One Solitary Life

 

He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty

He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself

When He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend

Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind's progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life

Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926

 

Let it be done unto me according to your word

  

In our Gospel Mary accepts God's will for us as a model for all time (Luke1:39-45) with her words "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Mary reminds us that we too share in the birth of Christ as the Word speaks to us; when we open our hearts and listen; when we let go of the world around us and surrender to him. He speaks not merely through our senses...or in words or sounds. But rather his Word becomes a palpable presence within us. Then we too join Mary in his birth...as the Word becomes our flesh, and we celebrate the birth of love and become bearers of his light to be lived and shared as Jesus did. 

Let it be done unto me according to your word. Let it be to me according to your word concerning the Word, Let the Word that was in the beginning with God become flesh from my flesh. Let the Word, I pray, be to me, not as a word spoken only to pass away, but conceived and clothed in flesh, not in the air, that he may remain with us. Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears, but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders. Let the Word be to me, not as a word written and silent, but the incarnate and living. That is not traced with dead signs upon dead parchment but livingly impressed in human form upon my chaste womb; not by the tracing of a pen of lifeless reed, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Let it thus be to me, as was never done to anyone before me, nor after me shall be done (Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) In Defense of Humility, Watch for the Light, p38)

Can we become today's John The Baptist?

 

In recent weeks our world news and our discussions have focused on the new Omnicom variant, a derivative of the Covid19 virus strain. Needless to say the recent appearance of this virus has seemed to put a damper on “getting back to normal,” again, as if there is a normal to which we think we will ever return. Fortunately, our experience for the past 2 years with Covid19 has provided a template for how we as individuals and institutions can best proceed, but in typical tradition, natural disasters never occur at an opportune time. So now as we enter the Third Week of Advent…all is not calm, all is not bright. We need a blessed Advent, a transformative time to “put things back where the Lord put them.”

Not unlike today’s world, Father Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest, wrote of another turbulent time. The following is an adaptation of an essay he wrote in a Nazi prison camp, three days before he was hanged in 1945:

May the Advent figure of John, the relentless envoy and prophet in God’s name, be no stranger in our wilderness of ruins. (Luke 3:10-18) For how shall we hear unless someone cries out above the tumult and destruction and delusion? Not for an hour can life dispense with these John the Baptist characters, these original individuals, struck by the lightening of mission and vocation.  So many of us need our courage strengthened; so many of us are in need of consolation; there is so much harshness that requires a gentle hand and an comforting word.

“The Blessed Woman…” is the most comforting of all the Advent figures. Advent’s holiest consolation is that the angel’s annunciation met with a ready heart. The Word became flesh in a motherly heart and grew out far beyond itself into the world of God/humanity. (Blessed Art Thou Among Women).

That God became a mother’s son; that there could be a woman walking the earth whose womb was consecrated to be the holy temple and tabernacle of God – that is actually earth’s perfection and the fulfillment of its expectations. (Be it Done Unto Me According to Thy Word)

Advent’s consolation streams from the mysterious figure of the Blessed Expectant Mary. The woman has conceived the child, sheltered it beneath her heart, and given birth to the Son. Advent is the promise denoting the new order of things, of life, of our existence. 

Advent comes in three figures. This is not meant as an idyllic miniature painting, but as a challenge. My real concern is not with beautiful words, but with the truth. Let us kneel, therefore, and ask for the three-fold blessing of Advent and its three-fold inspiration. Let us ask for clear eyes that are able to see God’s messengers of annunciation; for awakened hearts with the wisdom to hear the words of promise. Let us ask for faith in the motherly consecration of life as shown in the figure of the Blessed Woman of Nazareth. 

Let us be patient and wait, wait with Advent readiness for the moment when it pleases God to appear in our night too, as the fruit and mystery of this time. And let us ask for the opening and willingness to hear God’s warning messengers and to conquer life’s wilderness through repentant hearts. (Watch for the Light, “The Shaking Reality of Advent,”pp.90-91)

Our Time in the Desert

 

Adversity can play a key role in honing our ability to hear what is beyond the usual scope of our ordinary consciousness. No doubt for many of us the Covid 19 pandemic forced us to face stressful challenges that were outside the “norm” of our usual experience. I wonder how this time of confinement and isolation heightened our awareness of events that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Many people seek so-called desert “experiences” by way of solitary retreats during which forced confinement might help provide clarity and enlightenment that otherwise might be overlooked or taken for granted during “ordinary times” during which we are surrounded by our family, friends and our routine. 

Unlike John-the-Baptist in Luke 3:1-6 , we don’t always get a chance to choose our desert times and places. They sometimes are provided for us in the form of illness, change in employment, failures in relationships, death of a loved one and in the case of Covid 19, natural disasters. These deserts all hold new possibilities for hearing the word of God at ever deepening levels.

Speaking personally, it’s too soon for me to assess how forced confinement has been a transformational experience. Perhaps it’s still too easy for me to dwell on the things I missed or have been taken away. Perhaps it’s not a matter of addition or subtraction or replacing what no longer is with something else. What no longer exists is not forgotten and may be a springboard to new ways and personal growth. One thing the pandemic taught is that life can turn on a dime and that the present is only as certain as our last breath. It’s all we can count on.

