Fog near Monterey Bay

The Fourth of July dawned foggy and cold this morning in Santa Cruz. Not too surprising. It is, after all, “fog season.” Usually the fog lifts by early afternoon, but it’s after 3 now and except for it being a touch ligher, there’s no blue sky near the ocean.

It’s been an unusual Sunday for us. The celebration of the Mass we usually attend can’t take place when the 4th falls on a Sunday because the Aptos 4th of July Parade starts in the street beside the church (Resurrection Parish). Our pastor offered a “Park, Pray & Parade” special to all who wanted to attend the 8:15 Mass, but that’s a bit early for my family. So we chose to visit another parish community this week.

We arrived just on time for Mass at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz, after having been diverted by a detour due to closure of the road that passes the church. We came in the back way and parked behind the old school building. Arriving at the front of the church, the reason for the road closure was apparent. A brass band was playing, people were milling around, dressed in their “Sunday best,” (not a common sight in Santa Cruz on a holiday weekend) and lots of young girls were dressed in long white gowns, with capes and trains and wearing glittering crowns. We’ve lived here a long time, but this was the first time we’d arrived for this celebration.

We went into the church and discovered that the Portuguese community was having their annual celebration of the Feast of St. Elizabeth of Portugal. St. Elizabeth (1271 – 1336) was Queen of Portugal and noted for her devotion to the Holy Spirit and her care for the poor. Married at the age of 12, she was none-the-less a strong spirited woman who was not afraid to think for herself and even defy her husband. It is said that when he forbade her to take food to the poor, she continued to do so anyway. One day he caught her and asked what she had hidden under her cloak. She replied, “Roses.” He scoffed at that response because it was January and roses are not blooming in January in Portugal. He tore her cloak open and found, to his amazement, that she was indeed carrying roses.

St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Elizabeth (Isabel) was also known to be a peacemaker. When her husband and son, leading armies against each other, met on the battlefield, she marched out between them and made them come to terms of peace. Later, in her old age, she did the same when her son prepared to fight the king of Castile.

In Santa Cruz and around the world, where Portuguese communities live, the feast of St. Elizabeth is celebrated with special prayers to the Holy Spirit and blessings for the girls. This celebration occurs every year. I’d seen the procession after Mass – everyone walks from the church, up over the freeway and down to the Portuguese Hall in the park nearby for an afternoon of feasting and fun. It was a blessing to share Eucharist with them this year.

After the final hymn, in Portuguese, the choir led those who had not yet processed out of the building in the song, America the Beautiful. It seemed fitting. Here we all were. People literally from all over the world. Old folks and children. Parishioners and visitors to the community. People from all different walks of life. Social liberals and social conservatives. Gathered together to hear the word of God, celebrate Eucharist together and pray with thanksgiving for the gift of a wise and generous queen centuries ago, the gift of a nation with “freedom and justice for all” that we have received from our forebears in this country and to ask for the gift of wisdom for ourselves and our leaders now, in this time, with the challenges we face today.

The  original words of the hymn, and it is indeed a hymn, are worth pondering as we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this country today.

America the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Amen! May it be so.

Happy 4th of July!

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. We celebrate the great gift of the Eucharist – a feast of thanksgiving. We celebrate that the Lord has given His very being to us to be food for our journey through our lives here and now – from this day to the day of our birth into eternal life in the next here and now.

I’m struck today by the contrast between the Lord’s gift of allowing us to eat of His body and blood, soul and divinity and the way in which those spirits not in union with God, the evil ones, feed on our energies when we choose to welcome them into our lives even for a moment.

It became very clear to me again yesterday how quickly and subtly they will move in and start draining energy away from individuals and families. I received a notice in the mail regarding a challenge we’ve been facing as a result of the problems in the global financial markets hitting “Main Street.” I don’t know what the notice means, but it’s not a great situation and it could be the first step of more challenges coming. On the other hand, it might not mean anything negative at all.

But I was tired and a bit stressed and I found myself fretting about it. Then other things started popping up with their “… and did you remember that he …” and “… can you believe the nerve of …” Nothing huge involved. Nothing to which I would not have agreed. Just that quiet, insidious little voice encouraging me to feel upset, tired, a little resentful, or whatever.

As I got more out of sorts, others in the family also got edgy, including the resident baby.

Finally, my children sent me for a walk with the baby and fixed dinner themselves. On the walk, a relatively quiet activity with a very young child in a stroller, I realized what was happening. I closed the feeding trough to the spirits who had crept in and I asked my Guardian Angel and the Holy Spirit to protect me and us from their influence.

