Knowing God by Heart

It was said of Sr. Margaret Brennan that she “knew God by heart,” which seems like an extraordinary statement. How does one come to know God in such an intimate way?

When we memorize a poem or scripture passage, we often say that we “know it by heart.” True memoriza- tion means more than reciting words; it entails spend- ing time with the text, looking at it from all angles, seeing how it resonates with our experience, exploring what it means for us, and integrating it into our life. We actually end up developing a relationship with the piece; we might say, “That is my favorite poem” or “I want that scripture passage read at my funeral.”

We can use the same process to come to know God by heart. Because God‘s depths and dimensions are fathomless, getting to know God intimately is a never-ending endeavor. Nonetheless, whether we ultimately get to see God face to face doesn’t matter, because if we devote ourselves to our relationship with our Creator now, when our earthly body dies we will surely recognize God’s heart.

Borrowing God's Eyes

According to today’s reflection in Give Us This Day, Theologian Dorothee Soelle defined mysticism as “a different relationship to the world—one that has borrowed the eyes of God.”

In the springtime, it is easy to feel that we have borrowed the eyes of God as we see trees and flower beds bursting with new life. This must be how God forever sees us, the earth, and the universe—beautiful, glowing, and growing into the light.

As Katherine Lang pointed out in her presentation on Laudato Si last night at the Mount, it is important that we take time to enjoy the beauty of the earth, because then we are more likely to work to protect it. It is not far-fetched to think of developing a relationship with the land, trees, our gardens…just yesterday, Sr. Carol Ann commented that her rosebushes are like friends that she looks forward to seeing every spring.

As with human relationships, the key to having a mutual and enriching relationship with the earth is presence—taking time to be with the other. Therefore, be sure to borrow the eyes of God this weekend and spend some time outside with our friends, the flowers and trees!

Claiming Our Voice

During the Easter season, it is fascinating to hear stories about how the disciples of Jesus in the early Christian community overcame their fear and claimed the power of their voices to proclaim the good news.

Last Saturday at the Mount, two sopranos from the Kansas City Chorale showed us just how awe inspiring it can be to claim the power of our voice. With no accompaniment, the song of these two women filled Saint Scholastica Chapel, from the sanctuary steps to the rose window above the organ in the choir loft. They showed us that having confidence in our gifts and using them is a witness to God’s creativity, God’s diversity, God’s glory.

Most of us are not called to preach from the pulpit or on street corners. However, once we understand the truth of God’s love for us and for all of creation, we need to claim it by transmitting the joy of that knowledge through the way we live—wholeheartedly, and with full-throated enthusiasm for the wonder of life in relationship with God.

Fostering our Wellsprings of Creativity

I suspect that God is most delighted with us when we are (a) loving and compassionate and (b) creative. After all, these qualities are God’s most distinctive characteristics, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

The sisters at the Mount are very supportive of any type of creative endeavor, showering praise on anyone who embroiders tea towels, bakes sweets, creates flower arrangements, writes petitions for mass, prepares special liturgies, decorates for Christmas, or plants a garden. This affirmation was displayed most recently when the prioress and more than 25 sisters gathered to bless Sr. Marie Louise Krenner’s new craft room in Dooley Center. She has named the room “Bethlehem” because it is the place where she sews colorful and unique creche sets that are a favorite of young children.

To see God’s creative spirit at work among us is heartening and hopeful. Sometimes we suppress our creative instincts because tending to other matters seems more important. However, if we want to be holy as God is holy, and God is constantly creating new things, shouldn’t we do the same—and support each other’s wellsprings of creativity?

A Legacy of Trust

Fear is an ancient companion of humans. As we just read in my class on the Pentateuch, when God brought the Israelites to the shores of the Promised Land after their ordeal of slavery in Egypt, they were too scared to enter the land, even though Moses assured them that God would be with them. Thus, fear is directly related to humility; when we believe we have only ourselves to rely on, we act out of fear, whereas when we recognize that our lives are in the hands of God, we act out of trust.

