face.

What is more important is that we stand in the garden and hear him say our name. For when we meet him, hear him, and see him, we find our tears turning to laughter, our sorrows turned to dancing, and our despair transformed into hope.

Back in the 1980’s, Ted Koppel asked Archbishop Desmond Tutu if the situation in South Africa, with its system of racial segregation called “apartheid”, was hopeless. “Of course it’s hopeless from a human point of view,” Tutu replied. “But we believe in the resurrection, and so we are prisoners of hope.”

We too are prisoners of hope, taken captive by the risen savior and filled with the knowledge that nothing is impossible with God.

Some of us today find ourselves in the pit of despair. We feel like our hope is gone. We’ve looked in the tomb and it’s empty. We don’t know where Jesus is gone and we’re not really sure where to go to find him.

Take another look. Look into our pain and despair and we will discover the risen Christ standing in our midst, offering love and comfort.

There are others of us for whom things are going pretty well. We’ve taken a look at Jesus, maybe even looked in the tomb. But we headed home without really understanding what was going on.

Take another look. All of us…no matter where we sit or stand today. We need to cast aside our complacency, our fear, and most of all, our smug notions that we fully know everything about Jesus. Take another look, and let us be prepared to discover more.

Take another look and encounter anew the one who healed the sick, who fed the hungry, and the one that raises all of us to new life.

Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed!

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Fr. Andre Boyer’s Good Friday Homily

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Good Friday Homily

April 3rd, 2015

For printable version: Good Friday Homily2

 

A few weeks ago I was with a family who was reminiscing about their mother’s death. Three daughters who in detail spoke of the night she died.

I was baffled. All three of them lived through the same experience, and all three of them remembered it differently. Really differently.

I thought about this experience when I started thinking about Good Friday and looking at the four Gospel narratives about Jesus’ last hours on the cross.

Did you know they are all different?

And while all four of them tell of Jesus’ final hours, it’s only Luke who tells us what Jesus said when he cried out so loudly.

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

And then, Luke says, Jesus breathed his last.

Now, you and I might recognize those words – the psalmist used them in Psalm 31. Yes, we might recognize them, but the people standing around Jesus’ cross that day would certainly have recognized those words.

See, the phrase “into your hands I commit my spirit” was used by religious Jews every single day of their lives. It was the prayer they prayed every night, the last thing that left their lips before they closed their eyes, comforting and familiar words that led to rest.

I have this childhood memory that goes back as far as I can remember. I can remember my mother singing as she rocked whichever one of us was the baby to sleep.

I will always be able to recall that song and when I do, there is a peace that floods over me, and that feeling of safety.

It was the kind of thing Jesus was probably calling to mind as he cried out in a loud voice: “Father, into yours hands I commit my spirit.” And I have to say, to everyone standing there, it must have seemed totally out of place.

In the deepest moments of anguish, with doubt and grief and regret washing over everyone – not just Jesus – those words must have seemed strange.

Today, I tell you, I’m glad Luke remembered to tell us these words, because it seems to me that Jesus, bloody and gasping for air, gave us the most amazing gift when he spoke these words.

Yes, in the middle of the deepest human darkness we could ever experience, our Savior spoke firmly and forcefully – loudly, Luke says – these words of utter comfort and ultimately love. He spoke them in forceful defiance of the despair and hopelessness that haunted his final hours. He would not give in. He would not let despair be the final word.

There was nothing pretty about what Jesus went through.

All of his friends had just let him down; surely the memory of Judas’ kiss or Peter’s denial ran like a tape over and over in his mind. He’d just been forced to look straight into the face of gut-wrenching fear, and it scared him so badly that he sweated with utter anxiety.

He’d knelt in the garden alone, talking to God and begging. Please, could there be another way to walk through this? He’d hung on the cross and uttered – as Matthew and Mark report – his sinking suspicion that God had abandoned him and that he was all alone.

After these things…after all of these things, then, Jesus does the most incredible, faith-filled thing: he struggles to take in one last breath and calls out words of comfort and peace. These final words – Jesus cried them out, and when he did, he spoke defiant hope into dark despair.

On Aug. 14, 1982, Todd Weems was out on the town celebrating his 21st birthday. It was just after midnight when he left the restaurant to head home. As he was leaving, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a group of men beating a homeless man in an alley on the side of the restaurant. Without much thought, he ran over to try to help, and in the moments that followed it was Todd who was brutally murdered.

It’s a tragic story any way you tell it, but to make the aftermath harder, you should know that Todd’s mother, Ann Weems, is a prolific writer and noted theologian. Faced with the senseless pain of her son’s death, she spent night after sleepless night filled with anger at the God she’s served all her life, who, as far as she could see, had completely abandoned her to utter darkness. Out of this experience came her book “Psalms of Lament”, where she somehow found the courage to write these words.

“In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,

there is a deafening alleluia

rising from the souls

of those who weep,

and those who weep with those who weep.

If you watch, you will see

the hand of God

putting the stars back in their skies

one by one.

