A Woman Like Us

Tags

bless, Blessed Virgin, Elizabeth, hope, love, Nazareth, Paul, pregnancy, Romans, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Visitation of Mary

Today is one of the many church feasts honoring Mary, the mother of Jesus. I always remember the date of this one because it is the birthday of my cousin, Ginni – Virginia – named for Mary under the title of the “Blessed Virgin.” When I was young it was celebrated as the feast of the Mary, Queen of Heaven. I find it interesting that when the liturgical calendar was updated some years ago, this feast became instead the commemoration of the Visitation of Mary to her kinswoman, Elizabeth. I wonder if the rationale for the shift was the same as that of Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ in her book entitled Truly Our Sister: Mary in the Communion of Saints. Sister Elizabeth’s thesis is that although Mary is revered for the great honor bestowed on her by God she was a human being who lived a human life with the same joys and sorrows of women of the world in all eras of our history. The book is scholarly, to be sure, but my favorite section is the one that paints a picture of what life was like in Nazareth in the first century, including such images as the setup of the family home and the daily rituals, successfully bringing into focus Mary’s reality. It is a wonderful book, best read perhaps saving the first sections on theological considerations until after one has been treated to the world in which Mary lived and a consideration of all the biblical texts where she is mentioned and/or encountered.

The story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is indicative of the shift in the above-mentioned perception of her as a woman. Young, most likely terrified not only of the fact of her pregnancy but of its consequences in her culture, Mary flees “to the hill country” to an older relative, also miraculously pregnant and most likely somewhat anxious herself. One can only imagine the comfort they found in each other and how everyday tasks that they performed together became the solace needed to put their worlds right again. I picture them in the kitchen chopping vegetables and sharing their feelings about life and what the future might hold for each of them. As a backdrop for these thoughts, the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans (12: 9-16) seem particularly apt this morning. See if you don’t agree.

Brothers and sisters, let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold onto what is good, love one another with mutual affection, anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping Stones

Tags

faith, flowering, love, Peter, relatedness, soul, stepping stones, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, virtue

There is an exhortation in the text from the Second Letter of Peter this morning that deserves notice and reflection. It is a progression of development that begins with faith and moves to the crowning achievement of the highest good: love. Each of the steps demands something deeper from us and each is supported by what we have learned in the previous inner opening. The beauty of the flowering is that it is, in the end, not just about our own growth but flows out into relatedness to all. I suggest reflection on each of these stepping stones of the soul, the cycle of which, it seems to me, can be revisited time after time for a tune-up. See what you think.

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection and mutual affection with love. (2 PT 1: 7)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Body of Christ

Tags

call to service, Christ's body, Corpus Christi, Eucharist, loaves and fishes, miracle, signs, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In the Roman Catholic Church, we celebrate today the feast that I grew up knowing as Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ). I had a strange moment as I navigated to the US Catholic Bishops’ website this morning. I must not have been fully awake because when I read the designation of the feast as The  Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ it sounded unfamiliar, full of pomp and ceremony – something I could not identify…until in the next moment I said to myself, “Oh, of course, it’s Corpus Christi Sunday!” and it became something familiar as in my mind’s eye I saw a procession to the Eucharist table, heard the congregation singing, Precious Body, precious Blood, here in bread and wine…punctuated by the repetition of the ministers of the Eucharist repeating to every communicant, “The body of Christ” in the most familiar and profound ritual of our faith.

Next I read the gospel, Luke’s rendition of the feeding of the five thousand (LK 9:11-17) where all sorts of random thoughts – maybe somewhat connected – followed from the text flowing in and out of my mind. Here are some that stuck. First, when the disciples told Jesus to dismiss the crowds after a day of preaching and healing so they  could go somewhere to find food, Jesus said, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” We know the story: they protest because of the huge crowd and the fact that all they have is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and the cost to feed them all – even if they found food in or around this deserted place – would be prohibitive. Then follows the miracle where the food is distributed and everyone is fed. Imagine the surprise of the disciples who were doing the distribution! So next I try to think about that moment. It says Jesus looked up to heaven, said the blessing over the bread and fish, broke them, then handed them to the disciples to give out. So did the multiplication happen in the blessing? in the breaking? or did each of the disciples get a basket (where did those come from?) with some tiny morsel of food inside that then became a fullness as they walked among the crowds? Does any of this matter? The point is, it seems, that people were fed. But maybe just as important as that is the fact that the disciples were agents of the feeding even though Jesus had engineered the miracle. Can you imagine Jesus doing the distribution by himself? They would have been there all night or longer!