I have been preparing a presentation on Mount St. Scholastica for an upcoming novice conference, and this characteristic of confidence in God’s care is a thread throughout the community’s 155-year history. In 1863, seven Benedictine sisters traveled to Atchison, Kansas, from St. Cloud, Minnesota, not knowing what provisions had been made for them, only to discover a newly built convent awaiting their arrival. When they outgrew this building and Price Villa became available for purchase across town in 1877, they took on the risk of a $25,000 debt to provide space for their growing community and school. In 1923, the community built a huge four-story building (plus basement) for a new college, even though they had only seven students at the time.

How did these women develop such a high level of trust that God would provide for their needs? As Mother Evangelista Kremmeter, the Mount’s first prioress, noted in a journal entry, “The love of Jesus keeps me from fearfulness.” Love casts out all fear, as the early Christian community demonstrated with their joyful witness to the resurrected Jesus. This same love has seen Mount St. Scholastica through many challenges and will continue to be our anchor as we maintain our own witness of prayer and hospitality in the midst of a rapidly changing world.

Insights from St. Therese for Modern Times

Recently I attended a presentation about St. Therese of Lisieux by Sr. Judith Sutera at Sophia Center. St. Therese lived only 24 years and accomplished no great works during her short time on earth, so it might seem surprising that she has been named a Doctor of the Church. However, the simplicity of her approach to life with God offers a path of love and service that is accessible to all people, not only those blessed with wealth, education, and/or extraordinary gifts of intelligence or leadership. In the midst of our complex world, St. Therese reminds us that loving God is not a complicated process.

Although the piety of her writing can seem quaint, St. Therese addresses truths that we continue to try to instill into our lives today:

• “If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient, but I only look at the present, I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future” (Modern translation: live mindfully/live in the present moment)

• “The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness” (Modern translation: live with humility/be true to yourself)

• “Prayer is, for me, an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as in the midst of joy” (Modern translation: always maintain an attitude of gratitude)

I’m grateful for St. Therese’s reminder that the “little ways” of kindness to others and fidelity to prayer hold great power to draw us closer to God and extend God’s love to the world.

What Owns Me

Last week in my class on the monastic vows, we discussed Benedictine poverty (which is part of the vow of fidelity to monastic life). It was helpful to me to think of poverty in terms of what I cling to, which broadens the concept from things I own to other aspects of life. For example, I love to read, but will I be able to let go of that ability gracefully if my eyesight ever fails? My musings about what I can and cannot let go of prompted the following poem. May we all support each other in our efforts to grow in poverty of spirit.

Right of Ownership

If you own anything you cannot give away,

you don’t own it—it owns you.

                                       —Albert Schweitzer

The clock my dad made for me has laid

claim to my hands, for it must be winded

every week and adjusted twice yearly when

we move time forward and back again.

My mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook

has staked out my stomach,

and her recipe cards have divvied

up my small and large intestines.

Collections of poetry have possession

of my heart, generously allowing piles

of prayer books to take up residence

among the bronchioles in my lungs.

A lithograph of a tree of life

has custody of my eyes,

and a myriad of CDs are jamming

with my cochlea and eardrums.

Keepsakes from a lifetime of loving

ooze out of the pores of my skin,

and a laptop computer has stashed

the contents of my brain in the clouds.

The rest of my body is given

over to memories, with only

a small, still voice left to be

appropriated by God, who says:

“Sell all that you have and give it

to the poor… then come, follow me.”

Our Loving Imagination

One of our Easter Call to Prayer chants includes the line “May we live within your Spirit, Lord.” How exactly are we to do that? We often talk about “putting on the mind of Christ,” but what does it mean to put on the mind of the Spirit?

One aspect of putting on the mind of the Spirit that I had never before considered was mentioned by Fr. Ronald Raab in a reflection in Give Us This Day: “The Holy Spirit dwells in our humble hearts and loving imaginations.” Wait a minute: The Holy Spirit dwells in our loving imaginations? What does it even mean to have a loving imagination? I suspect it has something to do with seeing as God sees: not the brokenness of a person, but his or her potential for wholeness and happiness. Not a world that is stuck in old ways of thinking, but the possibility of change that will benefit everyone and all things.

Fr. Raab also notes that “the Holy Spirit gives us courage to live in exuberance, vitality, and expression.” I’m grateful for the people who give us signs of how to live this way, such as Sr. Delores Dolezal, who has brightened our lives at the Mount with her exuberant Easter egg tree. The Holy Spirit is among us—imagine that!

