In the Presence of Eternity

When humans search for images of strength, we often think of mountains (for example, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains”/Psalm 121). They are so massive, unmoving, and enduring—or so it seems. In A.Word.A.Day on March 30, 2020, Anu Garg offers a different perspective:

It would appear that mountains or hills have been around forever, but most are relatively young. Take the Himalayas ...they are only about 50 million years. Compare that with the age of the Earth, about 4.5 billion years. Another way to understand this is that if the Earth were a human, the Himalayas would be a one-year-old baby. As the lawyer and orator Robert Green Ingersoll once said, “In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.”

In these days of trial and suffering as a result of the COVID-19 virus, it is important to remember that we are in the presence of eternity. As the prophet Isaiah tells us, “Though the mountains may be shaken and the hills removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you” (Is 54:10). Not even mountains can capture fully the height and depth of God’s unfailing love and compassion for us.

Although we are confined to our dwellings these days, we can still take a step back and look at our present reality from the perspective of eternity. As St. Paul reminds us, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). Let us become what endures by practicing love so God’s covenant of peace can be fulfilled.

Hearing Old Prayers Anew

Sometimes prayers we have used for years suddenly take on new meaning when our circumstances or we ourselves change. For example, every Thursday morning during the season of spring for several decades, I have read this prayer from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hays:

"May my prayer and all the prayers, sacrifices, and deeds of compassion performed on this planet today be blended together as one and reach you through the mystery of your son Jesus, the cosmic Christ."

Now that we are living through a pandemic, a time when we are asked to separate ourselves from each other physically, it feels especially urgent and comforting to know that any prayers, sacrifices, and deeds of compassion we perform today are not performed in isolation but are linked to those of others through Christ. Yes, it matters if you are patient with your restless children or drop off a (disinfected) care package to an elderly neighbor or call someone who is lonely. When you do it for the least of these, you do it for Christ, who uses your act of kindness to create a living, breathing web of love and support.

People who lose their sight discover that their other senses are heightened. Now that we must restrict physical touch to safeguard the health and the very lives of ourselves and others, we will become more attuned to other ways of relating to each other—through our voices, through the music and poetry and visual art we create for each other, through the food and flowers we grow to sustain each other, and through our prayer intentions. As Gandhi said, love is the strongest force the world possesses; it certainly cannot be contained by the social distancing we must practice to contain a virus.

In Fr. Ed’s Friday morning prayer for the season of spring, he says, “More precious that gold or silver are the prayers of your children, my companion pilgrims on this planet earth.” Your prayers are always precious, but I am especially aware of their value now, and I thank you for offering them to strengthen your companion pilgrims in the body of Christ during these anxious and challenging times.

Mary's Model of Emptiness

Today, the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, was the first day of a new seating arrangement for the Mount community in the choir chapel. The social distancing we are practicing to prevent potential transmission of the coronavirus has been extended to our prayer space, so instead of sitting side by side, we are sitting two to a row in a checkerboard pattern, with an empty stall on either side of us.

At this time when our lives have been emptied of many of our usual practices and patterns, it is helpful to remember that Mary, Jesus’ mother, also experienced a great deal of emptiness in her life. We usually refer to Mary as being full—with the child in her womb, with grace—but as Michelle Francle-Donnay notes in Not By Bread Alone 2020: Daily Reflections for Lent, “…in Mary’s yes to this fullness, she is also saying yes to being emptied of God’s son, to let God go forth from her.” As with all mothers, Mary experienced an empty womb after giving birth and an empty nest after her son left home to make his own way in the world. Tragically, she was also carved out by grief after her son was killed.

Through her life, Mary showed us that we have to be empty to be filled. Her empty womb provided a space for Jesus to come into the world. The emptiness of grief created a space for her to be filled with great joy when her son was raised to new life. As Francl-Donnay observes, “The fullness of God’s work requires emptiness: Mary’s, Christ’s, and so ours as well.”

The emptiness of the seats next to us in chapel is a source of sadness, but it also provides a gift in that we must work harder to listen to each other’s voices so we can continue to chant and sing in harmony. Anything that increases our ability to listen will carry a blessing.

I encourage you not to be too quick to fill the emptiness you may be experiencing in these days of distancing and isolation from others. Rather, allow yourself to feel it and contemplate how it may be contributing to the fullness of God’s work in you.

It Is the Journey That Matters

Ursula K. LeGuin said, “It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” Currently the entire world is eager to reach the end of the COVID-19 crisis, and rightly so. However, it is the way we go about getting there that will determine the post-pandemic world we create for ourselves.

If we resort entirely to distraction during our “sheltering in place” time, we will not develop our inner resources of creativity. If we hoard food, medicine, toiletries, and cleaning supplies, we will not grow in compassion. If we do not take responsibility for helping our vulnerable neighbors, we will continue to be disconnected from others after the pandemic subsides.

