I like to take a walk in late morning each day. It helps clear my mind and stretch my muscles before I plunge into the work and activities of afternoon and evening. Living beside Monterey Bay, I never know what I’ll see on my outing.

Today, when I arrived at the water’s edge (actually at the cliff beside the water!), I got a wonderful surprise. I could see all of Monterey Bay - from the Lighthouse at Point Santa Cruz, around past Santa Cruz, Capitola, Aptos, Moss Landing, to the flatter lands where the Salinas River enters the Bay. Then the Big Sur mountains rise up behind Monterey and go out all the way to the ocean.  The water was calm - very few waves for the surfers. The kelp beds were spreading out to enjoy the sunshine. The sea lions on the rock were chatting among themselves. Sea gulls soared over the water. I could see it all.

In “the olden days,” when I was a girl, I would never have thought that seeing all the way around a bay was anything special. I grew up in Eastern Washington state. We had clouds or sunshine. Sometimes we had fog. But you could always see across the river! And normally, you could see the surrounding mountains too.

Living on the coast, we never know from day to day whether the fog will be in or not. Even on a sunny day, the fog often sits in the middle of the Bay, blocking the view of the other towns and the mountains. But today it is clear. The smoke from the Summit fire is gone from the sky. The clouds we have are high and moving inland. The fog is sitting way off the coast, barely visible from land. And the view is stunning.

It occurs to me that the spiritual life is something like our views of Monterey Bay. Like the Bay, God is always present here - within us, among us, around us. I exist only because God has imagined me, given me breath, breathes through me, loves me continually into being. Yet all too often I don’t notice. I don’t see the beauty all around me. I miss the “love notes” scattered all around me - the flowers, the birds, the native bees in the weeds, the smiles of young mothers and their babies, the laughter of teens and the comfortable togetherness of retired couples out for a walk. I don’t see them for what they are, or worse, I don’t see them at all. I move through my life’s conversation doing all the talking, forgetting to look and listen for the presence of the Divine.

Today I pray that I’ll remember to open my eyes, ears, heart, mind to notice God’s presence. I’ll remember to ask myself, “What keeps me from seeing today?” I’ll remember to be grateful. I invite you to do the same. And maybe while we’re at it, we could also stop gratefully for a moment and ask, “What keeps us as a people from seeing today?”

The Blessed Virgin Mary has many beautiful titles. St. Mary at Easter Tide is my very own. Scripture is very silent about the Mother of Jesus after the Resurrection. We know that she is present in the upper room when the Spirit comes upon the Apostles at Pentecost. At the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel tells her nothing about her future, except that her Son will be destined for the rise and fall of many in Israel. Mary’s first post-partum visit to the Temple portends a life of sorrow. According to Simeon, a sword will pierce her heart seven times. This most beloved young woman is left to ponder these things in her heart.

There are many good years together, until He leaves to find his cousin John at the Jordan. Then things go from bad to worse. Her friends and neighbors toss Him out of Nazareth. Jesus dies a horrible death; His mission a failure; her maiden’s vision becomes a bitter delusion. In his final words, Jesus entrusts St. John and Mary to each other - a final testament that seals the depth of grief.

There is no record of how Mary hears the news; of how she reacts. Who tells her? Jesus Himself? It seems that this duty falls to us. The noonday prayer echoes a wonderful joy - Regina Coeli laetare alleluia! Queen of Heaven Rejoice alleluia! … Resurexit sicut dixit! He has risen as He said (he would)!

Even though the words echo from my childhood at “Mid-century,” how well I remember and still experience the delightful childish skip in our hearts and step that we shared at Easter Tide. These are not the inspired words of the Gospel in the Hail Mary, nor the briefest of summaries of the Mystery of the Incarnation in the Angelus. For a prayer, Regina Coeli seems strangely out of character. There is no formality, no reserve. In our joy, we proclaim the Good News to the Mother of the Word Incarnate. God has turned our mourning into joy, but how could we ever begin to fathom what his news meant to the woman whose faith gave birth to us all?

