I’ve seen this quote from Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J. in the past and always been delighted with it. I came across it again today. It seems quite apt as we are celebrating the time of the Holy Spirit of Love during this season of Ordinary Time.

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, that is, than
FALLING IN LOVE
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed
in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with
joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Pedro Arrupe, SJ

Richard Rohr, OFM

Recently I’ve been listening to Fr. Richard Rohr’s three CD set, Exploring and Experiencing The Naked Now, a recording of two webcasts in which he talks about his work on non-dual thinking and the insights of the contemplative/mystic tradition of Christianity. Rohr’s work provides a fine background for the last couple of weeks of Lent and moving into Easter.

A central insight of Rohr’s work is that non-dualistic thinking is central to experiencing the mystery of Christ and the Trinity. God is One, yet we know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The contrast boggles the mind when we try to explain, define or otherwise pin down the mystery. Our minds, trained to make logical distinctions and put all we experience into categories of “this/not that,” find it hard to deal with the “yes/and”  of combining such seemingly irreconcilable statements. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us into the mystery and teaches through example, images and stories that seem to contradict each other. In one place, for example, he says that his followers are to turn the other cheek when someone strikes them. In another, he counsels that it’s time to take swords along to the place where he and is friends planned to spend the night. At yet another, he turns over the tables of the money-changers in the temple and drives them out. Then when the chips are down, he heals the ear of the servant of the High Priest in the Garden of Gethsemane and goes to his death without offering resistance. So which is it? Non-violent always or Violent sometimes? Do we simply choose one meaning – the one that suits what we want to do – or are we supposed to try to make some logical sense of the contrasting statements/actions or must we somehow live in the mystery, without needing to explain it logically. And if we do that, won’t we be seen as somehow immature and childish?

Rohr suggests that a return to the contemplative mindset is essential in the long-run. It is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life. Union with God, a return to the non-duality of the Garden of Eden, is the final goal of our lives and quest. We start non-dualistically as infants and small children. We move away from non-dualism around the age of reason and begin to be able to separate from God, make wrong choices, and, dare I say it, to sin. We learn what is right and what is wrong. We learn to make distinctions. Then we think we’ve got it all set for the rest of our lives. But we’re right smack dab in the middle of a dualistic world and mindset. So everything gets phrased in terms of win/lose or “limited good” (a concept from anthropology) – what is good for you will take something from me. We forget, or perhaps haven’t consciously experienced, that God’s love comes to us like water flowing through a pipeline or electricity flowing down a wire. As long as there’s no blockage, it just keeps coming. The critical thing is to keep the pipe open, the transmission line unbroken. But that gets scary. The “what ifs” start raising their ugly heads. And we fight against anyone or anything that seems to threaten the way things are now, even if it’s not ideal. And so we block the flow, partially or totally.

Rohr argues that the only way we can move beyond dualism in our thinking and again enter non-dualistic reality is through the path of great love or the path of great suffering.  In both situations, the normal ways of coping or experiencing reality fall away.  We don’t have the energy to block the flow. We’re too deeply in the joy or sorrow. “Everything’s coming up roses …” as the song says. Or, alternatively, we cry out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Where are you when I need you God? In either condition, we are open to experience the wonder of God’s love and compassion without trying to (or even being capable of) splitting it into dualistic compartments or categories. The experiences are too overwhelming, too all encompasing, too intense to allow for separation and dualism. And then we can grow in wisdom. And we experience redemption – a return to union with our God – set free from the normal ties that hold us bound in worry of losing our “secure” duality.

Meanwhile, “back at the farm,” the troubles and tragedies of world events continue through Holy Week.  A small group of people are arrested for plotting to kill a police officer and then kill more officers at his funeral, all in the name of Christ. What madness is this? Bombs explode in crowded places around the world, in the name of God. What madness is that? How can religious people believe that the creator of all of us and of all of the wonders of the universe could want us to be killing each other? And how could we dare to think we do it in his name, by his authorization? How can Christians be terrorists, as Leonard Pitts notes in a recent column? Is our God really so helpless or so impotent that he could condone such action, such dualistic us/them action?

Jesus went to the cross rather than try to force God’s hand to free his nation from the Romans by inciting a rebellion, as some would have liked. He went to the cross rather than deny the truth that God is more interested in the way we treat each other than in the sacrifices we bring to the altar. He went to the cross rather than run away and deny that he had experienced a very special relationship with his Father, one that the Father wants to share with the rest of us too. And redemption came out of that great passionate love and suffering. Easter came to all the world and our separation from God came to a resounding end.

