Our Ever-Present Lifeline

I’m grateful I’ve been able to return to prison ministry after completing my novice year because I learn so much from the inmates. They are faithful in coming to our Catholic gathering every Wednesday night, even though they are derided as holy rollers and it would be so much easier to zone out in front of the TV. They come because it is a place where they will be accepted, where they can let down their guard for 90 minutes, where they can gain strength from receiving the Eucharist. They are acutely aware of their need for forgiveness and are grateful for it.

Those of us who have had comfortable upbringings rarely come to God out of a sense of urgency. It’s different for persons with a background of poverty, addiction, abuse, and mental illness—for them, God is a lifeline. Being with the inmates reminds me that God is my lifeline too, my rock, the one whose love is everlasting. We are all humbled by the challenges of life at one point or another, but when we gather in God’s name, we help each other remember that we are beloved by God. Recognizing that we are claimed by God and reforming our lives to walk on God’s path gives us a dignity that no one can take away.

Lessons on God’s path often come in unexpected places, such as behind prison bars. Fortunately, life often presents us with the unexpected to help us see in new ways and learn that God is always present wherever we go and in every person we encounter.

Advent Prescription for a Light Heart

In the gospel for the first Sunday of Advent this year, Jesus says, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy.” In a reflection entitled Between Two Advents, Fr. Dennis Hamm notes that the sense of the Greek verb for drowsy, barethosin, is literally “to be weighed down.” It is worth pondering as we enter the season of Advent what is weighing our hearts down: News that refugees seeking asylum in the United States are being repelled by tear gas? Health or financial worries? Sadness about the death of a loved one?

We may sometimes wonder if our hearts are strong enough to withstand all that is weighing them down. However, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul offers a prescription to strengthen our hearts at such times:

Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord make you increase

and abound in love
for one another and for all,
just as we have for you, 
so as to strengthen your hearts…. 

As Kathleen Dowling Singh says in her book The Grace In Aging, “Two thousand years so, Jesus told us to love one another. He was giving us the key to our own holy awareness beyond self. He was telling us exactly how to become liberated, how to awaken. He was giving us the simplest possible key. Three words. Love. One. Another. Love one another.”

 During Advent, we may not be able to put a halt to tear gas, poor health, money woes, or the sense of loss when someone dies. However, we can lighten and strengthen our hearts, and those of others, by choosing to love others in whatever situations we encounter each day. Jesus doesn’t ask us to fulfill a laundry list of laws, but makes one simple request that allows us to see how he comes to us each day: love one another.

May you have a blessed Advent that leads to a light-hearted Christmas!

Dissolving Into Love

On the feast of Christ the King, Sr. Esther Fangman offered the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica a few suggestions about what the kingdom of God is like. One that especially caught my attention was this: “In the kingdom of God, power dissolves into love.”

This concept should not be surprising; it simply requires looking at the universe from a different perspective, as scientists did when they discovered that the Pando aspen grove in Utah is not in fact more than 40,000 individual trees but one tree that originated from a single seed and spreads by sending up new shoots from its expanding root system. Similarly, God’s love is the single seed from which we all sprout, and that seed expands through the interconnected roots of all that lives. As trees that become weak through age or disease fall to the ground and die, becoming a source of nourishment for the roots below, humans who are afflicted by love of power, greed, or pride will die and dissolve back into the love from whence they came.

The sacrifice love demands is the camouflage that prevents us from seeing that love is the substance of the universe. As one hymn proclaims, “The king of love my shepherd is,” but that love required Jesus to sacrifice the comforts of home, family, possessions, and his own desires and ultimately led to his death. Love may be the essence of who we are, but it is not easy to practice. At such times, it is comforting to remember that at the end of life as we know it, we too will dissolve into love.

The Stirring of Compassion

I’ve started seeing posts of a new kitten on my brother Greg’s Facebook page. Once again when Greg was leaving work late at night, a mewling waif melted his heart and now has a new home, with one canine and four feline siblings.