I had read in a book way back in grammar school at Holy Cross School in Ventura, CA, in a time that is now referred to as “Mid-Century,” about boys hiking in the Alps on Easter Monday for a traditional lunch at high altitude with the angels. That custom may or may not have been true, but the thought of having lunch with the angels has always intrigued me. Perhaps, because my patron is St. Raphael the Archangel, the thought has always been somewhat appealing. After all, if you were an angel, wouldn’t you want a little break after all the hullabaloo of Holy Week?

Circumstances prevented me from wandering into the Santa Cruz mountains looking for angels to share ham and Easter eggs. The day was perfect, with a mild breeze, as I headed out across Lighthouse Field to Point Santa Cruz. The sky and the water were dazzling as I headed west up the coast along the ocean before it rounds the Point into Monterey Bay. There was excitement in the air. Whales migrating south to the Sea of Cortez around the tip of Baja California were passing by 100 to 300 feet offshore. They showed some interest in a kayak heading in the opposite direction, but continued on in graceful arcs, undulating effortlessly in the current as they coursed through the water.

It was a strange moment. The moment the houses along West Cliff, the roiling waves and sunlight all got stretched onto an impressionist canvas. I could see the brush strokes, the layering of the oil, the weave of the canvas. My neighborhood of almost 20 years became completely magical, serene, and spirit filled. I had pounded this walk many, many times before and it was always striking, even when cares and illness were heaviest on my heart, but today it was literally unreal.

Well, I guess my patron Archangel and his buddies were not waiting for me in the redwoods after all. It wasn’t the picnic with the angels that I had imagined as a boy. Whale watching with the angels on Easter Monday is something else.

For those who love Christ, remembering His passion and death is always an occasion for sorrow. However, such human acts as compassion are never simple. The pain of the impending loss of a loved one - anticipatory grief - can be worse than the actual loss. In fact, when death finally comes, we often feel guilty about experiencing relief. My friend Jim lost his father when Jim was in eighth grade, after a protracted two year battle with cancer. When we talked about it a couple of years later, Jim confessed that he still felt more relief than grief.

Of course, we couldn’t experience compassion without a close identification with the other. This becomes very complex in the person of the Christ. He did not fight his enemies. He did not curse. He did not condemn. He forgave. He blessed. This human-divine reaction to an injustice that is almost as inconceivable as it is enraging provides no adequate psychological outlet for the post-Freudian soul. How can we proclaim and fight for justice if God Himself did not? Tragically, the consolation in the Gospels and the wider testimony of the New Testament - that no evil, no matter how overwhelming, how senseless, can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus - escapes us. (Romans 8:38-39) Instead of experiencing this Passover of the Lord - the Blood of the Lamb on the door posts and lintel of our home that spares us from the Angel of Death - we run out into that night of despair by focusing on the ways we have been complicit with that evil.

When we hear that we are saved from a life defined by suffering and pain without meaning and no exit, we can think that we were saved from something we deserved. “Evil as you are … who among you would give his son a scorpion when he asked for bread?” (Loosely taken from Luke 11: 11-13) is a stark reminder to the disciples that Jesus could not conceive of His Father wanting anything less than we ourselves would want for our own children. Just as our children are all too much in our own image and likeness, we are in God’s. The teaching and life of Jesus in this regard is at odds with the vengeful patriarch of the Old Testament who punishes and chastises. (Lest we be tempted to think that Jews hold or held onto to this concept, we should remember that Jesus was not the only Jew who presented a view that had grown beyond it. The are interesting similarities between Jesus and his contemporary, Hillel the Elder.)

Enter God’s protectors:

“Ah hah! Now he has said it on his very own blog! Your own words condemn you. God doesn’t care about sin, you say. There are no consequences, no punishment, no reckoning. You present a God who is merciful, but not just. If Christ did not die for our sins how was the Father appeased? How is he the sacrificial victim?”

The Blogger Offers a Parable:

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful teacher who healed by word and touch and saved people from all kinds of physical, psychological, and social maladies. He made the mistake of speaking truth to power and telling religious and civil leaders that outward observance only made them into whitened sepulchers. They waited for the right time and got a close friend to betray him, and they took him off to Guantanamo, and then transferred him to a third world country, where he was tortured to death by specialists trained at the School of the Americas. Like so many thousands of his time, he was supposed to have become one of the disappeared. Fortunately for us, He didn’t stay dead and he didn’t stay hidden. Strangely though, he left again, said he would return, and in the meantime the were supposed to wait for a Holy Wind to make everything clear.