May each of us move forward in this Easter season in joy and trust, building on the faith of our younger years and beginning to enter into the world of contemplation, of not dividing the “real” from the “ideal,” of really believing the Good News, that love is all that really matters, and love will make all the suffering lead to the peace and deep, deep joy of the children of God.

The Resurrection of Lazarus - Byzantine icon - 14th-15th century

As we move more deeply into Holy Week, I find myself still reflecting on the reading from the Gospel of John that is used in the liturgies for the Scrutinies as part of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults – the story of the raising of Lazarus. In our parish, we celebrate the Scrutinies as a community, with all invited to examine our own lives for areas of thirst, blindness, and death within us. Generally during the week following the third scrutiny, area parishes schedule Reconcilation services in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. The three weeks of RCIA celebrations are a good preparation for Reconciliation.

But back to the story of Lazarus. Our celebrant and  homilist on the third Sunday this year was a visitor who had been pastor of our parish many years earlier. I always look forward to hearing new insights from him and I often remember homilies from those earlier years as well. This year he explained that the name Lazarus could be roughly translated as “God to the Rescue.” It comes from the Hebrew name, Eleazar, which is translated “God has helped.” In both the story of the raising of Lazarus and the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, God comes to the rescue of an individual in great need. The raising of Lazarus is one of the great signs in John’s telling of the Good News to lead us to faith in Jesus.

Another point that always strikes me in the story of the raising of Lazarus is the order Jesus gives the bystanders when Lazarus comes out of the tomb. He tells them, “Unbind him and set him free.” Lazarus can’t do it himself. And we can’t do it for ourselves.

We are each tied up by so many expectations, fears, patterns of behavior, traditions, and so forth that it can be next to impossible to try something new or to discover deeper levels of meaning or being in our lives. Going away to another community or to college can be a way that an individual becomes freed to experiment and learn who he or she is or wants to become. But not everyone has that opportunity. And for the majority of our lives, we live in communities where we are known, with people/family/friends who know us and expect certain behaviors and responses from us. Because of this each of us needs our family and friends to unbind us and set us free, just as Lazarus needed his community to set him free to live again.

In the Gospel of John, Lazarus is a “type” of the Christian disciple. He is the “everyman” character who represents all of us. We are all the ones whom God has rescued. We are all the ones freed and instructed to set the other free.

During this Holy Week, as we prepare for the Easter mysteries, plumbing the depths of sadness and rising to the peaks of joy in our liturgies, may we all be ready, like Lazarus, for God to come to our rescue, for our family and friends to set us free, and in turn to be the ones ready and willing to give that same gift to those with whom we share our lives.

Mardi Gras beads

It’s Tuesday afternoon, the day before Ash Wednesday, a day called Mardi Gras  or Carnival in many places. The sun is shining yet again here in Santa Cruz, as it did all weekend, with warm breezes, bird song, blooming fruit trees, sour grass, wild radish, camelias and daffodils to celebrate the wonder and promise of Spring. A far cry from the winter so many people are still experiencing here in the Northern Hemisphere. It should be noted, that this beautiful weather will not last for long. Already storms are lining up out on the ocean for the end of the week. But today it is beautiful.

I’m sitting here thinking about the interesting confluence of themes that have met this week. Sunday was Valentine’s Day, a day of hearts and flowers, a day of many marriages, the birthday of a friend from graduate school whom I remember fondly, a day of gifts and remembrances for those we love. For some it’s a day of disappointment or sadness, when a loved one is not thrilled, or when no one is there to say “I love you,” or when a relationship has ended and the hurt has not begun to heal.  

Sunday was also the day many people in the world celebrate the beginning of a new year, a day we call Chinese New Year, though it isn’t only the Chinese who celebrate this day. Parades, parties, special foods, gifts, and good wishes abound.  It’s a day of hope for the future.

This particular Sunday, the readings of Cycle C from Jeremiah, Paul and Luke challenged us to keep our focus on the Lord and not put our fundamental trust in the things of this world. Calling the poor, the hungry, the weeping and the excluded ones among us blessed, Jesus warns that those who find life easy and who never challenge the status quo for fear of arousing the enmity of those in power are not close to the kingdom of God. It’s a message that is far from our American cultural concept, drawn from the earliest colonial days, that those who are economically secure and respected by their fellows are those blessed by God, while those who are poor, sick, injured, or otherwise disadvantaged are somehow not pleasing to God and are being punished.

Father Ron Shirley, our pastor, in his homily told the story of a wedding toast. The best man offered a toast wishing only the best for the bride and groom, with never a moment of pain or sadness. Then a stranger stepped up and offered a toast. He was dressed simply and seemed out of place. He assured the couple that he loved them deeply then offered a series of strange wishes for them – that poverty, sorrow, pain, and controversy would be part of their lives.

