O King of All Nations, Come!

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contemplative prayer, Dalai Lama, deepest center, heart, hope, joy, king, King of All the Nations, O Antiphons, Peace, Pope Francis, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, unity

It seems beyond human capacity that a world of several billion persons could come together under one ruler. There are so many countervailing factors. Just think about the diversity of languages or food choices, religious beliefs and so much more. That said, I think of efforts being made in spiritual circles to appreciate the values and practices of others that are birthing new hope for finding commonality that will lead at least to peaceful co-existence.

I think of Thomas Merton who, in addition to his correspondence with many spiritual writers and thinkers, traveled 50 years ago to Asia to address a conference of religious leaders on issues of peace. Had his untimely death not ended his brilliant and enthusiastic work, who knows what understanding might have come from it. Even now, Merton scholars continue to plumb the depths of his work, although lacking the essential quality of his person as inspiration.

Benedictine monk, Thomas Keating, tells of his experience as abbot in the Spencer, Massachusetts monastery in the early 1970s when many young people began to knock on the door asking, “Is this the Buddhist place?” Keating directed them to a building not far away on the same road. Finally, he and his colleagues, Fathers William Meninger and Basil Pennington, asked themselves: “What have they got that we haven’t got?” and went to visit the temple. There they found prayer not dissimilar to the monastic practice described by Thomas Merton in his book Contemplative Prayer as “a return to the heart…finding one’s deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being.” From that beginning was born the Christian movement called Contemplative Outreach which now boasts hundreds of thousands of practitioners the world over.

So this “King of All the Nations” clearly cannot rule in a political sphere but only in the hearts of each person who longs for justice and the peace that comes from loving acceptance of diversity. Will we ever get there? The intimations are present in people like Pope Francis, for example, and the Dalai Lama. It remains for us to find the will to follow. I saved a column I found as the millennium was turning that spoke of possibility in the following words. Let us heed their message today.

“Some may not like the image of king but kingship evokes deep-felt longing. The antiphon points to a world better than any government we have known up till now, an order that recognizes no differences except to exalt the lowliest. And who knows? This millennium might bring that stunning reversal. So we pray: Come, one who draws us beyond our disputes, who silences our complaints in your great good order. Bring us the vital joy of diversity, the secure peace of unity. In you our plea is not contradictory, our hope is not disappointed.”

 

 

 

 

 

All Saints

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All Saints Day, canonized, Dalai Lama, grace, holiness, hope, Jesus, miracles, piety, Pope Leo XIII, religious practice, Roman Catholic, saint, social justice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is one of the few days in the Roman Catholic Church that the liturgy of a Sunday is superseded by the celebration of a special feast on the liturgical calendar. Today’s feast of All Saints gives us pause, not only to think about those people throughout history who have been named by the Church as deserving of the title “saint” (those whom the Church has “canonized”) but also to reflect on what it means to be a saint. We often hear people speak of someone who has suffered many trials (e.g. those with many unruly children) as a saint. “That woman is a saint,” they say! In that case it seems that sainthood resides in the person’s ability to show grace under pressure or to endure what might make others lash out and turn to violence. We might hear also, “He’s a saint – in church every morning without fail, never without his rosary…” which tells us that religious practice and personal piety are the means to sainthood. And then there are those who speak out on issues of social justice, demanding that governments care for the less fortunate and those whose dignity is ignored. We have been slow to recognize this category of sainthood (although charity has always been part of the Christian path). Justice workers are sometimes unruly, even going so far as breaking the law in service to what they see as “a higher law” in imitation of Jesus. It was Pope Leo XIII in 1891 who began to articulate what has become the social teaching of the Catholic Church in his encyclical Rerum novarum which spoke of unfair labor practices. Do we see crusaders for justice as saints?

The dictionary has many definitions of sainthood – most of them somehow articulating the quality of holiness. Catholics look for miracles, especially healings and visions – and sometimes have clear evidence of how that has manifested in the lives of the canonized saints. A relatively new development is the growing consciousness of the “sainthood” of people who do not share our own religious beliefs and traditions. Who would argue against the sainthood of the Dalai Lama, for instance, especially if we have been privileged to be in his presence? Saint Paul is responsible for the fact that the title of saint appears in the Scriptures; he addresses everyone to whom he writes as saints! So what does that mean?

