The Communities of New Skete

Sunday before Christmas: On the Ancestors of Christ

Gen. 15:1-6; Heb. 11:8-12; Mt. 1:1-17

“How I would like to believe in tenderness!” Sylvia Plath once wrote. A theologian recently wrote: “In the face of cruelty, injustice, and the futility of life, how do you account for the existence of gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice, holiness, and love, unless they are aspects of reality?”

We may or may not be able to explain evil or suffering, the mind of God, or God’s existence and the vagaries of human heart. Yet we are aware that something has badly gone wrong with the world and even with ourselves. We might want to consider, then, what an authentic Christian spirituality does.

Rather than question and analyze the existence of God and the goodness of creation, it shows us what to do in the face of suffering. The way of the spirit might also lead us to discover a need to search out God more than we have been, and to seek the presence of God even in the midst of darkness. We might find, then, that we have become more sensitive to a call of God and conscience. We might hope to attain a compassion for ourselves, and for each person we meet, which far surpasses the feelings that Christmas usually evokes.

With the annual celebration of the birth of Christ, we usually do meet up with the better sides of our humanity. Our gentler selves so easily show themselves as we think of and bring adoration to that newborn child. We are again presented with the opportunity, an opportunity not guaranteed to be given again, to experience a rebirth of vision, spirit, and intention. What new grace will we be gifted with that might far exceed our prayers, our hopes, and our daily struggles?

In preparation for the feast of the incarnation of Jesus, the nativity, the birth in the flesh, we also commemorate his ancestors. Divine promises were made to them, to Abraham, the prophets, and king David. Their lives witnessed to a trust larger than themselves, and they shared an unbelievable hope for the restoration of their nation. The opportunities they seized upon and the very practical choices they made whether good and bad, helped unfold the story of salvation.

In the ancestral heritage Jesus received, we see the faith of Abraham, the wisdom of Solomon, and the nobility of David. We also see remnants of the emotions, energies, images, traits, craziness and sicknesses that were passed unconsciously, from generation to generation, to the person of Jesus, his family, and his culture. He confronted much of them during the temptations in the desert, but eventually he also had to face the ghastly mystery of human mortality itself. Though His life on earth began with wonder-filled events, tragedy quickly showed itself through the actions Herod. It seemed to be the best of times and the worst of times.

This generational portrait of the men and women who preceded Christ, and even that of Daniel accompanied by the three young men, is crucial in creating a true portrait of Christ. They help the gospel proclaim more precisely the meaning of a life and reality that words alone cannot contain. The succession of personages, one more extraordinary than the next, that decorate the Messiah’s family tree illumines the fullness, balance, and wholeness that define Jesus’ life on earth. It also hides the lowly way Christ lived out his mission.

What is especially noteworthy is that St. Matthew included four key women in this background list we heard today. These were Ruth, Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba. These archetypal figures are so unique that they seem to have nothing in common. Yet together they point us directly to Mary’s place in the story. At the same time we might remember those other women, pictured on our walls in this church, who gathered with Mary at the foot of the cross, and as she held the body, and later at the empty tomb.

Matthew used the symmetrical Jacob’s Tree genealogical icon and expanded it to include three times fourteen or forty-two generations. By doing this he illustrates the clear outlines of God’s plan to fulfill those original promises.

Today’s reading of this list of ancestors culminating with Christ also serves another purpose: It clearly implies the heritage each of us has received along with our own mortality, but it also prepares us for the life of God’s Holy Spirit working within us. It proclaims to us our own rebirth and participation in the body of Christ.

The listing reminds us that in Christ we become whole and complete in ourselves, while we are also formed into one body with each other in Christ. This same cosmic resurrected body of Christ infinitely exceeds the condition of the newborn child, of course, and it invites us all to partake of it – it includes those who are free and those in bondage, Jew and gentile, man and woman, those in mourning and those rejoicing, child and adult, the healthy and the ailing, and citizens along with aliens from beyond our borders.

In this final union we become a humanity far exceeding and transcending what even this extensive genealogy chart illustrates. We are becoming, as God promised Abraham, more numerous than the stars and brighter than any darkness. Not in spite of, but because we are firmly rooted in our own incarnation, we can grow, as did the incarnate Christ, in the love and self-giving that is the crown of human life.