Today we celebrate Mardi Gras – with rich foods, parties, celebrations of abundance and the promise of good things to come.  And tomorrow we enter into a time of reflection, of conversion, and of returning our attention and our intentions to God and the works of God. Are they opposites or mutually exclusive? I don’t think so. Jesus and his followers certainly didn’t go around in sack cloth and ashes, continually fasting. They were criticized for their love of good times and celebrations. But there is a time and a place for abstaining from some of the good things of live in order to be open to the deeper fundamentals of God’s life and love for us. Jesus and his followers quietly entered into those times as well.

And so we follow them into these weeks of reflection and self-control, as we break our addictions to the excesses of the world around us and try to be more open to the quiet wonders of God’s love in people and in nature. The season is turning. New hope is in the air. Easter is coming soon.

May these days of Lenten preparation be full of the awareness of the Lord’s presence in your life and of the abundance of His love and support in all of life’s challenges.

Going Fishing

The Sunday readings over the past few weeks have touched on the theme of being called. Called to speak on the Lord’s behalf as a prophet, called to preach the good news, called to teach, called to lead the people, and so forth. In years past and today, in all times and places, the Lord calls ordinary people to speak and act on his behalf.

The readings for this coming Sunday, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, tell of the vision and call of Isaiah, the call of Paul to be an apostle and the call of Peter, James and John. Each of them responded in a similar manner when they realized Who was calling them. “Woe is me, I am doomed!” says Isaiah. “…I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,” says Paul. “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,” says Peter.

However, the Lord does not leave. Instead, a seraphim takes an ember from the altar of the Lord and purifies the mouth of Isaiah. Paul comes to faith through a period of physical blindness, receiving care from those he had journeyed to persecute. Peter and his companions are comforted, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

Each then responds with willing service. Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord, “Whom shall I send?” and responds “Here I am. … send me.”  Paul tells us, “by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace to me has not been ineffective.” Peter, James and John took their boats to the shore, left everything and followed Jesus.

Each of these ordinary people heard the Lord’s call in his own way and within his own everyday world. Their response is remembered today. Unfortunately, we often think that they were some sort of unusual people, extra holy or something - worthy to be called by God. But really, they were just ordinary people. When they heard God’s call, they answered “yes.” They hadn’t gone out of their way looking for God. They didn’t consider themselves particularly prepared or inclined to teach or preach or lead a community. Yet when the Lord asked them to do these things, they did them.

We too are called. We too have something the Lord needs and wants us to do. Each of us is to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding our way and leading us into our worlds to share the good news, to remind others that God loves even those whose lives seem least worthwhile or important. We don’t know when or how it will happen that we will speak the Lord’s words to the person who needs to hear them. That’s OK. It doesn’t matter if we know. All we have to do is keep trusting the Holy Spirit to guide and then live as lovingly as we can.

A woman I’ve known since childhood has an approach that I often remember. She talks of “going fishing” when she finds herself in a position to share her experience of God’s love and care with others. Each of us is called to “go fishing” with the Lord. He’ll make us partners in his mission of fishing for men, women and children to build the kingdom of God together.

While camping recently with my wife and daughter in the redwoods near Santa Cruz, I spent some time with an enlightening and very readable book.

Christopher Hall in Learning Theology With the Church Fathers does a good job of summarizing St. Augustine’s notion of the fallen nature of humanity. St. Augustine is convinced that something went terribly wrong when Adam ate the forbidden fruit so that we are not capable of really loving and knowing the good until we are redeemed in Baptism. Of course this led not only to the notion of infant baptism but also to the notion that unbaptized infants would suffer the wrath of God in eternal punishment. It is logically consistent but it seems to be extreme and never became as much of a prominent idea in the Orthodox East as it did in the Catholic and Protestant West.

This doesn’t square with the Black civil rights assertion of human dignity: “God don’t make no trash!” In fact, it seems at odds with the fundamental goodness of creation which St. Augustine upheld in the face the Gnostic conception that creation was a mistake by a lesser god and matter is evil.

Today we might explain these things as laziness, psychological conflicts, compulsions, addictions, or unhealthy repression.

In St. Augustine’s defense, we should remember that he is also considered one of the founders of psychology. His concepts of memory, will, and understanding as the core of individual identity still hold up in the face of contemporary neuroscience. It seems that the key problem he wrestled with from his own experience and that of people he observed was our ability to know what is good and not to be drawn to it in a way that compels our will. In other words, we know the right thing to do and we do the opposite.