One thing I’ve learned – that kind of prayer is never ignored. I was better immediately and we had a lovely dinner and pleasant evening.

So, how does this relate to Corpus Christi? We can choose to allow the evil spirits to invade. We can feed them. The expression, “What’s eating you?” is absolutely an accurate description of an unseen reality. Or we can keep closing that restaurant when they come around and instead feed on the love of God, the body and blood of our Lord.

The neat thing is this. To the extent we feed on the Lord, we can then help feed those around us in positive ways. Everything becomes manageable again. Problems can be solved. Joy returns.

I still don’t know what that notice means, but whatever it means, all will be well as long as I/we remember Who should feed whom.

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi.

Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso

We celebrated the feast of Pentecost this past Sunday. It’s the Birthday of the Church and one of my favorite celebrations. Without the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, we would most likely never have heard the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His followers were just plain too scared to tell what they had witnessed.

At Pentecost, the Lord’s promise that He would ask the Father to send an Advocate to us, one who would continue to teach us what we need to know, was fulfilled. We entered the age of the Holy Spirit, an age that continues to our day.

I was musing on the wonders of the coming of the Spirit and the importance of the event yesterday while doing laundry and caring for my 14 month old grandson. (Yes, he’s a beautiful child and a rare delight!) I’d had a conversation on Sunday with a non-Catholic friend who had really never heard of Pentecost in her religious experience. We had talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the timing of the feast in relation to Easter and the effect of the Spirit’s coming on the early Christian community. I’m always surprised to find again that people are not aware of the story of the Church and the many twists and turns of its history. There is so often a sense that all was clear and settled from the start. The Acts of the Apostles makes it clear that the first followers of The Way were feeling their way and responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit just as we must today.

My grandson loves to fold clothes. Up until a week ago, he simply stood by the davenport (sofa, couch) and pulled the clothes off as fast as he could. Once they were all on the floor, he’d hand them to me as fast as he could. Then I’d pick all of them up and we’d repeat the process, with a few more actually getting folded at each repetition! Last week he discovered that he no longer needs to hold a big person’s hand to walk or even run. So now he grabs an article of clothing from the stack and takes off racing across the room with it, dropping it at some point along his way.

He was laughing happily and carrying a handkerchief when suddenly he stopped. Several of us, including the child, have had colds, including runny noses. He’s been fascinated by the blowing of noses that has been occurring around the household. He put the handkerchief to his nose and made a loud blowing sound through his lips. He was so proud of himself. He was certain he’d figured out how to make that amazing noise that all of us had been making. In fact, he was so delighted, that he raced back to the davenport, grabbed a shirt and repeated the feat. Then a sock… Then a pair of pants…  Each time he simply beamed with delight and laughed uproariously.

It struck me, as I watched and laughed with him, that we are blessed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit continue to be poured out among us, with the Spirit continuing to teach us in our day too. As we learn so much more in the worlds of science, math, psychology, anthropology and all the other realms of human knowledge, it is truly a blessing that the Holy Spirit is with us, enlightening our hearts so we can see the Lord’s hand in all of creation in ever more wondrous ways. Imagine how sad it would be if we were forever condemned to the level of understanding of a small child who believes that blowing his nose requires use of his mouth! It’s a fine step on the way to understanding of the real way to perform the task, but only a step. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, we too move forward in our journey, growing up a little more each day and each generation, to see the wonders the Lord has wrought for us.

Happy Birthday, Church.

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.

There is often a lot of hand wringing and concern about the revival of pre-Christian earth based religions or neo-paganism. Whether it is the five pointed star -the pentagram- demons and vampires, or dancing and drumming at the equinoxes and solstices, all the signs seem to herald something worse than the age of atheism – the return of polytheism. We have now gone full circle from the one God back to many gods and goddesses.

New Age spiritualism allows people to celebrate the reality that is deeper than the merely physical without any of the doctrine or historical messiness of Christianity or any “organized” religion. It allows people to access the transnatural directly or in small groups led by a shaman. There is no need for big buildings, big groups, or any separation from the sacredness of nature.

The Magi or Wisemen were actually following the stars that announced the birth of a new King of Israel. The arrival of the Magi is called the Shining Forth – the Epiphany – the appearance of God to all of the world beyond Bethlehem of Judea.

What was wondrous to good people willing to see the obvious signs was hidden from the evil King Herod.

Although the resurgence of paganism is characteristic of something called the New Age perhaps it represents a search for the Divine in Creation, for the feminine, a faith that the Gaia may rally to overcome the forces threatening to destroy the biosphere and save us from ourselves.