I don’t know just how Ann Weems summoned the courage to write these words of hope into the dark abyss of her situation. I think it might be possible that she remembered a Savior who had also suffered those feelings of betrayal and hopelessness and chose, instead of surrendering to the darkness, instead to defiantly place everything she was into the hands of God.

Me? I suspect I might have gotten stuck at “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But on this day, I want to say, “Thank you, Luke, for reminding us that Jesus didn’t stay stuck.”

And as we stumble our way through this day and through the pain of our human lives, often unable to see through the darkness, we can take whatever is left of our lives and place it right into the hands of God, a revolutionary act of faith, indeed.

“Through the darkness be near me…”

“Keep me safe till morning light.”

“Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

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Reflection for April 2nd, 2015 by Eleanor Rabnett

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Reflection for April 2nd, 2015 by Eleanor Rabness

Holy Thursday

For printable version: Reflection for April 2, 2015 Holy Thursday

Well here we are – here to celebrate Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Triduum and unarguably the holiest time of our year.  The images and symbols are rich – it is for this that we have journeyed through Lent.

We began with the story of God speaking to Moses and Aaron of how to prepare with the marking of the blood of a lamb that has been sacrificed.  God saying: “This shall be a day of remembrance for you.  You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; through your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”  And here we are remembering, celebrating… Jesus has become that sacrificial lamb.

Paul, in only a few lines telling the story of what we now call the institution of the Eucharist.  He uses the words “this is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  “This cup is the new covenant in my Blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

And then the Gospel which is John’s story of the Last Supper.  We are all aware of the usual depiction of the Last Supper – that of the apostles seated at a long table with Jesus at the centre.  But tonight John offers us another image, one that is quite different than that of men and women seated at a table sharing bread and wine.  Rather it is the image is of a man kneeling at the feet of those who follow him, to wash the dirt from their feet.  Such love is there that Jesus, son of God, would get on his knees to wash the feet of his beloved.

William Barclay describes these actions of Jesus as being” the Royalty of Service”.  I want to call it the Sacrament of Service.

Normand Bonneau, describes how the readings from this evening tie in with the readings that we will hear tomorrow at our Good Friday liturgy and then at the Easter Vigil – each intricately tied to and a part of the other.

Normand states that [Jesus’ action of washing his disciples feet] “…serves as an enacted parable of Jesus loving his own to the end, for the words used to describe Jesus taking off his outer garment (v.4) and then putting it on again (v.12) are the same words spoken by the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, only to take it up again (John 10:17)”

This washing of the feet was a mark of hospitality, of seeing to the welfare of others, a job which in those times would be performed by at least a servant but more likely a slave.  This is the ultimate mark of love – to serve others – just as God does with each of us.

Ron Rolheiser, in his Daily Lenten Reflection video for today tells us that the Eucharist is meant to send us out into the world “ready to give expression to Christ’s hospitality, humility and self-effacement. […] to lead us out of the church and into the humble service of others.  […] to move from worship to service – to take the nourishment, the embrace, the kiss that we have just received from God and the community and translate it immediately and directly into the loving service of others.”

Ron adds:  “To take the Eucharist seriously is to begin to wash the feet of others, especially the feet of the poor.”

It is through loving service that we will follow and model Jesus and how we shall come home to the Father.

And lets not forget Peter’s response to Jesus when he says “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head” and Jesus responding that is not really needed because he is already clean.  This is seen by some as a reference to Baptism which is a promise, a commitment to imitate, and model our lives on Jesus as he serves others – a self-giving which does not end in his dying because we are promised that we will be “raised with him”.

Incredibly rich images.

I remember the first time I felt that I was called to “serve those who serve others”.  I was not entirely comfortable with the sound of that.  It can get dirty and is usually hidden, this doing of the little things, sometimes messy and difficult, certainly unrecognized.  But there can be great joy in doing that for our brothers and sisters – for each other.  Watch the faces of those who will be washing the feet of others in just a few minutes from now.  These are the faces of love and joy.  A little thing – becomes so very huge – all from what I dare say is a magnificent love.

Tonight is our entrance into an ongoing living Paschal Mystery – it is the beginning which will carry us through to Pentecost, a time of death and resurrection, of letting go of the old so to make room for the new.  It all begins here with the Eucharist of the Washing of The Feet.

 

Authorities:

Exodus 12.1-8, 11-14

1 Corinthians 11.23-26

John 12.1-15

William Barclay – The New Daily Study Bible – The Gospel of John, Volume Two

Norman Bonneau, OMI – The Sunday Lectionary:  Ritual Word, Paschal Shape, 1998

Ron Rolheiser, OMI – Daily Lenten Reflection for April 2, 2015

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Reflection for March 29th, 2015 by Donna Rietschlin

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Staying humble in the tough places and remembering the journey

Reflection for Palm Sunday

Mar 29th, 2015

 

For printable version: Reflection for Palm Sunday – Mar 29 2015

 

Holy Week is a sacred time of remembrance.  It is a time of profound intentionality re prayer, fasting, almsgiving and service.

To remember we need to think back on what we have lived and connect with our journey.  Today our readings have taken us on a journey.