For Augustine, the arena of sexual behavior was particularly problematic. Unfortunately, for example, he didn’t have our understanding of human sexual anatomy and physiology and he felt that what we would call involuntary responses were a sign of lack of control and the conquest of the will. His promiscuous sexual behavior prior to his conversion appears to us post-moderns as bordering on addiction. Today, in contrast, we might view orgasm as something healthy and transformative. In fact, we have made it something holy at the core of the sacrament of matrimony. However, the momentary obliteration of memory, understanding, and will made it highly suspect for an upper class Roman like St. Augustine living during the decline and fall of the empire.

Relaxing in the redwoods enjoying creation seems an awful lot like a certain lost garden. Does God really need to be appeased or does he just continue to reach out to us in love – the beautiful love of creation? Are we only saved in Christ if we are baptized? Is salvation questionable outside the community of the baptized faithful? The traditional and orthodox answers are yes. Is everything else outside the assembly’s official teaching false? The official answer is yes.

What about the Spirit hovering over the abyss? About the eruption of God in space-time? Is our teaching about faith or about certainty? The church fathers sought revelation in the written books and the book of nature. Does not all creation shout the glory of God? Did not Jesus put all things right? Would a God of love do it for just a few?

Would a father or mother provide for only some of their children and leave the rest in eternal darkness? “Evil as you are would any of you give your son a scorpion when he asked for bread…” Would a father or mother require death by hideous torture of a beloved son?

In terms of making some sense of the death of Jesus in a culture in which thousands of animals were sacrificed each day as part of official worship, the notion of Christ as the final and only suitable victim is comprehensible. His final and complete sacrifice also explain the loss of the Temple and the genocide of a people lost in hopeless insurrection. How else could the death of God’s son make any sense? Yet once we begin this paternal projection and anthropomorphism of the One God, our words and images fall on hard ground.

Per usual, I have begun at the end, since Learning Theology With the Church Fathers actually begins with wonderful treatments of what we used to call De Deo Uno (the one God) and De Deo Trino (the triune God). Hall takes the wise course of not trying to explain the indescribable but begins by the efforts of the early Hellenistic church trying somehow to grasp the reality behind the hymns of praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the one God and to Jesus as the Eternal Word.

How can this be? Yes, that is the question, whether one is caught up in the majesty of the redwoods or the radiant light from light, begotten not made causing them to break forth into the Song beyond all hearing that is Music, Word, and Divine Rhythm.

St. Augustine’s famous Chapter 10 of The Confessions says it much better than I could.

Late have I loved you,
O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,
late have I loved you!

You were within me, but I was outside,
and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.

You were with me, but I was not with you.
Created things kept me from you;
yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all.

You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.
You breathed your fragrance on me;
I drew in breath and now I pant for you.

I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

St. Camillus de Lellis (feast day July 18) was the man in question. A post written last year gives more details of his life. However, in brief, here’s a thumbnail sketch of it. Born in the mid-1500s, he founded an order of religious men who dedicate their lives to the care of the sick and dying. But before be became the founder of a religious order, he was a soldier, a mercenary, a gambler, and overall rowdy fellow. His mother, who was nearing age 60 when he was born, had a dream in which she saw him wearing a cross on his chest. Those condemned to death wore crosses on their chests on their way to their execution, so she feared that he would grow up to be a criminal or leader of criminals. She died when he was about 13 and didn’t see his rowdy adolescence and young manhood. I assume she continued to intercede on his behalf after her death – and her prayers were answered. By the time he was 25, his life turned around and he dedicated his remaining years to care of the sick.

Today we take it for granted that Christians/Catholics will care for the sick and dying. We have many hospitals and religious orders that do just that. But in his time, it was a new idea. Sick and dying people who found themselves in hospitals rather than receiving care from loved ones in their beds at home were often neglected, fed as little as possible, sometimes beaten and even taken to the morgue before they were actually dead. Camillus believed that was wrong and set about to change that reality. He began working in a hospital from which he had been ejected as an unruly patient. He got rid of employees who abused patients and brought in others who would treat their patients with care and compassion. As he explained, “We want to assist the sick with the same love that a mother has for her only sick child.” It was not to be just a job or an impersonal service. In caring for the sick, the understanding of St. Camillus and his brothers in the order was that they were caring for Christ as they cared for the sick and dying.

Camillians were among the first to go out onto battlefields and care for the injured and dying. In this, they preceded today’s Red Cross by approximately three centuries. The red cross on a black cassock worn by Camillus and his followers was a reminder to them that hospitals, like churches, were also houses of God and the voices of the sick were music in God’s garden.