The Magi today are poets, scientists, and dreamers led by Grace to see and understand the portents of the night sky as they search for Day. Caught up in our temples, traditions, and tedium have we missed the Star calling us forth?

Adorazione del Bambino - Fra Angelico

Christmas is upon us here in Santa Cruz, California. It’s been a lovely, sunny day for Christmas Eve. Not hot, but not cold either. A fine day for a walk by the ocean. Tomorrow promises to be as lovely.

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on the great miracle that is life. I don’t do church work for a living. Randy and I work as consultants in the design of health care services and delivery of care, among other things.  One of my areas of expertise is translation of health care related materials into Spanish. These past couple of months, I’ve been working on a glossary of terms for a basic Biology textbook. It’s been absolutely fascinating.

Over 30 years ago, I graduated from Gonzaga University with undergraduate majors in Biology and Spanish. Through the years, I’ve combined the interests in a lot of ways, but I really haven’t had the chance to keep completely up to date with my knowledge of science. As a result, a lot of what I’m translating is new information for me. I’m spending a lot of time on the Internet, learning the new basics of Chemistry, Biology and Enviornmental Sciences so I can translate the definitions in a way that they will make sense in another language. I spend a lot of that time reading in Spanish, to find correct technical terms for things like “blebbing” and “Wobble base pairing of nucleotides,” as well as whether a particular metabolic pathway is generally called a “ruta” or a “vía.” As I said, it’s been a fascinating, though time consuming project.

So what does this have to do with theology and Christmas? The thing that keeps blowing my mind is that all that I see around me, all the people in my life, all the wonders of nature and of technology, all keep going because of simple positive and negative charges in atoms and the way those atoms interact with each other! Without those very fundamental chemical reactions, none of this, none of us, would even be, let alone be who and what we are. And yet, beyond the chemistry that underlies the biology, there is a spark of Divine life within each of us as humans. There is something that makes us different. While we can sometimes be as blind to other possiblities as the family cat who couldn’t figure out this morning that she could go around her perch to get up on it and eat her breakfast away from the neighbor cats, we do have the capacity to look at a challenging situation or something that is different than we expected and find new  and different solutions.  And we can think up new and better ways to do things, making life easier for all. We can choose to do great evil, but we can also choose to do great good. That spark of Divine life is a tremendous gift.

And then we come to Christmas. And at Christmas we remember that the Creator of all, the One who Is and Was and Ever Will Be, the One who loves all of creation into being and keeps us in existence with love, didn’t stop with being above it all and loving it into being. God chose to become one of us. And on top of that, God became a baby boy. A tiny, helpless child. All I can say is, Wow. We are truly blessed.

Merry Christmas to all. May this coming year be one of great joy and peace for you, through all the challenges you face, and may you know deeply the great love of our God who is Father/Parent, Son/Brother and Holy Spirit of Love.

Christ the King - Annunciation Melkite Catholic Church

We’re rapidly coming to the end of the liturgical year. Last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King. The week before we heard readings speaking of the end of time. This coming Sunday we’ll celebrate the beginning of a new season, Advent. It’s the Church’s New Year’s Day.

As this year draws to a close, there’s much talk of a new movie about the destruction of the Earth, this time in 2012, based on an ancient indigenous calendar’s timing of the end of a cycle of life. Almost certainly, the movie is and will remain fiction. Yet, we know that at some point, life on Earth as we know it will come to an end – both for each individual and for humans as a species. Eventually, the Earth will become uninhabitable for any life forms due to changes in our Sun – but that’s a long time in the future and we living here now really don’t need to worry much about it!

So, how do we mark this time of transition from one year to the next? How do we celebrate and hope for the coming of Christ the King? How do we live a life of faith that the Kingdom is already begun in the here and now? When our plans fall short and all seems lost, how do we trust that “All will be well”?

These questions are ones that many of us are facing today. The past months have brought many challenges economically, socially, physically, and in every other way one might imagine. In my own family there have been births and deaths, marriages and divorces, graduations from high school and colleges, first days of first grade, birthdays that mark a new decade of life, a home lost to a fire and two families joining into one household for a time of regrouping and new beginnings, jobs lost and new careers found. Some of these events were planned. Some were not. But somehow, all are part of the Kingdom and we are invited to see the face of Christ the King in the faces of those around us who love and encourage and help us through the tough times, as well as rejoice with us in the hard ones.

