Mother Seton

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loss, love of God, sorrow, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, teacher, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, women, women religious

I’ve just been reading about the life of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born saint. She is not a stranger to me. She was born in New York (less than 200 miles from my home) and although she lived from just before the American Revolution until the early 19th century (1774-1821) she was canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic church in 1975 when I had already been teaching for four years in a Catholic high school. It was quite a celebration for the United States, for women, especially women religious, and for teachers to see “one of our own” – in any one or all of those categories – raised to the level of sainthood.

Mother Seton, as she is commonly known, knew many sorrows in her life, losing many loved ones including her parents, husband and several children at a young age. She was, however, always steadfast in her faith – first as an Episcopalian and later a Roman Catholic with a fervent belief in and love of the Eucharist. A reflection on the website http://www.franciscanmedia.com described her as someone who was an ordinary person who led an extraordinary life. “Not a mystic or a stigmatic,” she lived with great faith and said, “God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.” All she needed was the love for God that enabled her to keep going and keep loving. That is a brand of sanctity that is open to all of us and that is the best reason to celebrate Mother Seton on this, her feast day.

Pay Attention!

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attention, awareness, compassion, grief, Jesus, John the Baptist, loss, Matthew, needs, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes I feel so sorry for Jesus. In today’s gospel (MT 14:13-21) there are three distinct moments when Jesus could have used a kind word but no one noticed. The first line is the saddest:
1. “When Jesus learned of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” Of course he did!! This was his relative and dear friend who had baptized him and recognized who he was immediately. With him gone, Jesus would certainly have been bereft.
2. Even then, the crowds followed him. (I’m hoping they just weren’t informed about John because had they known they would have given him some space to grieve.) They were waiting from him when his boat pulled in to the shore and in his great sense of compassion, he tended to their needs – putting his own feelings aside. He cured them.
3. I’m wondering why the disciples couldn’t see his sadness. They seemed to just be concerned to have him disperse the crowds so they, themselves, wouldn’t have to figure out what to do next. I love the challenge he offered them when he said, “There’s no need for them to go away. Give them some food yourselves.” Of course they had no idea how to do that, but once again compassion reigned and Jesus taught a great lesson.

All of this in the midst of his grief! What lessons might we learn from this reading? Once again, I would say “Awareness, awareness, awareness!” Look beyond what is in front of you to what is inside the person before you. See always with an eye of compassion in the generous manner of Jesus.

Unanswered Questions

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loss, sorrow, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tornado, unite

We have just celebrated a three-day weekend in the Northeast USA, grateful for two or three days of sunshine that allowed outdoor activities. It’s raining now and I am going to my office this morning. A stiff breeze has just warned me of the necessity of closing my bedroom window and I’m wondering when I will be able to rake up all the grass I mowed into rows yesterday and how messy the project will be…

I blink and shift to a broader consciousness: all the people whose concerns are so much more than my own today. Pictures of tornado damage in so many states in our country’s mid-section are hardly believable. Winds of up to 160 miles an hour have left only shards of wood that were once walls and cars lie piled on top of one another or under huge, uprooted trees. And there seems no end in sight to the storms.

Sorrow and gratitude play within me as I face the day. Is it only luck that has placed me in this small corner of the world? We have flood damage on occasion but have generally been spared from the serious loss occasioned by such weather conditions. What can I do short of leaving home and traveling to disaster regions? (A monetary donation would be minuscule in the face of the destruction.) What then? Prayer of lament? I think so…But what else can I offer to those who find themselves homeless and bereft? How might I best unite myself to others who suffer such loss?

Standing With Each Other

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courage, helpless, Holy Week, lament, loss, Notre Dame, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pain, pray, presence, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning as I read the psalm of the day (69) on the USCCB website I was reminded of the prayer service that we prepared in December for the feast of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, a prayer of lamentation for the caravan of migrants streaming toward the southern border of the United States. Bereft and sorrowful because of great loss, God’s people are searching for comfort and consolation in the present in the same manner as has been true throughout the ages. This seeking, I realize, can be an inner or outer experience – or both – and I find it again appropriately expressed in the paragraph below that was an introductory reflection for our prayer service in December.

Lament is a tool that God’s people use to navigate pain and suffering. Lament is a vital prayer for the people of God because it enables them to petition for God to help deliver them from distress, suffering and pain. Lament prayer is designed to persuade God to act on the sufferer’s behalf. Lament is often most effective as a communal activity. Reading and reflection are intended to express empathy for people suffering as a result of great loss.

