There are so many people and organizations giving advice daily on television, podcasts and all manner of “advice columns.” I sometimes feel a need to add my voice from my tiny corner of the world but often lately I sense more of a need to just sit quietly and let the silence speak. Nature seems complicit in this feeling this morning and gives me a nudge saying, “Yes, that’s it. Any thoughts you have are unnecessary today. Just listen. That’s what “sabbath” is all about.”
I can be confident in that feeling because here’s what has happened in less than the last hour. Knowing that I had a late start to the morning because of a late start to sleeping last night, I got my coffee and began my sojourn through my regular prompts—Scripture, USCCB notations, Franciscan media, the SSJE Brothers… and had trouble accessing the above mentioned pages or staying on the page when it finally showed up. As I surfed I realized it was getting darker outside and I still had nothing to offer. Suddenly there was a great, yet silent, cloudburst washing the trees with no wind, just a steady, torrential downpour that gave way to a sparkling sunshine and birdsong within minutes of the rain’s conclusion.
Why would I think I need to add to that happening? The silence fills the world with Sabbath beauty and stillness is God’s gift to my soul. May you be similarly blessed with the simple necessity of breathing into the day: in and out…in and out…no distress…only breath…in and out…in and out.
Today’s gospel has Jesus squarely in the midst of his healing ministry. (MK 5:21-43) On his way to heal the daughter of Jairus he encounters the woman with the hemorrhage. He is so totally present in his healing power that all she has to do is touch his cloak to be healed and he knows that power has gone out of him. That was most likely the easy part of the day. When he arrives at the home of Jairus, he would only allow the parents and three of his close friends to go with him into the room where the child was already dead. It seems that perhaps this was a conscious act of “conservation of energy.” Crowds can so easily suck all the air out of a place and those following him were obviously skeptical of a good outcome since he told them the girl was not dead but asleep. Jesus is confident in his power to heal, gets the job done and tells those in the room with him to keep the incident to themselves so as to be free, perhaps, of those who did not seem interested in understanding who he was and in whose power the healing took place. That would be the work of another day.
No matter what’s happening, when I wake up on Sunday morning I always feel different from other days. The Scriptures for today remind me of the reason that is true for me. The first reading (for Year B) recounts the Ten Commandments, the fourth being described as follows: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God…no work may be done.
Sometimes lately I have to look at the events scribbled in my calendar to remind myself of the date and what day of the week it is! I guess I could say that’s because of my advancing age, but I think it has as much or more to do with the pace of life now. Today is Sunday – for Christians, the Sabbath Day, set aside for rest and reflection on the spiritual side of life. I’ve been known to hear in my head the dictum “No unnecessary servile work on Sunday!” if I set about doing laundry or some other household duty. I was always grateful for that precept of the laws of the Church that guided our family life in that simpler time that was my youth.
This morning I am thinking of the notion of “Sabbath” and how the busyness of our lives has squeezed the practice that originated in the book of Genesis (God resting on “the seventh day” from all the work of creation) into a religious service that may last an hour at most. I speak of Catholic practice, which is what I know best, and am pushing aside any sense of commitment and feeling of the difference that accompanies this most important day of the week for many people, in order to shine a spotlight on how things “used to be.” I would wager that “no unnecessary servile work on Sunday” is a concept unknown to most Catholics under the age of 40 years.
This morning’s gospel left me with many possible avenues of exploration. It’s the familiar healing by Jesus of the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years but had no one to put him into the pool for healing when the healing waters were stirred. (JN 5:1-16) I first think (and thus have commented about) how impossible it sounds that he was lying around for 38 years and nobody lifted him into the pool. Secondly, it gives me pause to think about that scene and how the whole thing worked: how large the pool was, how and how often the waters were “stirred”, how big a crowd was there waiting (I think of the processions in the grotto at Lourdes with massive crowds) and finally how intent everyone must have been on their own invalid so that everyone ignored this man. So many considerations with little information to help me conceive of his predicament…
Isaiah is still waxing eloquently about good living and today introduces the concept of Sabbath when moving from “conduct becoming” in relationships to other people to a consideration of duties toward God. (Is 58:9B-14) In our fast-paced and diverse society, there seems to be too much work to do to take a whole day each week for rest and attention to inner work – the traditional meaning of the word Sabbath, at least in the Judeo-Christian understanding. I found an interesting and comforting thought in an alternate translation of the psalm that followed Isaiah’s words, a more personalized possibility of a way to conceptualize a Sabbath. Here is how Psalm 86, named by Lynn Bauman God’s Secret Inner Comfort, speaks to God:
This morning for some reason I was thrown back into thoughts of “Saturday in the convent,” my early days in the novitiate when Saturday was the day for housework. It made (and probably still makes) sense for people who worked a “regular work week” to consider Saturday that way. Now, in our country, there seems to be little that is “regular.” A recent addition to our shorthand is 24/7, a concept that sometimes seems less than advisable or even possible. Grocery stores, pharmacies and fast-food restaurants are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week – necessary perhaps because there are three shifts now in many businesses. People are always “on the go” and even “Sabbath” – that concept of a holy rest day – has become a thing of the past. For me there’s still something in the feeling of waking up on Saturday that seems possible, some sense of putting things aright that comes from cleaning house and straightening things out. Whether it’s paying bills or washing windows, the inner renewal that is a by-product of such activities sometimes sets us on a more balanced course for the week to come.
Within the next 48 hours, I will spend time reflecting with about 100 people on the topic of mercy. In his short time as pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis has electrified the world with his bold statements and writings on many topics and has manifested in his person and actions the love that runs as a theme through all that he proclaims. On December 8th of last year, Francis proclaimed a Jubilee Year of Mercy. The biblical understanding of sabbath stated that every seven years the land should lie fallow (resting the soil from the depletion caused by the crops) and after seven such cycles, the 50th year – jubilee – when people would also rest, “giving back” during which land was to be returned to original owner and captives were to be set free, the underlying intent being to restore right relationships and ensure that everyone had the means to live a productive life.