Yet His disciples wanted an explanation. If He was truly God’s Son, how could this have happened to Him? If he really was the Messiah, how could he have failed? He was just as maddening as those parables he used to tell them. Where are the answers? It was like one of those Eastern religions. “The question is the answer.” And that other junk the Beatles found in India, under the influence of something other than the great American mystic, Jack Daniels.

God finally sent them someone they could understand - sort of. “Like, well, yuh see, dude- God don’t need sacafices, ” The voice of the aging surfer was hoarse with too many years of funny cigarettes, his faced etched with too much salt and sun, his eyes opaque while he waited for the waves to rise. “It’s like, all ’bout love. All God wants is love. The torture and sufferin’ part, that’s what we do to us and each other. Man, like the Teacher Dude, the Guru Guy, like he couldn’t hang out forever. ‘Cause like, you guys were all brain dead on a kind a gnarly bad trip. Like he let it happen. The tube was closin’. Like there was just the wipeout; like really bad at Mavericks. He did it to show y’all that if yah stay in the water and go for it, sooner or later it’s gonna happen if ya stay true to the search for the Big One.  Dude, got some extra change? My old lady’s on me for the rent, like ya know.”

The words of reproach, as the seeker turned away, were familiar. “That sucks man. What a waste. I came to hear some guy explain some @$#%?! blogger’s crappy parable. I could’a been watchin’ the game on my big screen.” So he zipped up his jacket and marched straight home, out of the saving mystery, ignoring the glory of the sky, the dazzle of the water, and the carpet of color and bird song all about him.

Holy Week on the California coast, from Pt. Mendocino above San Francisco to the Mexican border, is a place of spring time sun, deep blue skies, and blossoming flowers. At the Equinox, the ocean loses its grayness and picks up more yellows, subtle greens and muted turquoise. The salt air becomes more pungent, as the kelp forests put on new growth to accommodate the explosion of trillions upon trillions of sea plants and animals. The succulents and coastal chaparral burst out in purples, roses, and pinks, peppered with the bright yellow of sour grass blossoms. The Santa Cruz redwoods seem to stretch, fresh washed from the winter storms, looking forward to the morning and evening fog that gives them sustenance and flourishes their layered ecosystems that change every 20 feet upward, dancing in the dappled ray filled sunlight of the forest canopy.

It is a time of happiness and rejoicing. Sunglasses come out, flip flops slap the pavement, and shorts replace the winter denim, even though the day time temperatures are barely in the mid-60s. It is the coming of First Summer, before the Fog Season that begins on Memorial Day in late May and ends on Labor Day in early September. On the Central Coast, we host our first guests during Spring Break and settle in to enjoy the peaceful days before our June to August onslaught of shivering, fog-bitten visitors and their much welcome tourist dollars.

Aren’t we supposed to be down or at least subdued during Holy Week? How can we rejoice Saturday evening and Easter if we have somehow not rationed that joy? We should at least lament our unfaithful adherence to our Lenten resolutions - right? Christ’s terrible torture and death stayed the arm of a rightfully vengeful Father, so shouldn’t we show at least some token of fear for not being swept out into hellfire? If God’s Spring and Passover are any indication, maybe Cotton Mather had it wrong. Maybe we are a lot more than “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.”

If we, and all creation, are the overflowing love of the Trinity, are we the products of a God who can somehow demand the death of the the Eternal Word Made Flesh, God’s very immediate recognition and instantaneous self-acceptance, who shares the eternal dance of the Three in the joy of the Holy Spirit? Yes, much of the language that shapes our souls is a reflection of the fallen world where the Word “pitched his tent” - the actual Greek expression we use in the Creed. Yes, Jesus died and saved us in his rising from the dead. Yes, Jesus is the Lamb of God. Yes, we are the reason, we are his motivation for sharing our lives and submitting to the capital punishment of being tortured to death by an occupying superpower. Perhaps, the gravest sin of pride is to even think that we were the cause. Yes, God as Love couldn’t bear to leave us to the fate of hatred, despair, and alienation.

Why should people celebrating their rescue be glum, depressed, lost in narcissistic guilt? Why is this night different from any other night? It is the Passover of the Lord. If we are not washed in joyful Spring, can we share the Passover meal? Can we have any part in Him?