Seeing Christ in All the Old Familiar Places

Mary Magdalene thought the resurrected Jesus was a gardener, because that’s who she was accustomed to seeing in a garden. The travelers on the road to Emmaus thought the resurrected Jesus was a pilgrim because that is who they expected to see on the road. Jesus has not stopped appearing to us in ordinary places now that he has risen from the dead—it is we who fail to recognize him because of our limited vision.

Well, who would expect to see a dead man return in the flesh, you might ask? Actually, we who say we believe in the words of Jesus should expect it, for didn’t he say, “I will be with you always”? The problem is, even after he came to live among us as a human, we still expect Christ to prefer the miraculous instead of the mundane—even though it is in the mundane where we live out most of our lives.

Many of us would probably say we had our best heart to heart talks with our parents, siblings, spouses, or friends while cooking a meal, loading the dishwasher, changing the oil in the car, or doing yard work. The Jesus who enjoyed visiting his friends at Bethany was surely likely to pick up a hammer to fix a loose table leg if the need arose; why should we expect him to behave differently now? He is with us in our daily lives because that is where we are in need of his presence, his mercy, his hope, and his consolation. When we see that, we are indeed an alleluia people!

The Work of Easter

A new concept I have come across in my reading this year is that the work of Lent—fasting, service, prayer—is followed by the work of Easter. My first reaction was incredulity. The work of Easter? I thought Easter was about feasting, rejoicing, and recovering from the demands of Holy Week!

Although we know that the resurrection of Jesus was an awesome event, we often prefer to ignore the fact that awe has a component of responsibility. What will our response be to this revelation that life no longer ends with the death of the body? What does it mean to be part of the Body of Christ, which transcends death? How does that change our priorities and the way we interact with others and with all of creation?

My first impulse is to cling to the stones that block the tomb of my old life to keep God from rolling them away. I’m comfortable with the darkness of the small world I have created for myself, which is centered on my needs, my desires, my compulsions. Viewing the glory of Jesus risen requires a new way of being, and that can be frightening and daunting. To resist our cultural imperative to attain, fear, and be constantly busy and instead divest, trust, and rest is difficult. To do so is a type of work, but fortunately, we have a job site mentor, the Spirit that Jesus sent as promised, to be our guide.

The season of Easter is rightly a time for feasting and rejoicing, but at the same time, our awe at the glory of the resurrection calls us to continue the work of building the kingdom of God.

Early Spring Canticle

This year’s snowy Easter Sunday made me think of a quote by Peter Gzowski: “We need Spring. We need it desperately, and, usually, we need it before God is willing to give it to us.”

By the end of February, we are generally aching for signs of spring, whereas the earth knows that the soil needs more time of rest and darkness before it can support new life. Similarly, it often happens that we feel ready to make a transition in our lives, but despite our prayers, nothing seems to change until months or even years later. During that fallow time, in ways indiscernible to us, God is preparing our soul for new life. Meanwhile, with an eye on the shortness of our lifespan, we grow increasingly anxious to proceed with our own plans. Generally, it is only in our later years that we attain the wisdom to let God’s plans unfold as God sees fit. What should we do in the meantime? Cultivate patience and enjoy the fruits that each day provides, trusting that we will recognize the invitation to new life when it arrives, even if it is not the invitation we were expecting.

Here is a poem I wrote to commemorate the typical human cycle of complaint, frustration, and submission to God’s ways. You are welcome to pray it on gray, chilly, or snowy spring days.

Early Spring Canticle

Enough of this sniveling snow

How long, O God, until you return

with your thunder and lightning?

I set forth a springtime sacrifice—

daffodil bulbs

the finest compost

               buttercrunch lettuce seed

               O God, to you I cry,

               to you I make supplication

The bird feeders are filled,

the garden hose reconnected

               I know you uphold the afflicted;

             O God, make haste to answer me!

In search of the light

we turn our clocks ahead

               Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

               let your glory be over all the earth!

And the wise ones

keep a bag of ice melt handy

               This is the day the Lord has made;

               let us rejoice and be glad in it