We may not all look like saints or fit any standard definition of what sainthood means, but maybe – with the virtue of hope in our pocket – we can continue on the way to God, doing our best to love as Jesus did, and as those people whose example we choose to follow have done, trusting that it is God’s measure we can achieve, becoming one in the great Communion of Saints that knows no human reckoning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Cloud

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a cloud of witnesses, access lives of holy people, Auschwitz, Catholic Worker, Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, Hebrews, Jesus, Maximilian Kolbe, Pope John Paul II, Rev. Michael Himes, saint, Sermon on the Mount, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Paul, the cloud, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

These days when we speak of “the cloud” many of us are aware that the reference is not to the weather. The latest technological “storage facility” is still a mystery to many but for others it is a great revelation and advance.

In today’s first reading (HEB 12:1-4) Paul urges: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us …He is speaking, of course of what the Church calls “the communion of saints.” Once I heard Rev. Michael Himes, theology professor at that time at Boston College, use that reference as one of the best reasons for the continuance of the Catholic/Christian Church (and I would expand the notion to include other faith traditions for it seems appropriate in the broader sense as well). What he was implying was our freedom and ability to access the lives of these “holy people of God” across the centuries for examples of faith, perseverance, service and love. We may, in an imaginal way (which is not to say imaginary but rather with our deeper intuition), “have conversation with” those who lived in the first century – dropping in on the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps, or sitting with the apostles gathered on the beach for breakfast with Jesus after the Resurrection. We can follow St. Francis of Assisi as he did his best to “rebuild the Church” in the 1200’s or accompany Catherine of Siena as she courageously led the Pope back to Rome from Avignon in 1377. In our own time we might ask Dorothy Day about her fervent service to the poor at the Catholic Worker. “How did you do it?” we might ask, “giving everything …open to everyone?” Or maybe it’s Maximilian Kolbe who gave his life in exchange for a family man at Auschwitz and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982 who puts a modern face on the willingness of Jesus for us.

This year as we celebrate the 100th birthday of Thomas Merton, I see in my mind pictures of him sitting in conversation with the Dalai Lama and know that deep sharing can bring the understanding of which Paul speaks today. We often hear folks say, “S/he was a saint,” when speaking of those newly departed from the earth. Why not look around – even as we look up or look in – to find conversation partners in that great cloud or still here in our midst.

We Walk By Faith

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Catholicism, centennial, contemplation, convert, Dalai Lama, education, effortless conversation, faith, Hebrews, Salesians, seek, St. John Bosco, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, will

Thomas Merton

Brothers and sisters, faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. (HEB 11:1)

This overarching theme for the day has many strands, just as each of us has our own stories of faith stretching back over our lives. I smiled when I saw that the saint of the day in the Roman Catholic Church is St. John Bosco, the educator from the 1800’s who founded the Salesians, a religious community that follows the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. John Bosco was dedicated not only to the classical education of children but to teaching trades like shoemaking, tailoring and publishing. His goal was to “unite the spiritual life with one’s work, study and play.” I knew nothing of John Bosco’s life when I was in school except that he was the patron saint of students. The nuns urged us to pray to him as end-of-year exams approached and I know I credited him with much of my success in those most challenging moments throughout my school career. Faith was simpler back then and it was helpful to believe in the power of such a patron to give a boost to our competence.

Faith was a growing thing as well to Thomas Merton, one of the most prolific spiritual writers of the 20th century who was born 100 years ago today. Merton was a convert to Catholicism in his 20s and his desire for God continued to accelerate and be expressed in his books, essays and poetry as he lived a monastic life from 1941 until his untimely death on December 10, 1968. Deep contemplation had led him to study and write on issues of social justice and ecumenism as integral to the spiritual life. His spiritual quest led him to the East, to a great friendship with the Dalai Lama and others, and was culminated in an interfaith conference in Thailand where he died at age 53. We celebrate Thomas Merton today and all during this centennial year for his contribution to the legacy of faith that informs our own spiritual journey. Here is what he said to me this morning:

This is what it means to seek God perfectly: to have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God. Poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him, to gather all that I am and have, all that I possibly can suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do His will. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 44-46, excerpted)