So what is the message here? Jesus left many signs in an attempt to teach his disciples (and us) how to be in the world. “Give them something to eat yourselves” was a clear directive – and it couldn’t have been easy to manage that in such a crowd – so the call to service is not always easy and never (if truly understood) prestigious but the “endgame” is worth the effort. My last random thought was “You are what you eat.” What we take into our bodies becomes part of us – for better or for worse. What the crowd – including the disciples, I presume – were eating in today’s reading as well as at the Last Supper and what we eat during the Eucharistic liturgy has been transacted into the body of Christ. Thus, we ourselves become Christ’s body as we eat and as we serve in Christ’s name. Just as the disciples could not understand the reality that they were witnessing in the midst of that crowd, our ordinary minds cannot perceive what truly happens each time we eat at Eucharist and go out to act as Christ’s body in the world. But as we wake up to the possibility contained in our actions, as we give ourselves more and more to a generous “becoming” for God in the world, the transformation becomes more evident, more luminous, and the effort is more than worth the gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirsting for God

Tags

bless, lift up, longing, name, protect, psalm 63, see, shelter, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thirst

Sometimes I think I understand the meaning in the psalms but, as I come to appreciate the importance of experience rather than or in addition to intellectual grasp of a reality, I know I have a long way to go. Take this morning’s reading of psalm 63 for example. I’ve been thirsty in my life, especially when I’ve been doing outside work or walking a long way in the heat of the day, but I’ve never been crossing a desert without a canteen with the sun beating down on me. Can I really understand the depth of the psalmist’s cry: My soul is thirsting for you, O my God? If I stop with only that refrain, my answer is no; it seems a rather insipid expression of desire for God for someone used to running water in three rooms of our house. Thank goodness for the tug of poetic language that follows, lifting that longing to the highest pitch of the soul’s song. I suggest saying it aloud – or better yet singing it to the God who awaits our call.

O God, you are my God, eagerly I seek for you, my soul thirsts for you, my whole being longs for you in this dry and barren land where there is no water. I lift my eyes and behold! I see you standing in your holy place; I gaze and see your strength, your power, and the beauty of your face. And now I know that one drop of goodness from your hand is better far than life itself. I cannot stop these lips from praising you. So as long as life shall last for me, I will bless the name of God and lift up my hands to you in prayer. For my whole heart and soul are filled by you and satisfied as with a feast that loosens tongue and lips with songs of praise. When evening comes I go to be with you, and through the passing hours of the night I invoke your name in prayer. So whether day or night, it matters not, for you are ever at my side to guide, protect and shade as by a sheltering wing. My soul ever clings to you in joy; your strong hand reaches out and holds me fast. (PS 63: 1-8)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Advice

Tags

intense, John, love, Peter, summer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, travels, vacation, weekend

It’s Friday again already! On this particular Friday, millions of people in the US are gearing up – or have already taken to the road or the skies – to celebrate on this long weekend not only Memorial Day on Monday but the beginning of summer all weekend long. The weather promises that even though the calendar tells us the real summer season is still almost a month away, the temperatures will convince us it has already arrived. There’s a happy feeling rising – a vacation attitude – that is expansive, perhaps because our houses cannot contain us; we are called outside to play!

Once again I turn to Peter for direct and clear instructions of how we are to be in order to enjoy the summer season – especially as we gather with relatives and friends on holidays and vacation times. Today he says: Above all let your love for one another be intense (there it is again), because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. (1PT 4: 7-13) Jesus is equally exhortative in the gospel acclamation (JN 15:16) where he says: I chose you from the world to go and bear fruit. And I want to add: So get out there and do it! (because we’re all chosen, you see.)

Safe travels! Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

In What Way Blind?