—Brother Marc

Feast of the Entry of the Holy Theotokos into the Temple

Sir. 24:9-12; Heb. 2:11-18; Lk. 2:41-52

Today is an extra special Sunday, when we hear about two different happenings in the Temple. Today we might even catch sight of the invitation for ourselves to Enter into the spiritual mysteries of a different kind of Temple.

A temple is what we often call a church or sanctuary. It is a location where divine power is felt to be present, where many levels of communication, grace, and even healing are possible. We who are present in this Temple here today also believe in, and celebrate, the Holy Spirit’s presence everywhere (and) filling all things, as we can read in the very beginning of Genesis, when the breath or Spirit of God was moving over the waters, the primordial soup from which everything was brought into being. And so we can speak of the entire universe and all of creation, as a Temple.

In the accounts and hymnology of today’s festal events, whether they come from the gospels or simply from tradition, Mary is taken up at a very young age to stay in the magnificent Temple complex that stood in Jerusalem in those days.

Her initiation into the life of these sacred precincts was a manifestation of her inner journey of entering ever more deeply into her religion — long before the responsibilities, obsessions, and delusions of society had a chance to side-track her. It is not unthinkable to say that she was also entering further into an awareness of the movements of the grace of God happening within the sanctuary of her own heart. Eventually she heard there that invitation and call to take a very active part in the incarnation of the promised messiah. When she responded with the words: “Be it done unto me according to your word,” this was anything but a passive submission to fate.

When we fast-forward to today’s gospel, we see that Jesus visits that same Temple as an older youth, and he stays behind for a while, while his parents are making for home. He was overflowing with the questions of a healthy adolescent, and we are told he was already insightful about things having to do with God, revelation, worship in that very building, and also its long history of a written and oral teaching tradition. Now he was sitting on the same Temple hill where later he would stand as a Teacher himself, and after that on Mount Tabor and then Golgotha.

Some of the first public words Jesus spoke were, “Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest;” long after the death of Jesus, the apostle Paul continued in this same vein by asking: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” Here he is referring both to the believing community and to the individual believer.

Of course what he said also holds true in our own times: about the Holy Spirit, about union with Christ, and about the Father.

At the same time that we enter a church, we usually enter further into ourselves, and we might have a gentle feeling and awareness somewhat like we hear in this Lenten hymn: “Standing in the temple of your glory is like standing in Paradise itself, O Theotokos: open to us the portals of your mercy.”

Paradise is the Persian word for an intimate and fertile enclosed garden, where we can breathe-in the incense of fragrant blossoms and hear the singing breezes in the trees. It’s a place of rest and renewal, of hope and of love. It’s a place where we in our turn are invited to say and to ask, “Here we are in your holy presence; what is it that you want of us? … and what is it that we desire of you? Let me breathe-in your serene energy and exhale the anger, shame, and cowardice that are waiting to imprison me.

Whether we enter an actual garden, or a temple, or the cathedral of the forest or night, this is a place of inner and outer quiet, where the good seeds of our spirit can sprout and be nourished as we patiently watch them grow. It is during those out-of-the-ordinary moments when we sit still and our brain waves slow down and shift away from the usual everyday busyness, that a different type of awareness moves in. It could be about a memory or a current hurt, the meaning of a dream, or a concern for a future decision. It is a truthful moment, when an insight feels right, or when you can finally uncover the source of a problem.

This is an encounter with a larger part of ourselves. As Mary describes in her canticle, our puffed up short-sightedness is brought down and the lowly and discouraged part is lifted up. We can feel relieved and thankful.

When we are alone or with the choir and congregation, whether silent or singing, whether on a feast day or a weekday, if we allow this restful but fully alert feeling to emerge, we might find we are changed at least a little bit.

Finally, as we return to our usual activities we might want to hold onto this subtle change in heart and mind. What good is it to return week after week and not realize we are again being dragged down by our old selves and attitudes?
–Brother Marc

Labor Day Weekend, and also the Feast of the Birth of Mary the Theotokos.

So many people throughout western history have used Mary of Nazareth as a model of holiness and passivity. So many mini-theologies have sprung up centered on her virtues of prayer and obedience that it is no wonder that her presence has also been virtually ignored, and ignored probably by most people.