As we gathered at the entrance of our church, we heard John’s account of Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem.  In this reading, it appears that the disciples have not organized this – none of them went ahead to get a room or find a donkey or let the people present for Passover know that Jesus was coming.  And yet the crowd ‘heard’ Jesus was coming to Jerusalem and went out to meet him.  A young donkey seems to appear at the right moment.  It all just falls into place.  Can you imagine the disciples talking about this in the following weeks and years and becoming more and more aware of the synchronicity of these events?  Do you suppose those reflections helped them to recognize Jesus as the Son of God?  It is often after an event – when we take the time to reflect on what was lived – that we become aware, draw inferences, see links to what was lived then and its impact in our now.  We become aware of the ripples that continue to impact our lives, our world.

Our next reading is from Isaiah and it is our first reading every Palm Sunday.   This reading is fulfilled in the passion and death of Jesus.  Jesus lived what he was called to live with the assurance that God was with him; God was supporting him.

And in Paul’s letter to the Philippians we are likely hearing a pre-existing text that Paul inserted to encourage the members of the community in Philippi to be humble.  There is a suggestion that if the people are humble and obedient, they, too, may be taken by God and made holy.  I have to tell you that this idea of absolute humility intrigues me.  And, I have been thinking about it for days and days.  What does it mean to be humble?  Who do I know that is truly humble?  How is that person accepted by others?  What does he or she do or how does he or she live that is qualitatively different than those I might not judge as humble?

Definition of humility – a modest view of one’s own importance; the quality or state of thinking that we are very much like other people; that we are not better than others.  In Biblical terms, being humble has to do with lack of pride or arrogance, knowing that we are very small and we are loved limitlessly by God, we have God-given talents and gifts that are to be used for the well-being of the community and ourselves.

Keith was a model of humility.  I want to share a bit of his journey with you.  Keith was in his late 50’s when I met him and he lived in a large institution in SW Ontario which had housed more than 1000 adults with intellectual disabilities at one time.  Keith was there because almost 40 years previously he and some friends got into a bit of adolescent trouble in their small town.  Because Keith had an intellectual disability, the citizens of the town thought his behavior would only grow worse and put members of the community at risk.  The police and several religious leaders urged his parents to put him in this large institution ‘where he would be safe’.   It is interesting to note that the other young men were not charged with any crime and were not shunned by their community.

Keith was about 6 feet tall and strong.  He had a ready chuckle and kind brown eyes.  He liked maple syrup, homemade strawberry jam, farm fields and the machinery used to plow, plant and harvest.  He liked sunsets and dogs.  He walked around the grounds of the institution picking up litter with a device he made.  It was a stick with a nail attached to one end with duct tape.  He liked raking leaves and planting and tending gardens – all things in their seasons.

The institution was closing and Keith wanted to live somewhere that he could own a dog, a large one if possible, and be near a few friends (Sandra and Joanne) that had already moved.  I was to help him do this.  Keith and I become friends quickly.  He came to my home, ate at my table, shared stories and loved my dog, Casey – yes she was gentle and big.  Sometimes when I would go to the institution to meet others I was planning with, Casey would come along.  Keith would meet us in the parking lot and take her on his rounds to the gardens or just around the property.  He also took her to meet his friends.  He beamed when he had Casey with him and she did lots of tail wagging and prancing.

Keith and I travelled to small communities in SW Ontario to meet organizations that were interested in support him.  As Keith became more ready to leave the institution, he asked for 2 things:  he wanted the option of having a dog and he wanted to live in the same community as a couple of friends who had already moved from the institution.  Being close to Sandra and Joanne was especially important to him.  Things were going very well and it looked like Keith’s dream would happen.  And then he got sick.  His cancer from several years before metastasized and was now very aggressive.  The agency that committed to welcome him backed out.

Keith knew his time was short; the doctor said 3 months.  He decided that he would die at the institution.  He still had many friends there including the on-site doctor, one of the nurses in the infirmary and the chaplain.  He asked me to continue to spend time with him.  I asked him once if he was angry or disappointed about not moving.  He said, “Oh, I guess it was never really up to me.”  “I want to die where I am known, where I am loved.”     Keith died in the infirmary in the institution where he had lived for more than 40 years.  I was sitting by his bed, holding his hand, reading a chapter of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book to him.  The chapter title was “The Big Black Dog”.  He squeezed my hand and left.  I felt a presence of light and love travel around the room and then he was gone.  His funeral was packed; people came from across the province and celebrated his life.  This humble man who was institutionalized for more than 40 years had touched so many so deeply.

I can see Keith’s story has touched many of you.  Jesus’ Passion and Death touches us.  It is not easy to remember and stay in this place of deep feeling, loss, and grief. . .

Let’s try to stay here.  Let’s not jump to Easter.  Let’s feel what we feel and be humble and gentle with ourselves and those close to us.  These spaces of brokenness can transform us and help us be the person God calls us to be.  And for the next few days let’s try to stay in the place of longing and remembering as we live this week in prayer, fasting, almsgiving and service.

As Patricia Campbell Carlson writes in a letter to a friend “Grief and gratitude are kindred souls, each pointing to the beauty of what is transient and given to us by grace.”