Tags

Bartimaeus, blindness, courage, deaf, disability, inner senses, risk taking, seeing, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I can’t imagine – on a beautiful, sunny, spring day like today – sitting here as I am and not being able to see the scene that greets me outside my window. That was my thought upon reading the story of blind Bartimaeus in this morning’s gospel. (MK 10: 46-52) Fast upon that reflection, however, came the memory of Dancing With the Stars whose winner this season was a profoundly deaf man who was able to keep perfect time in the dances without even sensing the vibration of the music. How was that possible? I can only surmise that the brilliance of his partner and some inner coherence in their energy kept him “in sync” not only with Peta but with the music he could not hear as we hearing people do. It was extraordinary. And then I remember Jacques Lusseyran, the blind leader in the French Resistance during World War II. Blinded at the age of eight years, Lusseyran accessed some inner sense that allowed him to work for years undetected because of his physical “disability” and to survive, as few did, the horrors of a concentration camp while giving hope to hundreds of other prisoners. How did he do that? In his book, And There Was Light, Lusseyran speaks of the inner light that guided his perception and his motivation each day. Rather than feeling sorry for himself and spending his life lamenting what he did not have, he capitalized on his inner senses for guidance and the ability to live a life of meaning.

I am grateful every day for the ability to see and to hear (the Canada geese just flew by my window) but considering the above examples I know that there are also deeper ways of perception and it behooves me to continue to sharpen my inner senses. Bartimaeus had been blind from birth. I wonder if his statement: “I want to see” came simply from having heard from others that Jesus was a healer. When Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” he didn’t say, “Heal my blindness!” although that was clearly what he was hoping for. I just wonder if the question demanded some deep determination on the part of the recipient – a participation in the healing rather than leaving all the work of it to the healer. His answer seems to admit of more possibilities than the physical healing it implies.

So the questions for me this morning are the following: Where does my blindness lie? Do I really want to see? What am I willing to do, to give up perhaps, in order to see in a deeper way? What will that cost? Am I equal to the task? Can I rely on God to be with me as healer in the process? It must have taken courage for Nyle DiMarco to say yes to Dancing with the Stars, for Jacques Lusseyran to step back into life as a blinded child and each day after, for Bartimaeus to put his faith in Jesus as healer. Courage is necessary sometimes in what seem the smallest endeavors as well as the monumental, life-changing possibilities. What am I willing to risk?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synonyms?

Tags

brotherly love, constant, energy, genuine, intensely, lectio divina, obedience, Peter, pure heart, sincere, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

In the early morning sunshine, everything feels pristine to me. Perhaps it’s the 12 hours of sleep I had after the sedation of yesterday began to wear off that has given me new energy. (Mission accomplished, by the way: 6 tiny polyps removed so I’m good to go for 5 years.) It’s one of those days when I wake up feeling motivated to love everyone and face everything with a smile. Sometimes that feeling even lasts all day!

Today, wrapped in those good vibrations, I read an exhortation in the first letter of Peter that fit what I was feeling and gave me pause (1 PT 1:18-25). It says: Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, love one another intensely from a pure heart. It always interests me that translation and even different editions of the same translation (here the New American Bible) can make such a difference in impact even though the meanings are essentially the same. Had I been reading my personal Bible {(c) 1970} instead of the lectionary readings for this date on http://www.usccb.org, I would have found that verse to say: By obedience to the truth, you have purified yourselves for a genuine love of your brothers; therefore, love one another constantly from the heart. There are really only three slight differences in the two texts – all of them adjectives. In the first clause, the modifiers of love (sincere and genuine) are virtually synonymous and at the end of the text Peter emphasizes his point in the newer edition by adding that we must function from a pure heart. The one word that first caught my attention, however, and still remains the “hook” for me is the difference in how we are to love one another. Although I can see the possibility of being fairly constant in my love for others, intensely is generally reserved for a special few.