In spite of this, we know that in the vortex of her powerful personal energy, she was able to give birth to the person Jesus, who perfectly embodied what St Catherine of Siena called the generosity and beauty of the eternal father, the fiery abyss of infinite love. She was no frail vessel.

When the archangel Gabriel somehow presented her with a plan for the hopes and promises given to her people Israel over the course of a millennium, she was able to put her signature to it, so to speak. She responded to and accepted the challenge that she saw focused on herself at a critical moment of her life. And the spirit of her strength and total dedication has survived.

In recent times she appeared on the banners of the United Farm Workers, when they rallied against labor injustice, as Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is not surprising, because these burdened people saw in themselves the oppression of Mary’s people. They heard her very vocal response, sung daily in their churches, when she shouted that God is going to put down the mighty from their thrones and exalt the lowly. They took this to heart and placed their own lives on the line. Unfortunately, for some reason the mighty haven’t heard about Mary, they just don’t get it, and we all have to pay for it. They live only by their own lights and are pawns in the hands of darkness.

They haven’t heard, because they haven’t listened, in their great and worldly wisdom. For one thing, why would anyone listen to what might at first appear to be a common and subservient maid?

St. Catherine also exclaimed this: “O wild divinity and mad lover of creation, you have need of your creature? For you act as if you could not live without her, in spite of the fact that you are Life itself.” St. Catherine was one of the greatest reformers of Christian Europe over a century after the death of St. Francis. She was a mystic, but she also effectively waded in to the power politics of the time with fire and persuasion. The Good God needed her on board, just as God in the bodies of the poor in Calcutta needed Mother Theresa to step into the world of their squalor.

As Mary summarized it, God has heard the tears of her people, God’s chosen people: The Orthodox Christians who used to live in China wrote about it this way: “Above the roaring cry of the world’s chaos, the elemental moan of the earth, God answered with a still, small voice. Only a small young woman living in pregnant silence and devotion to the Almighty was given to hear it. And in a still, small but steady and firm voice She gave voice to the whole earth.

“She answered for all who could not speak; she answered for all the people who could not hear. And to the question of the Uncreated Mind, She answered: Yes!

“I will receive You. Be it unto me according to Your Word. And in her, the Tao–the Way–and the Life came and made its abode. He took flesh of Her whom He loved above all others who dwelled on the earth and who had the lowest place; and emptying himself, in his love, to the lowest place, he became a tiny child within Her, the Mystic Mother.”

Can we possibly say that the greatness of Christ was born out of not only his Heavenly Father, but of the greatness of his mother? Christ’s greatness, and his person, includes all the people related to him and those who have a relationship with him. We all know the powerful intimacy of mother and son and mother and daughter, and this cannot be ignored.

And because of this, from the earliest Christian times those who came before us, through their devotion and dedication to Christ, expressed in the thousands of hymns we now use, spoke in ways that show honor to his mother by taking her seriously: “By the prayers of the Theotokos, the virgin mother of God, save us!” And in this way we who can so many times feel God’s absence, we too are invited into the fold and hospitality of these eternal relationships.

Christ is in our midst!

Reflections for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Is. 56:3, 6-8; Rom. 6-18; Matt. 15:21-28

A good many of us have come to expect of Jesus a certain way of behaving and speaking, and to envision his life as something almost too good to be true! So when we hear Jesus giving this anguished mother a hard time, our minds seem to stall, and we might be a bit confused, because this doesn’t seem to be the way of Jesus the gentle healer and friend to those in need. After all, it just doesn’t seem fair to her, even though he finally acceded to her request and blest her.

But what is the story trying to tell us? Why is it in the same book with the Beatitudes and St. Paul’s Ode on Love? Is it simply one of those colorful miracles?

As we all know, things aren’t always quite what they seem. Matthew’s gospel story is not a still-life portrait but an intense drama: Everyone involved in it is deeply changed. It shows us a pivotal conflict at the foundation of Christianity.

As we know, Jesus was born and raised Jewish. He was tested in the desert, baptized in the Jordan, and entered public life as a witness to God’s call to Jesus’ own people. I think Jesus was aware the ordinary people needed not to return to an historical deity or find a new plan to live by or to pursue national freedom. They needed an honest prophet, and a just and compassionate shepherd. They yearned for the experience of the living God here and now, some good news for their souls. With great tenderness, Jesus lamented, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would love to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.