Let’s be intentional about living this week in love and humility.

– Donna Rietschlin

 

Some additional readings that might be useful for reflection.

The Paths to Peace

In the vision of the journey to peace that Jesus opens, there are three complementary roads, three paths of humility that lead people beyond their own ego.  The first path to peace refers directly to [Jesus]… from the death of Jesus a new presence will spring…the gift of the Holy Spirit.

…The second path to peace has to do with our compulsions… We have to give up wanting to have the last word to prove that we are better than the rest…

The third path to peace is to serve Jesus in the poor, to live among them. The Lord said, through Isaiah, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is humiliated and lost.” (Isa 57:15)  In every culture, there is the presence of the “lowliest.” …Welcoming one another in the rich diversity of our religions and cultures, serving the poor together, prepares a future of peace.

Jean Vanier, Signs: Seven Words of Hope, Novalis, 2013, pp. 80-82

Love, Not Atonement

Friday, March 20, 2015   Richard Rohr – Daily Meditation

 

The common Christian reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”–either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father (proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109). Anselm’s infamous Cur Deus Homo has been called “the most unfortunately successful piece of theology ever written.” My hero, Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), agreed with neither of these understandings. Scotus was not guided by the Temple language of debt, atonement, or blood sacrifice (understandably used in the Gospels and by Paul). He was inspired by the high level cosmic hymns in the first chapters of Colossians and Ephesians and the first chapter of John’s Gospel.

 

After Anselm, Christians have paid a huge price for what theologians called “substitutionary atonement theory”–the strange idea that before God could love us God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to atone for our sin-drenched humanity. With that view, salvation depends upon a problem instead of a divine proclamation about the core nature of reality. As if God could need payment, and even a very violent transaction, to be able to love and accept “his” own children–a message that those with an angry, distant, absent, or abusive father were already far too programmed to believe.

 

For Scotus, the incarnation of God and the redemption of the world could never be a mere mop-up exercise in response to human sinfulness, but the proactive work of God from the very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made,” as the hymn in Ephesians puts it (1:4). Our sin could not possibly be the motive for the divine incarnation, but only perfect love and divine self-revelation! For Scotus, God never merely reacts, but always supremely and freely acts, and always acts totally out of love. Scotus was very Trinitarian.

 

The best way I can summarize how Scotus tried to change the old notion of retributive justice is this: Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. God in Jesus moved people beyond the counting, weighing, and punishing model, that the ego prefers, to the utterly new world that Jesus offered, where God’s abundance has made any economy of merit, sacrifice, reparation, or atonement both unhelpful and unnecessary. Jesus undid “once and for all” (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10) all notions of human and animal sacrifice and replaced them with his new economy of grace, which is the very heart of the gospel revolution. Jesus was meant to be a game changer for the human psyche and for religion itself. When we begin negatively, or focused on the problem, we never get out of the hamster wheel. To this day we begin with and continue to focus on sin, when the crucified one was pointing us toward a primal solidarity with the very suffering of God and all of creation. This changes everything. Change the starting point, change the trajectory!

 

We all need to know that God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good. Nothing humans can do will ever decrease or increase God’s eternal eagerness to love.

 

Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pp. 183-188

 

 

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Reflection For March 22nd, 2015 by Helena Robb

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Reflection for March 22nd, 2015 by Helena Robb

Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday)

For Printable Version: Reflection_March 22_Helena Robb
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus sowed love for us through his own dying and rising that we may follow him in our journey of sharing with each other The great mystery of Christian life is that like seeds our sacrifices are not in vain, but rather lead to new life.

This Solidarity Sunday for the work of Development and Peace calls us to give of our seeds of love through our contributions for its work. We sow seeds of justice with families and communities who suffer as a result of conflicts, natural disasters and unfair economic and political structures throughout our world. Solidarity Sunday invites us like Jesus to meet the fallen seed among us, those broken by injustice, war, poverty, disease and to bring new life through the support of Development and Peace and their partner agencies.

Development and Peace is honoured to support courageous women and men in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East who make sacrifices each day, sometimes their own lives. We offer our support so that their families, loved ones and communities can live another day.

Imagine being born blind and growing up in rural Sierra Leone! People with the slightest physical disability are stigmatized and marginalized. They never know from where there next meal will come. Komba, born blind in the diamond mine region of Kono Sierra Leone some 40 years ago struggled on the dusty streets with others who were blind. .Could he find food to fill an empty belly? App March 15.

Komba shares his story. “Begging is an excruciating exercise that also demeans your dignity. Sometimes, we would spend the whole day begging without getting anything. But that would not stop us from going back the next day to beg because that was the only option we had.”

In 2008 his situation changed. “Through the local Network Movement for Justice and Development, a Development and Peace Partner, we were rescued,” says Komba.

Although the street beggars were blind, their talents and self-worth was recognized by the agency. They were encouraged to form a group now called Handicap Empowerment for Livelihoods Promotion. Training was provided for 11 people who were blind. They now are able to support themselves and to eat without begging. They are trained master weavers, tie-dyers and soap makers who can teach others and provide for their families.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. While there has been progress in reducing hunger in the world, more than 800 million people still go without the daily food they need. The sacrifices we make here, today, on behalf of the poor will bear fruit through the work of Development and Peace partners.