Today the flames that devastated the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris have died out but the reality of the loss as seen in the photos rends our hearts. As was true at our prayer service, I believe that the spontaneous gathering of thousands in the Paris streets – inhabitants and visitors alike – who stood and wept, prayed and sang as the cathedral burned must have felt the power of community in that excruciatingly helpless moment.

On this middle day of Holy Week, I wonder if Jesus felt the lament of the few faithful ones who remained with him at the cross. Can we feel the reality of his suffering as present in the world today and enter in a true and visceral way to stand with those who deserve our presence and courage?

Emmanuel

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comfort, death, Emmanuel, God is with us, grief, loss, Nativity of Mary, Peace, presence, sympathy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Later this morning I will attend a memorial service for the son of a woman for whom I have great admiration. His death preceded his 54th birthday by just a few weeks and was quite sudden. The shock was compounded by the death of my friend’s husband just three weeks previous to that of her son. No words of sympathy or attempts to assuage such grief are adequate for one who bears the loss of those she calls the two great loves of her life. All we can offer is presence. And so I go. I suspect that this event will be a lesson in diversity of belief about God and life while also manifesting a depth of unity brought about by relationship and community.

Today is also the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Mother of Jesus, a woman of great love who could never have dreamed of what her life was to hold of joy and pain. We never know but can only hope to live into the happenings of life as we grow and change and accept and endure what comes to us. I take comfort during troubled times as I read and believe lines of the prophecy trusted throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that “the favored one” would “bear a son and call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” May God be with us today and may wives and mothers and all who who endure great losses know peace and comfort in the memories of the love they have given and received.

 

 

 

 

 

Where Is the Love?

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antidote, Auschwitz, distress, inhumanity, loss, love, martyr, St. Maximilian Kolbe, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It seems as if we, like Noah, will soon have to begin building an ark to survive the rain that seems destined to go on forever taking lives, swallowing up cars and filling homes with muddy destruction. Would that we could gather it up and send it West to smother some of the wildfires that are devastating so many homes and lives on the other side of our country. Such environmental distress and human loss is difficult to take in as pictures on the news bring it all to the fore each evening.

Add to that the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, whom we remember today as holy man and martyr, one who gave his life at Auschwitz in place of a man who had a wife and children. Kolbe died as a 47-year-old Franciscan priest who had chosen to be a martyr. You can read his story at www.franciscanmedia.org. 

We are not separate, it seems, from the groaning of nature and the inhumanity born of hatred in individuals and nations. War, whether worldwide or contained in one country – or in our hearts – continues to overshadow our days. The only antidote is love. Offered with generosity to each person we pass on the street, those we embrace as friend and those we thank God for every day as essential to our lives, leaving no one out of our circle of care, love will ultimately save us. This, I believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Late Surprise

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emotions, faith, gift, gratitude, joy, loss, marriage, risk, seniors, thankful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning, a cautionary tale. The lesson: stay always in the present moment. It is all that we ever can depend on.

This morning I will attend a memorial Mass for a man I did not know. He was 80 years old and came into my consciousness when a woman I have been acquainted with for many years, a widow important to our local church community, re-connected with him. They had known each other in their youth – dated even, I believe, – and found very quickly this time that they were so happy together that there was no reason not to commit to each other in marriage. And so they did – about 18 months ago. She said she had never been happier and it clearly showed on her smiling face. Some time in the latter part of 2017, they were told he had cancer.

I don’t know what these last months have been like for her. I can only speculate on the mix of emotions that have played in her every day. Some people would most likely be raging against a God who was seen as a cruel trickster. Others would, no doubt, be thankful for the unexpected and glorious gift of joy shared so late in life. My sense of this faithful, prayerful woman is that gratitude will win out even as the sadness of loss becomes a frequent companion.

I can imagine what our conversation might be about today if we are lucky enough to share a moment before the ritual. I expect that her faith will be evident as always, her gratitude for the family that has pledged to remain present to her will be expressed and that she will have a treasure chest of memories to carry with her into the future. Most of all, I expect that she will be glad for having taken a risk for such a gift from a God whose ways may not be our ways but who sometimes offers amazing opportunities to those awake enough to say “YES!”