So in today’s drama the crowds are expectant. The disciples are protective of their own Galilean prophet. Everyone was filled with enthusiasm and hope. Yet even here we can see the dark clouds on the horizon; we begin to see that the actors have clashing expectations.

The action begins with this person weeping and wailing for attention. It is obvious she was a foreigner and without any sense of proper local decorum. She is making a ruckus—tell her to go.

How will Jesus moderate this confrontation, a sort of boundary dispute? Should he preach to them, set down the law, or try to argue and convince them their mind-sets are too narrow?

He follows through by putting into words everyone’s indignant thoughts and feelings, and in fact his own position as someone sent first to the lost sheep of Israel. They hear him tell her just how it is, and now even they want him to grant her request. On her part, she’s already made a fool of herself. But at this provocation and apparent denial, she rises to something bigger than them all: as she points out, she has a right to ask this and to expect a positive response, whatever they think of her or the gentiles.

Don’t you see, she says, I too seek fully to participate in the mercy and abundance of God’s gifts. With all due respect, Lord Son of David, even these little dogs, these puppies under the children’s’ table, get the crumbs on the floor. And this is just what the Greek text says, when it uses a softer word for our ever-present dog companions.

Now at last they’ve all heard it. With some surprise and joy he praises her: What compelling trust she has in him and what great faith in her own request! Where else have you seen this—not much around here—present company included. How can anyone of you object to her now, or ignore her and send her away.

You who have the truth and the grace, whether you live up to it or not, cannot restrict it to yourselves on any account. In fact it will be given to whoever desires, asks, and appreciates it. I myself cannot control it: it is a fire of the spirit. We can see her precisely as appealing to basic humanity for people everywhere.

She herself found and performed the healing, facilitated by Jesus’s being honest and finally accepting her. The two of them together entered a new world and no doubt dazzled those around with its daring.

We tend to categorize things, to set boundaries and see divisions. But unless you see as little children see, and pursue as the puppies do, with unclouded vision and the grace of rediscovered innocence, you won’t be able to live in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus stretched his mission. He demonstrated how to embrace each of our neighbors in an abundant and universal love, not just as children but as adults.

We know the story and take this for granted—but after the crucifixion and resurrection the new community had to struggle to resolve their still-limited vision. Can the gentiles have the same rights as the first followers? It finally came to severe enmity and bloodshed, even after Peter himself gave in to Paul and accepted any and all who desired Christ. Only trust in God is required, including faith in the process itself; and only the recognition of our shared birthright and relationship with the one who is the very mystery of life.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Is 55:1-5; Rm 10:1-10; Mt 14:14-22

There are very few episodes or stories that all four evangelists write about.  Today’s gospel is one of them.

Compassion is what struck me from all three readings this morning. In the first Isaiah reading God told his people to come and eat even though they had no money.

In the second St Paul feels compassion for his fellow Jews and encourages them to realize Jesus was the fulfillment of the law and to put their hope and faith in Christ.

In the third reading after hearing of John the Baptist’s death Jesus wanted to spend some quiet time to pray. He needed rest. He knew he too was in danger and his own death was looming in the not too distant future. Due to hearing how the sick had been cured by Jesus, the people put themselves in his path when he came to shore.   Jesus has compassion on the crowd and cured their sick.

If you notice, Jesus did not himself go around and feed the groups of people but he had his disciples take the food around. We too must let God use what meager gifts or abilities we have to feed those around us. What are the ways we might feed the hungry? Obviously there are the many food pantries, the soup kitchens and the neighbor who needs help. There are other ways, even seeming smaller, that we can do to feed another’s spirit. Have you ever been having a hard time and someone smiles at you and their smile lifts your own spirit? Or perhaps the other does not need a smile but a sympathetic listener. Being able to listen can help another get up and go on with living. When our own spirits are lifted it multiplies like the bread and fish by lifting up all the others we meet.

In keeping with the notion of our putting on the mind of Christ—how do we become more compassionate, more like Christ? There are books written and talks given that our thoughts matter. Some even go so far as to say we are what we think. For sure, what we think about affects what we do and who we are. We are always thinking about something. What is it?

Where does your mind go when there is nothing in particular you need to think about? To put on the mind of Christ, would it not seem that I would think of God, of God’s being present everywhere, in everything and, by really stretching ourselves, in everyone?