Take, for example, the widows of Tacloban in the Philippines. In losing their husbands to the great typhoon, they found each other. With the help of our local partner, Urban Poor Associates, they formed the Yolanda Survivors’ Women’s Association. The first thing they did together was plant a communal garden to grow food for their children. By supporting each other, and thanks to your generous solidarity, they are no longer hungry.

Fighting hunger is not only a matter of helping after disasters but also getting to the root causes of the problem. Poor farmers should be able to support themselves and their communities through their own efforts on their own land. But many are lured away to work on large plantations for meagre wages. Too many find themselves working in slave-like conditions on plantations for literally nothing.

Maria de Silva of Brazil worked tirelessly with Brazils Pastoral Commission to help farmers help avoid the trap of slavery. “I am in love with the land,” she says, “I love to plant, nurture and harvest!” Maria helps form farming cooperatives so that people can access the land and resources they need to feed their families and communities.

For those of us raised on farms and those who are gardeners the sacred nature of seeds is so important The ritual of protecting seeds and keeping seeds for the next year’s planting is a memory my parents shared with me . Seeds are not a commodity to be controlled and used at the pleasure of multinationals. (D&P App Mar2) They are to be cherished and shared with our neighbor. Development and Peace supports programs for farmers, many who are women, in the developing world who wish to plant, nurture and harvest crops to support their families.

In today’s readings, the prophet Jeremiah says “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.” Our approach to development is not found in textbooks but is written on our very hearts. It recognizes that people are not objects to be developed, but subjects who are called to take control of their own lives and their own development. The gifts of Canadian Catholics like ourselves – our sacrifices – allow that to happen. They allow us all to become not patrons of the poor, but their partners in the search for human dignity. In this way we can truly become, as Pope Francis calls us to be, a church that is both poor and for the poor.

In the words of Henri Nouwen, by “investing yourself through the resources God has given you , your energy, your prayers and your money, you stand in solidarity with one human family for a world that is in balance and free of poverty. This is our call to social justice.” App Feb. 20.

Today, on Solidarity Sunday, Catholics across Canada are showing their solidarity with those in our human family who need it most. We do this by giving generously – sacrificially – to Development and Peace. We ask that you choose how best to support Development and Peace for you. It may be a onetime donation in the envelopes for D and P, an online monthly donation, the purchase of fair trade coffee at the back or the gift of your almsgiving through the Lenten D and P calendar.That is the seed being sown.

And we need rain to nourish that seed. For all of us prayer for the work of Development and Peace is like the rain to help the seed to grow .Let us continue to pray for those who partner with us and for D and P.

I believe that we here today have “Sow Much Love… to Give.” On behalf of all those who benefit year after year from your generosity, and with whom we are all on a journey to a better world, thank you .
Helena Robb

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Reflection for March 15th, 2015 by Marc Caissy

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Reflection for March 15th, 2015 by Marc Caissy

Fourth Sunday of Lent

 

For printable version: Reflection_March 15, 2015_MarcCaissy

 

THE GIFT:  A reflection on Lent 4B

2 Chron 36: 14-16, 19-23

Eph 4:2-10

Jn 3: 14-21

March 15, 2015

 

We’ve reached mid-Lent.  The Readings invite us to rejoice.  We’re ready, aren’t we?  Lent’s purple is usually replaced by “rose” today, a sneak peak of Easter’s glory.  However, I’m told there are no “Get out of Lent free” cards left at the Welcome Table.

The Word for today focuses on rejoicing and giving.  At the time when Gutenberg was printing the first bibles, Christians were taught to dread God’s awesome wrath much more than rejoice for his mercy.  An incident that happened then teaches us that God’s Love is even more awesome.  One day, Gutenberg’s daughter, Alice, picked up a piece of vellum in the printing room.  With only one line printed on it, it read, “God so loved the world that he gave”…  That’s it!  Alice kept the printed sheet.

When she thought of God being so loving, her face shone with joy.  Her mother asked, “What’s making you so happy, dear?”  Alice showed her the printed line.  “So, her mom said, what was God’s gift?” “I don’t know,” replied Alice, “but if God loved us enough to give us something, then why are we so afraid all the time?”

Today, we’re invited to accept the GIFT that God lovingly gave the world and continues to give to each and every one of us, each and every day.  God’s Love is so awesome that He trusts us with

–  the GIFT that forgives, as in the 1st Reading, with the freeing of Jews to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem after a long exile in Babylon;

–  the GIFT that saves, as Paul writes in Ephesians, “You have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the GIFT of God.”

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  Yes, but… why aren’t people rushing toward the light?  Why are they ignoring freedom from condemnation AND the eternal life promised in today’s gospel?  John’s answer is luminous in its clarity: “People prefer darkness to light because of their evil deeds.”