We never know what is going to stir our compassion—a stray cat, a tender scene in a movie, an encounter with a homeless person, an elder struggling with diminished eyesight. Such moments connect us directly with God, whose compassion is boundless. Unlike God, we tend to guard our hearts to avoid the sorrow of seeing other beings suffer, which is understandable, given our human limitations. However, although we can’t ease the hardships of every being we encounter, we can acknowledge their dignity as God’s beloved and steer them toward people who can help them when we can’t. God bless those who build no-kill animal shelters and tiny houses for homeless veterans, who make films that stir our empathy and who read to persons with failing eyesight!

We are called to be compassionate as our God is compassionate. That’s a tall order, but the smallest effort on our part leads us to the heart of God, that mysterious place where nothing is impossible and all are welcome.

Inviting God's Gaze

You don’t hear the old-fashioned word “gaze” much anymore. Who has time to sit in a gazebo in the midst of our fast-paced days? The psalmists, on the other hand, used the word quite a bit to express the longing to see God: “Let me gaze on you in your temple, a vision of strength and glory” (Ps 63:3).

Although we may not do much gazing these days, we still have the desire to see God, like Zacchaeus, who impulsively climbed a sycamore tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. However, instead of seeking God's face, we might do better, as Rachelle Linner says, to “allow ourselves to see him looking at us.” My friend Dan Boyd tells a story about arriving early for a spiritual direction appointment and being told, “Just go sit over there and let God enjoy looking at you.” When we can trust that God does indeed enjoy looking at us with warmth, love, and forbearance, we can let go of any inauthenticity and learn to look at others as God looks at us.

The Thanksgiving holiday offers us a little breathing space in our normal routines to do some gazing at that with which we have been blessed. May we also take time to allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s loving gaze.

The Best Way to Love God

Scripture calls us to “love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5). However, as John Valtners Paintner notes, “One cannot be truly dedicated to the Creator without being dedicated to the Creation.” This Thanksgiving, people throughout the United States will be giving thanks for the animals and plants that provide food for us. Giving thanks is a good beginning. However, we who say we are dedicated to God need to safeguard the work of God’s hands by protecting creation from harm and by honoring the wisdom of God that is embedded in creation.

Of course, humans are part of God’s creation. The idea that our dedication to God is linked with our dedication to creation is reflected in the post-resurrection exchange between Christ and Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” How much more directly can we be told that loving God requires taking care of others?

Being dedicated to feeding others can feel like an enormous task. However, as the Talmud instructs, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” We can’t single-handedly save all of creation, but we can plant trees and fight for clean water in our own community. We can’t feed everyone, but we can feed those we directly encounter who are hungry. God provides enough bounty for all; our task is to assist in the distribution. This Thanksgiving, may our love of God expand our hearts to encompass love of God’s creation, in whatever way we encounter it.

Words From the Wise

Yesterday I spoke with Sr. Joyce Meyers about her recent trip to Philadelphia, where she was honored as one of the nation’s top ten exceptional elders by LeadingAge, a nonprofit organization that supports nursing homes and focuses on education, advocacy, and research related to aging.

As part of its “Words From the Wise” campaign, LeadingAge sought nominations nationwide for persons who, after the age of 65 years, had exemplary accomplishments that resulted in a positive effect on their local community. Sister Joyce certainly qualifies because of her service to the underprivileged and underserved in her psychology practice and her volunteer work at Keeler Women’s Center—all that after her previous career as a math, physics, and English teacher and as a principal for 15 years.

Of all the places she visited in Philadelphia, Sr. Joyce was most impressed with the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, where St. Katharine Drexel is buried. Sister Joyce noted, “I was so thrilled that, in the midst of all these other glamorous buildings, they put so much into the building for God. Sometimes we forget who gave it all to us.”

Words from the wise, indeed!

Perseverance in Peacemaking

Photo by Dan Dakotas

As I and other sisters of Mount St. Scholastica left our Night of Dreams celebration in Kansas City yesterday, we passed by Liberty Memorial, which was lit up with images of poppies in honor of the 100^th anniversary of the conclusion of World War I. The sisters who founded the Mount arrived in Atchison on November 11, 1863, during the Civil War, and in our 155 years here we have prayed for peace during World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan, and Desert Storm I and II, along with innumerable worldwide conflagrations and genocides.

It might seem as though our prayers have been ineffective. However, as Steven Pinker has noted in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, “The number of people killed in wars is close to its lowest point since 1946.” That is small comfort given the number of people who do die in war each day, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, but it does show that efforts to prevent and contain war, fueled by compassion and prayer, can make a difference. The way of peacemaking is the way of perseverance.