These seeds of thinking of God we can call prayer. Just as seeds grow into plants or trees, any short prayer thought over and over again will become part of us. Likewise if we immerse ourselves in thoughts of jealousy, envy, greed, lust, hate, self-pity or malice, we become those things. It behooves us to become aware of what we are thinking about.

Today we celebrate St. Elizabeth of Moscow’s feastday. This gospel today is especially appropriate for the great compassion Elizabeth showed throughout her life. She became aware of the plight of the peasants on their own country estate and set up avenues of help for them. When she moved into the city of Moscow the many homeless and starving on the streets of the city prompted her to establish not only soup kitchens, orphanages, and homes for the aged but a community of Marthas and Marys to do this kind of mercy work. After the assassination of her husband she herself joined this community of nuns.

True wisdom gleans the meaning and the manner of achieving the well-lived life. Our lives are well-lived if we gain the wisdom to achieve a heart filled with compassion.

Sister Cecelia

Third Sunday after Pentecost Sir. 11:1-11; Rom. 3:28-4:8; Mt. 7:1-11

Today we are gathered here again as one religious and spiritual body, either singing or not singing, praying or just listening, watching or lost in thought, memory, turmoil, or maybe some sorrow.

Our faith says we are the body of Christ, and that just as we are at this moment, we are made complete and without blemish in the eyes of God. Yet often we feel how many ways this seems not true. We might wonder why aren’t we better off, healthier, happier, more numerous or active or prayerful, and so forth.

We heard the gospel today: and we know about judging others instead of ourselves, not asking with all our heart for what we need, or seeking but not hard enough to find, or knocking once and turning away. That is not exactly storming the gates of heaven. As for motivating ourselves, St Brigid of Ireland once remarked lightly that she hoped God would have a lake full of beer, so that there would be enough for all of us to enjoy in heaven.

We also know how much humanity is burdened with the crimes, faults, weaknesses, and mistakes of the past that wreak their havoc today in us as individuals and nations. We know that our hope can falter as we age or become worn out by work and illness. We know our love is a more than a bit lacking—we are too busy about our own stuff. And my faith is so weak, as well as my trust in myself, in God, and in whatever is good. My attention is fragmented, distracted, or fearful. So many things seem not to make sense, in the world, in religion, in our lives,

But still here we are today, singing “Amen,” blessing with “Peace be with you,” and “Lord have mercy!”

We have been drawn here by our individual journeys and search and by something we may not be able immediately to put into words. We sense that we are in a sacred place, and it is made sacred because, as the Lord said, where two or three are gathered in my name I will be there.

Each of us brings who we are, and what gifts we have, to share respectfully with everyone else. Like the wind that blows where it will and passes through the empty spaces and around and about, our individual energies fill in for each others; inspiration arises there, then here. The Holy Spirit can fill what is lacking, as long as we are of good will.

We sense that although we will not always live up to the ideal we profess, we can still sing and be joyful and grateful.

Today as on any Sunday, maybe only one person will be deeply moved. Unless we chant together and talk of spiritual feelings, sentiments, and devotion, and unless we eat that bread and drink that wine—and the coffee and donuts, the cheese, and deviled eggs—then, nothing at all will happen. When I am singing and listening, I myself and each of us begin to ingest the meaning of what we are doing, we chew it and are nourished by it all. And when I am silent, I may even begin to hear the voice of my deepest self waking up.

We are God’s little flock in a terribly imperfect world that mostly we humans have made less than the best. Here an oasis of water is flowing when we think about and pray for and help each other. We are here to light at least one candle, or each of us to light a candle, rather than try to go it alone to save my life or save the world or just to live, and then inevitably end to up restless or cursing the darkness that is everywhere.

Eventually we do need to realize too that our own resentments or hurts, our anger, sadnesses, and discouragements, though they are so deep and feel all too real, are actually deceiving us. This has always been known by wise teachers, and it has often been taught with this seemingly obvious phrase, that “only what is really real is real.” The spiritual path helps us discern what is unreal and distracting and destructive.