The life of Camillus de Lellis is a reminder to us that God does not call perfect people to do great works. God calls everyday, ordinary people to step up and try to make things better in the day to day world of their lives. Those who have not suffered a bit, gotten bumped around a bit by life, or even crashed into chasms of suffering from which they could not emerge without help are generally not going to be as capable of letting God work through them. If we think we can do whatever it is ourselves, then we don’t let the power of God burst through us to do it so much better. Saints like Camillus de Lellis show us how much can be done when we let God lead.

Resurrection of Christ - Mikhail Nesterov (late 1890s)

Jesús No Murio Por Mi

Jesus Did Not Die for Me

Holy Weekend
The time of customary rituals
Of words spoken a thousand times
A season of the silence of death
Fasting, resolutions, and processions
A time of self-contained euphoria
As it seems sin sees the ending
We already know
and will flood all with life
A shallow season of hypocrisy
“Happy Easter”

A season of churches in a thousand different ways
yet a thousand ways the same
Cannot say other than what they have always said
“Jesus died for our salvation”
But “You know what?”
Jesus didn’t die for me
Jesus died because of cowardice,
greed, arrogance, love of power
by those who did not understand his message
by those afraid of the new
by those who had made a god to their own stature
by those who did not accept his offer of life to the full
not for just a few but for all men and women.
That death did not save anybody
Not even those who believed that they are saved by Jesus.

What saved me and you
And continues to save
Is that Jesus who became a person
Who identified with the people
Who was a baby and cried,
Who was a boy and played
Who grew and worked
Who was called to a mission and took it on
Who paused before the pain of men and women
Who in solidarity of gestures, words, and actions
Who did not silence what had to be said
And who though fearful, moved ahead
out of love, sheer love.

It was not his death, so cruel and unjust.
It was his life!
If death can be salvation
Whan can resurrection mean?
What sense does it make to celebrate Easter?
Death does not save
Even if it scandalizes theology
Life saves.
That is why resurrection is the great cry,
The lead story, the great news of our time
For this the stone rolls aways, the tomb opens
And foot steps are heard in the garden

God raises up Jesus
To condemn death forever
To announce that Life has won out
and that faith in the this Jesus who lives
who conquers the mercenaries of terror
is the faith that saves and
is the faith that makes us free.
What Peter said with such clarity
“This same Jesus whom you crucified
God has made Messiah and Lord”.

Jesus did not die for me.
They killed Jesus!
Jesus died because they tortured him in a blind rage
Because they wanted to shut him up and make him disappear
And because the powerful have always killed Him.

Yes, Jesus was born for me.
He also lived for me,
He taught, healed, pardoned, loved and rose again for me
for you and and for everyone.

Jesus did not die for me
nor for you nor anyone else
Perhaps, some day
We will stop honoring his death
In order to begin celebrating His LIFE.

Gerardo Oberman

translated by Randolfo R. Pozos 2009

The term “evangelization” means to share or spread good news. For Christians, the Good News we spread is of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Evangelization has been the privilege and role of followers of Jesus, Followers of the Way, from the very beginning. In the Gospels we read that Jesus gave this directive to His followers after the Resurrection when He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …” (Mt 28:19) 

From the day of Pentecost forward, empowered by the Holy Spirit, Christians have shared their beliefs with family, friends, neighbors and total strangers. Sometimes sharing the Good News takes the form of words. More often, it comes through action. One of the first things we know about early Christian community and life was the recorded observation that they were “of one heart and mind, … they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32) They were known for their love and caring for each other.

We evangelize and in turn we are evangelized by others. Each of us had had times when a kind word or a helping hand served as a reminder that we are loved. Someone taught each of us about God and God’s love for us in sending Jesus and their Holy Spirit.

I was reminded of this the other day at Mass. A mother was there with toddler firmly in arms. She has been bringing her son with her since he was tiny. Sometimes he sleeps, but increasingly he is awake, watching all with wide eyes. When it came time to pray the Our Father, his mother raised one hand and he raised his opposite hand. Together they joined in prayer with the rest of the community. Someday he’ll learn the words of the prayer, and perhaps some theology too. But the most important learning has already begun. He is part of a community of people who love God and care for each other. A community that bears witness through their everyday lives to the love they have received.

Pope John Paul II called the Church to a New Evangelization, reaching out again to our world, bringing the good news into every aspect of our lives and communities. We begin within our daily activities, sharing our hopes and dreams and visions, reaching out in love to those we meet, answering questions about our faith when asked, and trusting the Holy Spirit to guide our words and our ways. The men and women of faith who have gone before us have brought tremendous change for the better to the world. It’s our turn now. May we have the courage and grace to be evangelists in our day to day lives.