This crisis has shown us that many of our societal systems are frayed, as evidenced by a great many people without access to health care or sick leave; shortages of medical supplies; underpaid and overworked CNAs in nursing homes; and children without access to computers or the internet at home, to name a few examples. After we weather this crisis, will we attempt to “return to normal,” or will we have developed the insight, determination, and compassion to create new systems that will lead to a safer world for all of us?

While we have this gift of extra time, let’s take a deep breath and consider the steps we need to take to use our resources more wisely, so that all people may flourish. It is within our power to do so, and surely the one who said “When you do this for the least of these, you do it for me” will smile upon and prosper our efforts.

Prayer for Protection from Disease and Fear

Many writings in the old testament reflect the belief that God sends plagues, earthquakes, storms, and the like to punish or test people. As our understanding of God’s love and mercy has evolved, some of us no longer believe that God inflicts suffering. Rather, we realize that suffering is an inescapable consequence of being human in a physical world. And yet there is no aspect of being human that God does not use to draw us toward deeper love and greater life, including suffering.

The following prayer for protection from disease and fear affirms that we can rely on God’s loving presence even in times of fear and disease. I hope it brings you comfort and unites you with others during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

       X Prayer for Protection  X

                 

                  from Disease and Fear

“Blessed are you, Lord our God, who watches

    over us in times of trial and danger.”

            (Ed Hays, Prayers for the Domestic Church)

Although we are living in the shadow

    of disease and fear, we do not falter,

    for we trust that your constant care

    cradles and strengthens us.

Your Holy Spirit calls us to pray in

    confidence for those in special need

    of your care and protection today:

   X All health care workers and their

          families

   X Elderly persons who are isolated

          in their homes or in care facilities

   X All unemployed workers whose

          jobs have been suspended

   X Families caring for children and elders

   X Administrators, government leaders,

          and all persons working to manage

          the crisis

May they and all people in our fragile world

    draw on your forces of goodness and love

    that dwell within us and around us.

Tender and merciful God, help us to trust

     in your life that flows through us,

     your goodness that shields us,

     your love that calls us to serve each other.

We ask this in the name of Jesus who taught

     us to pray to you, our loving Father, with

     confidence in your care and compassion.

XAMEN

                                      Jennifer Halling, OSB

                                         (all rights reserved)

The Refuge God Offers

It seems to be a basic truth that everything has two sides. Just as a coin can’t have heads without tails, we cannot have joy without the existence of sorrow or health without the inevitability of sickness. Wholeness encompasses contradiction. Humans have a difficult time with this concept; we inevitably dichotomize and judge one side as being better than the other. We also presume that God judges similarly and afflicts us with what we judge as “bad” when we fail to be “good.”

When we had our first community meeting about how to deal with the threat of the COVID-19 virus, Sr. Esther Fangman began by saying, “True joy is knowing God is with you no matter what happens.” One advantage of praying the psalms every day is that this knowledge begins to sink into your bones. When you pray Psalm 18 often enough, the words become your own: “I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.” Does taking refuge in God mean that we won’t ever get sick and die? No, that is not the refuge God offers. God offers the refuge of love and sustenance in the midst of our trials, a presence and promise of eternal life that cannot be taken away by disease and death.

Each of us is capable of calming the fears generated by the COVID-19 pandemic by witnessing that we are not alone; God is with us. Do we trust Christ, who said, “I am with you always”? If so, we can approach all aspects of life with a peaceful spirit and the calm assurance that, as Julian of Norwich proclaimed, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” How can it not be so when God formed the universe to evolve according to the principles of love and new life?

A Life of Compassionate Presence

Sr. Jeremy Dempsey, OSB, who died on March 15, will be remembered by her family, monastic community, colleagues, students, and friends for her gentleness, wisdom, dry Irish wit, steadfastness, and love of poetry and literature. Perhaps the greatest lesson she left us, however, was how to live with compassion.

Although I took more classes from Sr. Mary Faith Schuster than with Sr. Jeremy during my years as an English major at Benedictine College, after graduating, I found myself gravitating toward Sr. Jeremy when I visited the monastery. She listened to my struggles and confusion and helped me stay grounded in God’s word and the Kansas soil, which we both loved. I wrote this poem for Sr. Jeremy when she retired from teaching:

How happy I am

that I was ready for you

to be my teacher,

for you have the brown

contours of the Kansas soil

tucked into your soul,

and when in worldly

confusion I pour out

to you all that I am not,

you point instead

to the quietness

and strength of the land

and the word that comes

from listening and being

true to oneself—

                                                            word made flesh.

Like the God she loved, Sr. Jeremy expressed her compassion through listening. She knew the stories of all the Dooley Center staff—their struggles, how their children were doing, their hopes—and she often expressed amazement at their strength and resiliency. In the last conversation I had with her two days before she died, she asked for an update on an inmate in my prison ministry group who is up for parole. As my friend Martha said, she was a distillation of God’s presence.

Sr. Jeremy often expressed gratitude for the blessings of being a Benedictine sister. Upon her death, we echo that gratitude and offer thanks for her generous spirit, humility, and fidelity to her monastic calling. Although we will miss her keenly, we take comfort in knowing that one day we will again enjoy her company in the place God has prepared for us.