We are not here waiting for a better life, though it is promised that in the end we will see clearly in a way we do not now. Beneath the weeds and tangles of our lives, we might realize we are looking for the very roots themselves of life, which are creative, renewing, and abundant. We are looking for love, which comes so brightly and leads us to give of ourselves until it really hurts, maybe until it seems there is nothing left to give. We want eternity to touch us—but then, maybe not just yet.

There’s a story of woman who finally had everything she ever wanted. She got sick, and eventually, when she was told she had cancer, she became more and more angry, and angry with God and the cruelty of such a development. She crawled from her hospital bed in her flowing gown, limped down the hall to the small empty chapel. She sat in the shadows up front and yelled at God. She gave God a piece of her mind. And she ended by saying to God: if you even really do exist!

She got up and as she turned to go, she fell. There with her face on the chapel floor she gradually made out a sort of design on the carpet, which had the words “You are my beloved.” After lying there a while, she finally limped back to her bed and was able to sleep through the night peacefully.

 Christ is in our midst!

Sunday of the Healing of the Man Born Blind
Readings: 1 Cor. 15:3-11; Acts 9:20-31; Jn. 9:1-39

Here’s a question: Which of these is more like my real self, an ordinary salt shaker or an ordinary ketchup bottle. We can laugh at this, but then we might become quiet and start to think and to wonder. If I am to take this seriously, then I have to care about the question, about the objects, and about myself. We are comparing and evaluating the aliveness of different objects; and the objects become a mirror of my self. An architect in Berkeley, California, has been asking people questions like this for over twenty-five years. And surprisingly, he found agreement and consistent results from 80 to 90 percent of those who participated.

Our answers are a key to answering other questions: How do we bridge the gap between object and person, or between machine and person? How does a building or a street become user-friendly? How can algebra and engineering provide a basis for healing the planet? Can we look into the patterns nature provides in the world around us and use them not just for making art and designing gardens but for planning buildings and even creating computer language? Why not help people design their own buildings and gardens and streets, and make these into environments that help our lives be more fully in contact with the earth’s natural environment and so more fully human?

Now in our gospel story today, the focus is also on questions about the mystery of being human and alive in the midst of both orderliness and apparent chaos.

The questions: The apostles ask—who sinned?
Later the onlookers ask—is this the same person we knew on the wayside?
Then the authorities ask—who did it, how’d he do it, is this your son, was he really born blind?
Finally the man says, Do you want to become his followers, too?
We might even wonder, Did his eyes hurt in the light? What finally became of the guy?

Answers came, a little bit at a time, to fill in the picture:
Jesus says, Yes, he is blind now but it has nothing to do with sin. Instead, together we will see the glory of God.
The man says, Now I can see, and later answers, A man told me to go and wash, and then, Jesus did it.
Jesus says, The one standing before you is He.

And throughout we hear instant judgments:
He couldn’t have healed this man.
You can’t be the same person.
He wasn’t really born blind.
He broke one of the Ten Commandments.
He can’t be of God.
He is doing the works of evil
We keep the Law and we are not blind; you were born in sin.

A bit of saliva and mud dabbed in the eyes turns all this into a threat to religion and society instead of a sign of hope and life.

Two thoughts are still absent from minds of the antagonists in this long story: First, “What if he turns out really to be from God?—Can we be so very certain of ourselves?” It seems to me this situation happens over and over again. Is it better to err on the side of the law and perhaps condemn someone who is innocent, or to err on the side of justice, mercy and humility and by chance let someone go who is guilty? The second thing missing is this: The person cured cannot find anyone to celebrate and to praise God with him, and instead people are grilling and insulting him as if he were on trial.

The bridge between theories, laws, and codes on the one hand, and the blind beggar in the streets, is beyond our ordinary senses and sensibilities, which can become so tainted. It is only through the practice of those first commandments, to love God and to love our neighbor as our self, that the very basic life-force within us comes into the light. It enters our consciousness in the form of compassion, goodness, and joyfulness.

This is the path to our enlightenment that began with Baptism, and it is not a mere indulgence of the heart.
You can be skeptical and still take chances on love and, for example, look at what we have in common and perhaps overlook how we may be different.

Have we ever been blind to the good things that do happen, even in the midst of suffering? What is blocking us? –The distorted and negative thoughts that constantly flood our minds. They are simply leftovers from the primitive needs for survival, and we don’t need them anymore. To the degree that you are criticizing, to the degree that you have anger, and are not pleased with or do not like things in people around you, you reduce and diminish love. On the positive side, as we have heard before, it is better to give love than to continually search for it, (for only in giving love to others, is it truly given to us.)