A verse from our morning prayer today instructs us in how to foster peace: “Listen today to God’s voice: ‘Harden no heart, harden no heart.’” Forbearance and the determination to remember that we are all part of the body of Christ—all beloved of God, despite our actions—is the only way to defuse violence and spread peace instead of furthering conflict. As Paul said in his letter to the Colossians, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

God's Dwelling Place

O how lovely is your dwelling place,

dwelling of the Lord of hosts! —Psalm 84

We are especially attuned to the loveliness of our world when something unusual occurs, like a picturesque early snowfall. However, if Teilhard de Chardin is correct in saying that God has implanted a divine spark of love in everything created, the entire world is God’s dwelling place and it is lovely at all times, if we have the eyes to see it! Furthermore, if we truly believe that everywhere is God’s dwelling place, it follows that we should honor and fiercely protect all of creation so that the divine plan may be fulfilled, as God proclaimed through the prophet Isaiah:

For just as from the heavens

the rain and snow come down

and do not return there

until they have watered the earth,

making it fertile and fruitful,

giving seed to the sower

and bread to the hungry,

so shall my word be

that goes forth from my mouth;

it shall not return to me void

but shall do my will, achieving

the end for which I sent it.

                             —Isaiah 55:10-11

When our eyes are opened to the loveliness of the dwelling place we share with God, may our gratitude compel us to walk gently and, as St. Benedict instructs, treat all that we encounter as sacred vessels of the altar.

Electoral Lessons about God's Plans

Last night I watched midterm election results, and along with many other people across the country, I cheered when my preferred candidates won and groaned when my preferred candidates lost. It’s hard to detach from our preferences for candidates who share our values and priorities when it’s clear that they are superior to those of the other side!

As with so much else in life, elections provide an opportunity to learn that it is not our desires that matter, because God’s plans will prevail:

                             

The Lord frustrates the designs of the nation

   and defeats the plans of the peoples.

The designs of the Lord stand forever, the plans

   of God’s heart from age to age. —Ps 33: 10-11

If racist, sexist, or corrupt candidates are elected to office, they will bring to light this dark side of our country’s character and help us heal by choosing and fighting for alternate values of inclusion and compassion. It is not our place to judge that a particular outcome is good or bad but to act as Jesus called us to do—to love God and love our neighbor—and then leave the rest to God, who says:

                              I know well the plans I have in mind for you,

                                 plans for your welfare, not of woe,

                                 plans to give you a future full of hope.—Jeremiah 29: 11

May our post-election prayer echo that of the writer of psalm 33: “May your faithful love be upon us as we hope in you, O Lord.”

Making Wise Decisions

At the Mount community meeting this past weekend, we received the welcome news that we are on a firm financial footing—a blessing that has flowed to us from the prudence, sacrifice, and wise decisions of community members in the past, as well as the generosity of our donors.

I’m certain that the sisters who made important decisions at critical junctures in the Mount history did not know at the time if their course of action would turn out to be wise. Buying Price Villa for $25,000 plus interest in 1877? Building Mount St. Scholastica chapel in the midst of the Great Depression? Going into debt to build Dooley Center for the care of our elder sisters? How did they find the courage and trust to make decisions that, in hindsight, we can now see were wise indeed?

The following insight by Richard Rohr offers a clue: “Our holiness is first of all and really only God’s holiness, and that’s why it is certain and secure. It is a participation in love, a mutual indwelling, not an achievement or performance on our part.” When we are rooted in the love of God and set aside our own agendas, Christ who dwells within acts through us, and we need not worry about outcomes. As our founding prioress Mother Evangelista Kremmeter said so succinctly and eloquently, “The love of Jesus keeps me from fearfulness.”

It is our faithfulness to coming to the chapel to sit in prayer, day in and day out, that allows that love of Jesus to take firm root and crowd out our own concerns—which is why it is so critical that we don’t allow busyness to encroach on our prayer. Faithfulness to prayer leads to certainty and security because it reminds us that (1) God is God and we are not and (2) God has promised to be with us. Furthermore, God honors us with the invitation to partipate in God’s love, which can only lead to prudence, sacrifice, and wisdom.