This may sound like a ridiculous attempt for me to have something to say and probably is a result of my years as a language teacher doing textual analysis, but I think there is some merit in looking more closely if it is even one word that sparks a response in us. Monastics have been doing this kind of lectio divina (sacred reading) for centuries. If I can apply the intensity of love that I know toward God as I am outside working on this glorious day or sharing Eucharist on a special feast to all that I meet no matter where or why, the depth of my life will certainly be more in concert with “obedience to the truth” than if I simply try at all times to remember the command of Jesus to love one another. That statement certainly implies a growing intensity if we add the follow-on of as I have loved you, so maybe I am just whistling in the wind. The message, it seems, can be found anywhere if we really look. So let us today determine to love all of our sisters and brothers constantly and intensely – just as God loves us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Too Important to Ignore

Tags

colonoscopy, color cancer, health, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Because I had to be up by 5:30 this morning to continue the preparation that began last evening for my colonoscopy this morning, I decided to watch yesterday’s evening news on my iPad. Imagine my surprise when one of the later segments concerned a new test for colorectal cancer! “What synchronicity,” I thought! The story was about a woman who had reached the age of 50 and knew she should have a colonoscopy but put it off because of the gruesome tales she had heard about the preparation. Recently she discovered that there was a new test (Cologuard – $649) that can be done at home. She opted for that and the test indicated that she did, indeed, have cancer. At that point she had a colonoscopy and the diagnosis was confirmed. The test had saved her life.

As I drink the last of the preparation solution, I think back to my intention to have my first colonoscopy at age 50. I really did plan to do it to do it and I’m not certain what intervened but I never got to actually have it until I was 53. At that point I had 7 “advanced” (pre-cancerous) polyps – a sure bet that without the test I would have been dead by now of colon cancer without having had any external indicators until it was too late. Having done the procedure now more often than most, I am blessed that, while unpleasant, it is not very difficult for me. Even if it were, however, I know from experience that it is certainly preferable to the alternatives.

I am not ordinarily a vocal champion of causes but in this case I often urge people I know to “just do it” as it might save their lives. Thus, whether you opt for the new or traditional form of the test, please do it! Take it from one who knows: it’s worth the effort!

 

 

 

 

 

Food, Eating, Hunger

Tags

fasting, food as a human right, gratitude, healthy, hunger, miracle, modern medicine, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today I suspect my thoughts will frequently turn to hunger. The Sisters of St. Joseph, Albany Province, have been focusing on “food as a human right” for some time, being mindful of those who have little or no food and working at both systemic and local solutions to this problem. In my life there is never a problem in finding food; if I don’t have it, I have the means to purchase it – both availability in nearby grocery stores and the money and transportation needed to access it. I am preparing, however, for a routine colonoscopy tomorrow – not a pleasant thought, but an experience I have come to value for several reasons that allows me to put a positive spin on what lies ahead in the next 36 hours – a retreat of sorts…My reflections are listed below:

1. I live in a place where “the miracle of modern medicine” is a constant and access to healthcare a privilege I enjoy.
2. I consider it a responsibility to keep my body as healthy as I can and welcome the opportunity to eliminate toxins and be reminded to begin again to eat in a healthy and mindful way.
3. I live with Sisters whose support includes the willingness to see to my needs (and I to theirs), particularly tomorrow for one of them in accompanying me and spending several hours in the hospital with me.
4. The reality of physical hunger which I may only assuage with liquids or (happily!) jello leads me to reflect and join in solidarity with those who regularly experience a  lack of food.
5. Moving to the spiritual level of interpretation, I will need to trust my physician (as I have for many years and still do) to perform the procedure flawlessly and my body to cooperate.
6. Lastly, I hope to remain conscious of and pray for all those who hunger for a better life both physically and spiritually, for belonging, for love and/or for a sense of God in their lives. All of this, then, becomes an opportunity for gratitude.

Trinity Sunday

Tags

Christian, Father, Holy Spirit, light, spirit, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Trinity Sunday, trust

Today the Christian Church celebrates Trinity Sunday, contemplating our belief in the fullness of a Trinitarian God and the continued presence of the Spirit in our midst. I received a gift – my favorite kind – of a book yesterday in which the giver noted a prayer that is perfect for this morning. I offer it (in part) in praise of the Trinity.

Come, Spirit, Spirit of the Father and the Son. Come, Spirit, Spirit of love, Spirit of peace, of confidence, of strength and holy joy…Come, father of the poor, bulwark of the distressed. Come, light of eternal truth, love poured into our hearts…Come then, each new day, more each day. Move us, change us. We put our trust in you…We thank you, life-giver, Holy Spirit that dwells in us, for willing to be the seal of the living God, that seal that marks us your own. Abide with us, Holy Spirit. And change us. Come!