Both the structure of our brain and the presence of a certain grace affect our seeing and therefore color our choices. There is the classic example of the outline of six chalices lined up in a row. It takes while to realize that, aha! –the outlines of the chalices also form the profiles of twelve faces. We can make ourselves go back and forth between these perceptions and maybe even see both ways at once. We can train our senses and sensibilities and minds, learn to rid ourselves of negative thinking, and finally go beyond or transcend them. (It is only worth doing so for the sake of divine love.)

Finally, for now, we can continue to puzzle over the architect’s question and to wonder which is more like my real self, an ordinary salt shaker or an ordinary bottle of ketchup.
Christ is risen!

Pascha 2010

1 Pt. 1:3-4; 2:4-9; Acts 1:1-18; Jn 1:1-18

In today’s readings we heard from two of the apostles who were closest to Jesus, Peter, whom Jesus asked, after his resurrection, to feed my sheep, feed my lambs; and John the evangelist, who was the only apostle to stand at the foot of the cross with Mary.

A warm and affectionate Baptismal homily is the setting for our first reading this morning. It recognizes the need to nurse the new believers along in the faith, and gives instruction on how to behave in the hostile world of those times.

As we saw and experienced at last week’s baptism, we pledge to die to old ways and to be buried with Christ in the water of baptism so as to rise up to the new life and creation. We robe ourselves in Christ and enter the household of Christ where we can be sure God also sees and cares for us. What is true of the whole is true of the parts: the dignity we might well see in ourselves and in each other. At the same time,  we are called with Christ in love to give our own blood, figuratively speaking, or even literally, in order to gain our life and attain the flowering of our life together. When he said “Come follow me,” this is where it is headed.

At Pascha we once more go to the beginning of John’s Gospel with its own magnificent description of the meaning of the coming of Christ. Just as Genesis begins with the huge story of creation, the evangelist John begins with an explanation of the new creation. He does this in a way very different from the story of the birth and coming of Christ in the other gospels. In his day both Jewish and Greek philosophers respected and valued words and language as particularly sacred and powerful. So John describes Jesus in terms both could more readily understand:

From the depths of the mystery of God, from the darkest silence of eternity, the light and the word were sent out to reveal the true nature of God and the divine creator. These rational, eternal vibrations of light and sound, which first emerged at the creation of the world, finally were able to be seen by the apostles and heard by the crowds and touched by Mary and Thomas and others. He was the divine light of wisdom and the Father’s word of love made flesh as one of us.

Jesus is the only way anyone in human history has seen the one God —and it would seem only one way any human being could possibly see, the infinite, eternal, almighty intelligence and energies without being incinerated on the spot as if by a bolt of lightning. John carefully and clearly writes what he himself experienced and what motivates his own faith: that who and what God is, that is what and who the Word of God is; and that same Mind and Word of God became incarnate as this human person.

Theological descriptions of God and the Logos, the Word, the Christ, can often detract from the very intimacy Jesus wanted to bring with his presence both before and after the resurrection. Saints and theologians, bishops and monastics, and we ourselves have reflected on this and struggled to comprehend it, yet it is something that a soldier was able to see in an instant at the crucifixion, when he exclaimed “Truly this was the son of God!”.

When John the beloved disciple describes our Lord as uniquely beloved and the unique Son (only-begotten) of God, he is not isolating the Word because of the Word’s uniqueness. He is not saying God’s most beloved attention is somehow limited. In fact just the opposite is true. Far from excluding anyone or anything, the Son’s uniqueness invites and includes and embraces every human being and every created element. We see intimations of this throughout Scripture: I was there at the creation, delighting in the works of God; I am the new Adam and the dawn of a new day of justice and mercy; come to me all who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. As St. Paul says, It is through Christ that God comes to everyone, and it is Christ who will bring everyone and everything to God.