If this were a bible-thumping church, the long list of deeds we keep hidden somewhere, would begin here, accompanied by wailing, mea-culpas and breast-beating. There’s that ancient fear and dread of divine wrath again…

When will we ever learn?  It’s not as if we were unaware of a loving and merciful God.  What we fail to remember is that salvation is a GIFT.  “Nor is it a reward for anything you have accomplished,” writes St. Paul.

“If only it could be our accomplishment,” we’d say during good times. We’d proudly point to our successes, our virtues and improvements, our earnestness to fasting, penance and sharing.  But salvation isn’t of our own doing, is it? And it’s definitely not a result of our own efforts.

On the other hand, when we’re depressed, we moan, “What have we accomplished?  Nothing, nada!” If only we had been more worthy, if only we had tried harder, if only…

Sadly, we miss the point. We stumble around in the dark, without the hope that our plans had inspired, stripped of the “spiritual insurance” intended to saved us, purged of the pretense that we had no need of redemption anyway.

When will we ever learn that, when we acknowledge the futility of our efforts, we’re a hair breadth away from openness to God’s Gift.  How to abandon ourselves to the Creator’s grace still remains the mother of all questions for us.

True, we can fear the Light, we can dread exposure to love. We can resist.  Fear and dread still are huge obstacles to freely abandoning ourselves to God’s saving love gifted to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.” [1]

Unseen obstacles block our path toward the Light.  We struggle with them day in and day out.  Our Elect (Tingi) and Heather and Jessica, both candidates to full communion, are doing their part to come to the Light.  They meditated with the Initiation Team on ways to remove obstacles that keep us from God’s GIFTS.  At yesterday’s five o’clock mass, we celebrated Tingi’s 2nd  Scrutiny, one more step in his spiritual journey.  Let us hold all three candidates in our hearts as they prepare to receive God’s GIFTS in abundance at the Easter Vigil.

Remember Alice, Gutenberg’s daughter?  What if any one of us found a similar line of print: God loved ME so much that He gave…  Why are we so afraid all the time?  Here is a short poem “to sit with”, a hint on how to complete our own line of print.

 

My child,

I know it is difficult to love

I know it is difficult to forgive

I know it is difficult to suffer

but look I am taking away your heart

and in its place

I am putting my heart

now I will be suffering

now I will be forgiving

now I will be loving in you

my heart is beating in you [2]

 

[1] Adapted from an article by SLU prof. John Kavanaugh, S.J.

[2]A Poem to Sit With, by J. Janda, on the SLU website.

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Reflection for March 8th, 2015 by John Mark Keyes

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Reflection for March 8th, 2015

3rd Sunday of Lent

 

For printable version: Reflection_March 8, 2015_JohnMarkKeyes

 

Our Lenten journey is now about two and a half weeks old. We still have some wayto go before it is complete.

If you are like me, this is a good thing. It means there is time left to accomplish the things that Lent is supposed to enable us to do.

This give me hope because I have been struggling to find my direction. I have heard the encouragement about fasting, repentance and alms-giving, but I am still trying to discover what I should be trying to accomplish.

The usual things just don’t seem to work.

Giving up drinking for Lent is probably good for my physical and mental health, but what does it do for my spiritual well-being?

Repentance is hard because I find either too little or too much to repent.

On the one hand, I am working as hard as I can to please people around me and seldom say ‘No’ to anyone.

On the other, I am undoubtedly contributing to climate change, and although I try to reduce my global footprint by walking everywhere, there are limits if I want to get to church on time, especially on a Sunday when the time changes.

And as the receipts for last year’s charitable donations roll in, it looks as if I have done my almsgiving bit too.

So what should I do for Lent? Where to turn?

Today’s readings might help. Much of what we do in religious worship and practice is a matter of following rules and doing what has been done before. Maybe the place to start is to think about what these rules and practices are really all about. Because, sometimes they obscure rather than advance the original intent behind them.2

The first reading gives us perhaps the best known set of rules, the 10 commandments.

They were helpful for the Israelites of Moses’s day, but today there are few societies that can get by with these 10.

We have multiplied them into thousands of rules of many different sorts, ranging from legislation enacted by law-making bodies to rules of etiquette in the world of social media.

But Jesus collapsed the rules into just two: love God and love your neighbour. It makes you wonder. If all the rules are really about loving God and your neighbour, how do they stack up against these fundamental precepts?

Do all our laws and rules reflect these precepts, particularly many of the new ones that are being written into our law books?

So, is Lent about following rules? I’m not sure, apart from the two that Jesus enunciated.

The scene with Jesus in the Temple in the Gospel today provides another good example of the limits of rule-following. Although today we might wonder why people were setting up shop in a place of worship, it in fact made some sense in terms of the rules of religious worship and practice in Jesus’s time.

Observant Jews who came to the Temple were expected to bring sacrifices.

Merchants selling birds and animals for sacrifice were helping them meet their religious duties, although they were also making a handsome profit.

Money-changers were also helping since donations could not be made in Roman denarii because they bore pagan or imperial portraits. They had to be exchanged for coins from Tyre.

So, all these business people were in the business of helping worshippers worship.