 

 

 

 

 

The Simple Things

Tags

Book of Hours, expectations, hope, loss, renew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

Sitting here this morning taking inventory of my thoughts and feelings I found only loss. First, I was faced with a message from a friend about her mother’s passing. It was not an unexpected message but monumental, of course, especially for someone who has been a loving caretaker for a long time.  Then I read less serious news of dashed Olympic hopes in skiing and skating. Americans who seemed destined to win by the agreement of the entire world failed miserably and one wonders what role the expectations of everyone had in the results.

Wanting only to accept whatever this day holds, I was encouraged by Thomas Merton whose Book of Hours said it quite succinctly. It will suffice for my prayer on this first Friday of Lent.

Thank God for the hill, the sky, the morning sun, the manna on the ground which every morning renews our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

Job’s TQ (Trust Quotient)

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Blessed be the name of the Lord, Book of Job, challenges, destruction, distress, give, loss, suffering, take, thank God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust in God, unwavering faith

When I read the text of the first reading from the Book of Job this morning (JB 1:6-22) I thought – as  usual – that it sounds like the synopsis of a bad movie. Satan, vying with God, bets that Job won’t be as faithful as he has been if bad things happen to disturb his idyllic life of favor as God’s friend. God disagrees. After he hears all the terrible destruction that his servants come one after another to tell him about, we hear the familiar line that “I came into the world naked and will leave it naked. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Of course Job doesn’t say these words as declarative, emotionless sentences. He does wail and rend his garments…and this is only the first chapter of his test.

While it is clear to me that God does not bargain with evil, even on a sure bet, the Book of Job does make me think. I am always edified in conversations with people who have lost virtually everything in life or who have had horrendous experiences, when they make similar statements to Job’s, attesting to their ongoing faith in God. I wonder sometimes what I would be able to endure of suffering – I who often profess to have lived “a charmed life.” There have been challenges, to be sure, but my supports have been such that I never have cause to complain.

Today I shall think about Job and about all the people I have known who have met and survived incredible distress in unwavering faith – especially those like our Sisters in Japan who survived the atomic bombs of World War II, the man from Aleppo whose whole world was destroyed in seconds – including the loss of his four children and his wife, or all the people I have spoken of during this year who have been victims of weather events, who say when standing in the rubble of their town, “I thank God to be alive.” I don’t think we ever know the strength of our faith until it is tested, but I am urged by these thoughts to practice, in whatever ways I can, for a time when I might feel severely shaken and need to place my trust totally in the God who loves me more than I can imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gain and Loss

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attitude, declutter, gain, Jesus, life, losing, loss, Matthew, Philippians, posessions, profit, soul, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

In today’s gospel we find a paradoxical statement in which Jesus gives his followers the pattern of living that he, himself, has espoused and in the following of which they will find the fullness of life. (MT 16: 24-28) He says: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. To clarify, he asks the following question: What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his [her] soul?

St. Paul speaks in the Letter to the Philippians of the great willingness of Jesus to surrender everything to teach us what is important, that is, the primacy of love. He writes: Have among yourselves the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself…(Phil. 2:6-11) Later in that letter, Paul affirms that teaching/example of Christ in his own life by saying: I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things…(3:17)

So how might we interpret these words in today’s world? Especially in the cultures of the developed nations of our time it is difficult to let go of striving and of possessions to find interior peace – even when we assent intellectually to the value of such surrender. But more and more frequently I hear people speak of their need to “de-clutter” not only their closets (as I am doing with some success!) but also their lives which are so busy that there is little or no room for silence and communion with the Divine.

The point of Jesus and Paul was made simply and clearly for us at the end of the 20th century by Jesuit spiritual teacher, Anthony De Mello, who wrote: “How would spirituality help a man of the world like me?” asked the businessman. “It will help you to have more,” said the master. “How?” “By teaching you to desire less.” A paradox surely but one that can be proven truthful by those who have removed themselves from the “race to the top” in search of deeper meaning. We have many examples of how this works – from billionaires like Warren Buffett, whose countenance shines with the happiness of one who understands the value of “sharing the wealth” to people like the man in the news yesterday who walks the streets with his hair-cutting tools serving the homeless by shaving and cutting their hair for free.

It is the freedom that comes from this “losing” that is the “gain.” Not tied to riches or status or anything at all, we are free to serve whenever and wherever we are called. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to know this truth – but we can all start somewhere to “let go and let God” work in us. Every day is a new beginning and, for me, this one has just begun.