In the spirit of the Paschal season, we can reflect on how we embody what is divine more than what the words image or likeness can signify. And so finally we are also children of the resurrection, as Jesus says: we belong to it and it belongs to us. Right now we begin to taste it through this greatest of feasts. Through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, we already participate in the risen life of Christ without being annihilated by its power, even though we might feel it is not yet powerful enough in our own life. At times we may even be blest to catch glimpses of the beauty of the resurrection and transfigured life.
On the last day we cannot be raised without being raised body and soul—and we cannot rise to eternal life without the rest of creation of which we are a part. When the great saints, like St. Francis and St. Seraphim, celebrated and befriended the world of plants and animals, sun and moon and stars, they also healed a split in the human soul, in their own souls, an isolated part of their wholeness, of our wholeness, and in this they found a hidden joy.

As we also celebrate today, eye has not yet seen, nor ear heard, nor has it arisen in the human heart what God has prepared for those who love God in Christ, but this is what we experience a little today.

Christ is risen!

Reflections of a Nun

Entry into Jerusalem, Ze 9:9-12,16-17a, Ph 3:10,4:1, Jn 12:1-19

Palm Sunday 2010

Questions for an evening self examination mentioned recently in past homilies are: In whom have I met Christ today and where have I missed seeing Christ today.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “The poor you will always have but you will not always have me”.

And indeed we don’t have Jesus before our eyes as did his disciples. And yet we frequently say or hear it said: “Christ is in our midst”. How many of us really believe Christ is in the other? If Christ is in our midst, where and how is it possible? He said we would not always have him physically before our eyes, but He did give us a clue by saying: when you clothed me, when you fed me, when you visited me in prison you did it to me.

It is not such a stretch of our imagination to think when we are being just and honest in our dealings with others or all kinds of kindnesses and works of mercy, that we are treating them in this manner because we are seeing Christ in them. It is another story when we have to deal with those who seem hateful, mean, dishonest, self-seeking, lazy and so forth. It is just plain dubious that Christ expects us to see Him in these people. Or is it? How would we or how could we ever see Christ in them? It takes faith to believe that Christ is in the midst of all humanity.

In the reading this morning the crowd came out to “see” Jesus. Some had been present when he raised Lazarus from the dead and told others and they all wanted to welcome him into Jerusalem. They were looking for the Messiah who would save them from their Roman oppressors. According to historians on numerous occasions, conquerors would enter the city on the colt of an ass–after the conquering. A warring king would always ride a war horse–not a colt. Our first reading told the inhabitants of Zion to rejoice as the conqueror had brought peace to the nation. The oppression Jesus came to relieve is not in the political arena but in our hearts.

We have all probably heard the phrase God helps those who help themselves. There is certainly truth in it. However, it is something of a paradox that scripture says repeatedly that God helps those who trust in God. Our do- it- yourself mentality has to be put on hold enough to learn to trust in the God of love. Developing that trust is worth taking our time to stop and pray about it. Be quiet and listen for God.

It takes faith to see that Christ is in the midst of all humanity. As a child the mystical body of Christ was an explanation given to me for how we are all one–all part of one another. This morning‘s baptism of Evan Alexander made him part of the entire Christian segment of that Mystical body. It took faith for him to wait patiently for God to inspire him. It takes courage for him to embrace this step in his life.

It takes faith to wait patiently for God to inspire us. It takes great faith to presume that God is inspiring us, in a sense, and to go ahead and act on our own best intuition and thinking. When our actions, our thinking, our attitudes are done in a spirit of prayer, we can trust God to be with us.

Mary acted on her inspiration when she anointed Jesus feet with precious nard, filling the whole house with a fragrant smell. The whole house is seen as a symbol of the whole church and her action as a sweet memory to us through all the ages.

Jesus words to Judas to let Mary be because she had done this for his burial is a reminder to us to not put off carrying out our good intentions–our inspirations. There are some things we will never do unless we grasp the chance when it comes. We desire to do something fine and generous and big-hearted but we put it off. We think tomorrow is soon enough. Then the chance is gone. The same is true of meeting Christ each day. Shall we begin to ask ourselves? In whom did I meet Christ today? Where did I miss my chance to see Christ today?

Christ is in our midst!

Reflections of a Nun

Entry into Jerusalem, Ze 9:9-12,16-17a, Ph 3:10,4:1, Jn 12:1-19

Palm Sunday 2010

Questions for an evening self examination mentioned recently in past homilies are: In whom have I met Christ today and where have I missed seeing Christ today.

In todays Gospel Jesus says, The poor you will always have [...]]]>