Fr. Ron Shirley, in his homily November 15, spoke of a conversation he had with a wise priest when he was a boy. He had been concerned about all the readings and predictions of the end of the world and the travails that were to come on the world. The priest reassured him, “Make sure to keep yourself in the love of God today – the rest will take care of itself.” Fr. Ron reminded us that staying in the love of God involves keeping our thoughts, words and actions loving – right now, in our lives today.

Deacon Patrick Conway, on the Feast of Christ the King, shared the stories of people from our own parish and their reflections on the way they have seen Christ in their lives.

As we leave this year behind us and move into our new liturgical season and year, my prayer is that we’ll all remember to stay in God’s love, in our thoughts, words and deeds, and to trust that the rest will take care of itself. Life is not predictable. Life “happens.” But when we can remember that God is able to bring good out of all circumstances, we can hold out in hope that all will be well, in God’s good time and we can celebrate the Kingship of our Lord in our lives today and in the future.

St. Agnes of Assisi - St. Joseph's Monastery of Poor Clares in Aptos, CA

In his homily today at Mass, Fr. Ken Lavarone, OFM, included the story of a third grade girl’s response to the question, “What is a saint?” The little girl answered that saints are the people in the stained glass windows on the walls of the church. The light shines through all of them, spreading bright colors over all of us.  

Fr. Ken used this example to remind us that the light of God shines through the lives of the saints, all of them/all of us, both those living  in the here and now and those living with God in eternal life. That light brings color and joy, hope and beauty into our lives, through the good times and the hard times.

May the light and love of God shine into your life today and always and may you be, in turn, a window through which God’s light and love shine for others.

 Rosaries made by my Brother-in-law, Larry Perkins

October 7 is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. This feast was established in 1573 to celebrate the naval victory at Lepanto over invading Turkish forces. Pope Pius V attributed the success of the smaller Europen forces in defeating larger numbers of invaders to the prayers of people throughout Europe who were praying the rosary and asking God for help. The feast became part of the calendar for the universal Church in 1716.

The rosary is a string of beads used to help keep track of a series of prayers which are repeated in a specific order. On each bead in the rosary a prayer is said. These include the Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostle’s Creed and Doxology (the Glory Be). The Hail Holy Queen is traditionally the last prayer of the rosary before the final Sign of the Cross. 

When I was a girl, a retreat house was opened in our diocese. As part of the campaign needed for its successful completion, we were asked to pray the rosary. In place of the Hail Holy Queen, we all prayed the Memorare. So for me, that became the concluding prayer of the rosary.

The rosary includes 20 mysteries related to the life of Christ and of Mary. The Joyful Mysteries are: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus, the Presentation and the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. The Luminous Mysteries include: The Baptism of Jesus, Jesus Reveals Himself in the Miracle at Cana, Jesus Preaches the Good News of Conversion, Repentance and Forgiveness, The Transfiguration of Jesus, and The Institution of the Eucharist. The Sorrowful Mysteries include: the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion. The Glorious Mysteries are: the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Coming of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, the Assumption of Mary and the Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth.

The rosary has been an aid to Christian prayer since the time of St. Dominic in the 1200s. (Buddhists and Moslems also use strings of beads to help them in their prayers.) In praying with the rosary, we can have a focus for our thoughts while being open to God’s presence. The repetition of prayers gives us a base to hold while our thoughts are turned to God. The rosary is a good prayer to use in the evening or in the morning or even in the middle of the night if a person wakes up then. It is not necessary to complete the entire rosary at one time. Falling asleep during the rosary is OK. God is always happy to have us fall asleep relaxed comfortably in the arms of prayer, just like a parent rocking a small child to sleep.

On this day, a feast originally established to commemorate a naval victory, may our prayers be for peace, understanding, and cooperation among people of good will, regardless of religious  and other differences that divide us.

Russian Icon of the Birth of Mary

The birthday of the mother of Jesus, Mary, daughter of Joachim and Ann, is celebrated on September 8. It is an ancient feast, dating from the fifth century dedication of a church in Jerusalem. The church is known today as the basilica of St. Ann, mother of Mary. The feast is celebrated both in the Eastern and Western churches. 

In honor of her birthday, I offer what is perhaps her second most famous prayer, a prayer banned even in our times by despots and dictators who feared its power to inspire hope, courage and trust in God’s goodness and love of the poor and oppressed. May this be our prayer too.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

                my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness;

                behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.

The Mighty One has done great things for me,

                and holy is his name.

His mercy is from age to age

                to those who fear him.

He has shown might with his arm,

                dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.

He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones

                but lifted up the lowly.

The hungry he has filled with good things;

                the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped Israel his servant,

                remembering his mercy,

according to his promise to our fathers,

                to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

(Lk 1:46-55)