And yet, Jesus turns them out of the temple. And then he goes further and speaks of the destruction of the Temple itself, and re-building it in 3 days.3

But of course, the re-build was not to be one of stone and mortar, it was entirely different, a Temple of Jesus’s body.

What we have in the Gospel today is a striking example of how Jesus exposes the perversion of religious worship, overturning the accessories of sacrifice and donations, and even foretells the doom of the physical space of worship, in favour of his own death and resurrection.

Jesus’s message does indeed seem foolish in overturning the tables of tradition and complacency, and suggesting that he himself will replace the temple. But it is a striking reminder that rituals and worship spaces are a means to an end, not ends in themselves.

As Paul says in the second reading, God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is strength.

So, how do I relate this to my own reality? Well, let’s look at our Lenten practices, starting with fasting and abstinence.

For example, is it really a hardship to give up eating meat? And what exactly is the benefit to giving it up?

At least two benefits come to mind. First, abstinence can be linked to global sustainability, consuming food that is less resource-intensive. It is a practice that, if widespread, can have a significant impact on the demand for resources and facilitate their stewardship.

Secondly, it can jolt me out of my complacency. If it is different from what I am used to, I notice, and in noticing perhaps engage more in Lenten reflection about the way I am living my live.

When I move on to consider acts of charity, perhaps I need to realize that the Christmas year-end is not the only time for charitable giving, and I might be more creative in our giving, expanding my donations beyond the usual ones.4

And finally, what should I be sorry for? Following rules gives me comfort, but maybe I can think more about what motivates the rules and whether I am living their spirit as

well as their letter. And when get annoyed with someone I am helping, I should not rationalize my annoyance away, but in instead work through it to remember why I am helping in the first place.

And just maybe I can do better. Maybe we can all do better.

 

JMK

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Reflection for March 1st, 2015 by Mike Britton

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Reflection for March 1st 2015 by Mike Britton

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year B

 

For printable version: Reflection_March 2,2015_MarkBritton

 

Text:  Gn. 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18; Ps. 116:10, 15, 16-17, 18-19; Rm. 8:31b-34; Mk 9:2-10.

“‘[The disciples] hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.’”[1]  We hear of this terror a lot, when people encounter God more immediately and directly than usual.  As another example, after God spoke directly to the people of Israel, giving them the Ten Commandments, “All the people shook with fear … .  ‘Speak to us yourself’ they said to Moses ‘and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.’”[2]  Why is an encounter with God so terrifying?  We believe God is benevolent—that God is Love[3]; why then do we fear, so much that we think that to encounter God again would be too much for us?

From my own experience, when we encounter God, it’s overwhelming and very difficult to grasp directly:  God is more than we can speak; we are reduced to ambiguous approximations like the name God tells Moses, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh”[4], which I want to translate as “I am being”.  The experience is all-engulfing while it lasts, so much so that there is no room for thoughts or feelings as we experience them in normal consciousness.  The disciples probably had no idea how long they were on the mountaintop.

And then the transcendent experience ends.  Ultimately, we are created to be in love with God, in God with love, but our lives here serve a purpose, and so we return.  We are attached to and entangled with life:  not only with possessions and habits and pleasures, but also with goals and commitments and, perhaps most of all, with each other.  Such an experience unravels those ties a bit, because we cannot take that with us into God, though we are powerfully drawn; with a foretaste of heaven comes a foretaste of the letting go that accompanies death.

Small wonder, then, that the disciples were terrified; I certainly was after even a small such encounter.  I think T.S. Eliot had it right when he wrote, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.”[5]  It has taken many years to accept my encounter even as much as I have, and I still have great difficulty in talking about it.  I fear that to experience something like that again could unbind me completely from this life, and so I’m reluctant to pray too hard for another such encounter.

I want to pause and go back to reexamine the story of Abraham and Isaac.  That has always been a problematic story to me, because the God I know doesn’t demand death, but life and love.  The sacrifice of the firstborn was a widespread practice among early religions; while later Jewish law requires the redemption of the firstborn by a sacrifice of five shekels of silver[6] instead, it is not inconceivable that in the very early time when Abraham lived, he may have felt that a blood sacrifice was required.  On the mountain, the angel of God told Abraham that God knew that he would hold nothing back, but that Isaac had a purpose in the world, to become the nation of Israel.  In this case, the meeting on the mountain was to mission Abraham and Isaac into the world.

Returning to the disciples on another mountain many years later, it seems to me that the purpose is different:  the disciples were already in the world, but through Jesus, God revealed to them what their destination was.  The disciples were called up the mountain to learn that Jesus was at once the man with them and the God with Moses and Elijah, and even more crucially, that they too would one day be with Jesus in that heavenly radiance.

So what about us?  We usually identify with the disciples in this Gospel, but if I’m right, we are invited as much as they are to identify with Moses and Elijah.  When the disciples lived with Jesus, they weren’t revered saints:  they were ragtag followers of a charismatic preacher and healer.  If they are invited to identify with the great leaders and prophets with God in heaven, then so are we.  Before Communion, each of us will confess that “I am not worthy that [God] should enter under my roof, but [God need] only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”[7]  Peter, James and John weren’t particularly worthy either; in their own time, neither were Moses and Elijah.  We are not worthy, but not because someone else is worthier; we are not worthy because God is beyond worthiness.  As Paul writes, “It is God who justifies,”[8] not condemns.