Richard Rohr writes in A Spring Within Us ,“Reframing Our Cosmology” that there may not be an external designer or a micro-managing God working from the outside, but neither is the world devoid of His divinity. God’s divinity is so intimately present in the world, in us and through us, that the world can be regarded as an incarnate expression of the Trinity, especially in times of tribulation. This was very apparent in the selfless dedication and courage of emergency responders, health care workers and “ordinary people” who put their lives on the line to provide support and comfort to those afflicted. I guess for me then, the greatest lesson from the pandemic particularly during this Advent, a time for watchful waiting, is that God is intimately involved in our lives all the time… we just need to open our hearts to see Him and know his presence.

 

Be Vigilant At All Times

 

We continue to try to absorb the devastation and loss of life caused by the effects of global warming. Likewise, we are frustrated that despite the recent meeting of world leaders dealing with global warming, little is said about loss of life among those disenfranchised peoples living in abject poverty. The focus has been on the science and the impact that fossil fuels have had on temperature change. Shouldn’t our efforts be directed to its effect on people as opposed to scientific discourse?  At least we know we can make a difference! It’s no coincidence that this Sunday's Gospel (Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36) asks us to stand up straight, with our heads raised and be watchful. As people of faith we are called to assume a posture of hope in the face of despair. It strikes me that to do so must be an act of determined will, for it runs contrary to our most basic instincts. When we hear of the rising numbers of deaths due to starvation and the lack of water, not to mention the staggering rise of Covid cases in Madagascar, it’s so hard to believe that there will be anything more than what we can now see.  

"How is it that we can stand with our heads raised in hope in the face of suffering and despair? Perhaps our willingness to stand up and be seen and heard in a world that is shaking all around us, and our walking into our own suffering and the suffering of others, is where it all begins? Maybe when we step into the large and small heartbreaks of those who are in pain, we will meet Jesus. For that is where Jesus can always be found: waiting in the midst of the pain to somehow show us the way to new hope and new joy and new life.

And once we've done that for a lifetime and experienced the gifts of God in such unexpected places over and over again, maybe that’s when Jesus does return --- whether it is only to me at the end of my life or to us all at the end of this age? I guess we won't be able to keep ourselves from lifting up our heads in hope to see our redemption drawing near! Because we will have already encountered the source of that redemption in Jesus over and over again!" (adapted from Dancing with the Word, Rev. Janet Hunt)

 

Behold, I make all things new

(The following post is from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation, Death and Resurrection, "All Things New," 11/18/18.)

 As I’ve recently faced my own mortality through cancer once again, I’ve been comforted by others who have experienced loss and aging with fearless grace. Over the next few days I’ll share some of their thoughts. Today, join me in reflecting on this passage from Quaker teacher and author Parker Palmer’s new book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.

I’m a professional melancholic, and for years my delight in the autumn color show quickly morphed into sadness as I watched the beauty die. Focused on the browning of summer’s green growth, I allowed the prospect of death to eclipse all that’s life-giving about the fall and its sensuous delights. John 18:33b-37

Then I began to understand a simple fact: all the “falling” that’s going on out there is full of promise. Seeds are being planted and leaves are being composted as earth prepares for yet another uprising of green.

Today, as I weather the late autumn of my own life, I find nature a trustworthy guide. It’s easy to fixate on everything that goes to the ground as time goes by: the disintegration of a relationship, the disappearance of good work well done, the diminishment of a sense of purpose and meaning. But as I’ve come to understand that life “composts” and “seeds” us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us even in the hardest of times.

Looking back, I see how the job I lost pushed me to find work that was mine to do, how the “Road Closed” sign turned me toward terrain that I’m glad I traveled, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to find new sources of meaning. In each of these experiences, it felt as though something was dying, and so it was. Yet deep down, amid all the falling, the seeds of new life were always being silently and lavishly sown. . . .

Perhaps death possesses a grace that we who fear dying, who find it ugly and even obscene, cannot see. How shall we understand nature’s testimony that dying itself—as devastating as we know it can be—contains the hope of a certain beauty?

Keep Awake

 

Keep Awake for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 

Shortly after 9/11 the words “Fear Not” seemed a little out of place as the world was more than just a little uneasy.  I am forever reminded of the photo of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who served as Chaplain to the New York City Fire Dept, being carried out of Tower One of the World Trade Center minutes before it collapsed. He became the first registered victim at Ground Zero. The details of his death are unclear but some say he was fatally wounded as he administered last rites to a dying firefighter; others recall his being killed while in silent prayer.  Whatever happened, his lifeless body was discovered in the lobby and carried to a nearby church shortly before Tower I collapsed. 

Who knew how that the day that began with skies so blue and air so clear, would end as it did?  In many ways, Father Mychal personified the words of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 13:24-39) in that he was a man who had euphemistically arrived at Ground Zero long before 9/11, as he had proved himself to be ready to lay down his life many times during his career.  For him 9/11 could have occurred on any day or at any time... he was prepared.

If the thought of finding God amidst the devastation of these harrowing circumstances seems strange, it is because we may be out of practice looking for Him.  Yet, we believe that Christ's death and resurrection hold the final answer to all our fears. In sharing in his resurrection, Jesus removed our reasons to fear death forever.  Of course it does no good to recognize this on a merely intellectual level.  Just knowing that Christ loves us may not save us from fear, nor will it save us from death.  The only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to "be prepared" and to live our life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  As with Father Mike, it means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves instead of others.  It means being prepared to die again and again to ourselves, and to every one of our self-serving opinions and agendas. But about that day or hour no one knows.