I don’t want to leave you with a sense that encountering God is a bad thing; it is a transformative thing, if we let it be so.  For me, it has been a bedrock of certainty and a source of strength and comfort in difficult times ever since.  I don’t know why these experiences come to some of us and not to others, but “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”[9]  Trust that God wants to be with us and have us with God, and that our experiences and actions here can serve in some way to help all of us grow into that mysterious, all-encompassing love.

 

[1] Mark 9:6

[2] Exodus 20:18-19

[3] 1 John 4:8

[4] אהיה אשר אהיה, Exodus 3:14

[5] Burnt Norton (1935) and Murder in the Cathedral (1935)

[6] Numbers 18:16

[7] Liturgy of the Mass

[8] Romans 8:33

[9] Psalm 95:7-8

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Father Andy Boyer’s Ash Wednesday Homily

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Ash Wednesday Homily

February 18th 2015

The word “lent” means “long spring days”. It commemorates the forty days Jesus spent in the desert where he was led shortly after his baptism, shortly after his epiphany. In the desert, he was “tempted by Satan”

We are going into Lent, as if Lent were something to fall into, a vessel. Victor Turner, the celebrated anthropologist, said that on a pilgrimage the whole of geography takes on symbolic meaning. It’s like falling into a world, in which each movement reflects a movement elsewhere; each step is matched by another in a parallel dance.

The geography begins in the desert. In the crucible of heat and sand, Jesus was trying to figure out “what it meant to be Jesus.” In the weeks that follow Ash Wednesdays, the Gospel readings will recount what Jesus did afterwards. He walked from town to town, sat down at the table with tax collectors and gluttons, talked to women, healed on the Sabbath, used the wrong fork. It is not at all clear to me that he knew who he was as in: “I’m the Son of God.” Rather, it looks more like he discovered, step-by-step, more about himself as time wore on, as he walked, and waited, and healed.

At the end of Lent, on Palm Sunday, we walk with Jesus into Jerusalem, the city where crowds welcomed him on the Sabbath by spreading palm branches under his feet, and where he was executed by the week’s end.

Lent is a journey towards the cross. And towards a tomb, and the mysterious unending joy of those who found that tomb empty. The goal is to bring its geography into the self, to bend beneath it, to allow the soul to find its narrative within it, it’s unfolding story. On Ash Wednesday, we enter the desert. We become the woman at the well who demands; Give me some of that water.” We are the blind man begging for sight, the sisters of the dying brother, the halt and the lame calling out from the alleys, “Jesus, remember me,” as the Taize song goes, “when you come into your kingdom.”

Finally, on the eve of Easter, we will light the tall, Paschal candle in a darkened church. Someone sings, “The light of Christ.” Lent is a journey, as a biblical scholar put it, from ashes to fire, to the living fount of our Baptism.

This journey, from tonight’s ashes, to Easter’s fire and baptismal waters, We have come to see it as a chance to rewrite our own stories. The essence of healing, perhaps the essence of what we mean by resurrection, is to take the chaotic and traumatic events of our lives and rewrite them into a new story, a new life. When we ponder the resurrected Jesus, what we think about now is how out of the chaos and trauma of death, new life was written and revealed.

Before a new story can be rewritten, the old one needs to be examined. Where is our treasure? Where is our heart? Where are we putting our time and attention?

Before we can put our hearts and our treasure in right relation, as the Buddhists say, we have to know where our hearts and our treasures are now.

I remember once when a friend signed up to help take care of another friend of mine who was dying, and she told me: I had imagined standing in a hospital corridor making compassionate decisions gracefully. Instead, what came to pass was that I sat in Ben’s living room, jet-lagged, shoveling take-out food into my mouth, my own house strewn with dirty laundry and a full cat-litter box. I had to imagine that I wanted Ben to hurry up and die. In short, I was the same old screwed up woman.

But in time, I learned that everything is God’s: my screwed up self, my dirty laundry, my harrowing inability to be perfect for Ben. Everything is God’s; shame, suicide, depression, egotism, anger, pain, betrayal. Because God is inside everything, findable in everything. God is not too good to hang out with jet-lagged women with cat litter boxes in their dining rooms or people dying of AIDS or someone nailed in humiliation to a cross. God is not too good for anything or anyone.

That is why, in Lent, we can bring anything to God. To see what the story is now and to find out where our hearts are. And yes that will mean some pain, yes, It is not easy to face our own darkness, our own ashes. We are all going to come up short, believe me. I asked a therapist once how to stop projecting onto others my own fears and weakness, that is – how to love. He said: “You must enlarge your capacity to suffer.” That is, we all have to face up to our own fears and weakness so as not to keep on pretending that it’s all someone else’s fault.

In Lent, we have to look at the ashes because we are pining for a new story. We are asked to make room for and enlarge our capacity to suffer. And, of course with it, our capacity for joy. That’s the fire.