St. Joseph & Prophetess Anna; St. Mary, the Christ Child, & the Prophet Simeon

The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is February 2 and is known in the West as the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Around 450 in Jerusalem, people began holding lighted candles during the Liturgy on this day and it became known as Candlemas. The feast has always had more prominence in the East. However, it has been celebrated in the West since the 11th Century. It marks the formal end of the Christmas season.

The presentation commemorates the ritual purification of Jewish mothers on the 40th day after birth and the redemption offering for first born sons. (Luke 2:22-40) At the temple, the Holy Family meet Simeon who had prayed for the coming of the Messiah and had been assured by God that he would not see death until he had seen the Savior of Israel.

28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”

33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against,
35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

36 There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,
37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.

40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

There is really not much more to say, except to note the gratitude of Simeon and Anna and the bewilderment of Joseph and Mary. For those of us who have had the joy, bewilderment, and sleep deprivation characteristic of new parents, the experience rings true. So do the words of prophets in our lives - those strange outsiders who many times see our children more clearly than we can.

As glorious as the Canticle of Simeon is, there is a prayer that I learned when I was a new father:

“Lord, please help me to see my children the way other people do.” It is always unsettling - always a revelation.

The “Book of Signs” in the Gospel of St. John begins with the story of John the Baptist - the Baptist’s statement of his own role in preparing the way of the Lord and his witness to the role of Jesus. John the Baptist saw Jesus coming and told his disciples, “Behold the Lamb of God …” He also admitted to them, “I did not know him … but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.’” (Jn 1: 29, 33) Based on the Baptist’s testimony, Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, and John, son of Zebedee, followed after Jesus and became his first disciples.

How truly even today we do not recognize the Lord came clearly to me about this time seventeen years ago. My husband and I had two wonderful sons, and we had been hoping to have another child. Everything seemed to point to it being the right time and I had become pregnant as we hoped. Then in mid-January, it all fell apart. The baby in my womb died. We found out the news on a Saturday, but there was no need to do anything immediately, so the decision was made to wait until Monday to arrange for further treatment.

We went ahead and took down our Christmas tree. We had the birthday party for our firstborn, with most of his classmates attending, as we had planned. And on Monday morning, as symptoms of the miscarriage appeared, we went to Kaiser and I had the procedure to complete the process.

It was a very difficult time. We had very much wanted that child. And it was not to be.

The previous year, we had received a free overnight stay at a nice hotel up in the California wine country, to be used at a time of our choice. So we decided to go there a week or so later. That evening, I went for a walk through the courtyard by myself. I was praying. It wasn’t easy to pray during those couple of weeks. I asked the Lord, “Where have you been?” And I received his response in a series of images of faces that came into my mind. The couple who had stayed into the evening after the birthday party, so we wouldn’t have to be alone with our sorrow. The nurse who did the preliminary exam and shared that she too had lost a baby, but now had a healthy child. Another nurse who held my hand and told me it was OK to cry, as the procedure began. The doctor who was so kind and gentle. My parents, who sent flowers. They had never sent flowers before that day, but they did when I needed them. The other relatives who sent cards and plant arrangements. My son’s teacher, herself a young widow, who came after school and spent a couple of hours with me, just being there.

As all of these images and memories came to me, I knew where Jesus had been. He was right there, in his body, the People of God, the Mystical Body of Christ, about whom I had learned as a child. He was with me.

Behold the Lamb of God. Like John the Baptist, I did not recognized him when he came in person through all those wonderfully kind and thoughtful people. But the Lord is kind, and, like the Baptist, I got a second chance to recognize him - in the images of their faces that came to me that night.

Where is the Lamb of God in your life today? Keep your eyes and ears open. He is here, hoping you’ll recognize him in those around you. He’s here, too, hoping you’ll be helping him today to reach those who need his touch today.

Behold the Lamb of God!

The third Sunday after Christmas is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. On this day we recall that Jesus went out to the Jordan River, where his cousin John was baptizing, and himself entered into the water to be baptized. All four of the gospels tell of this event, in which the Spirit of the Lord came to rest upon Jesus, like a dove. Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that a voice spoke from the heavens, saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” John tells us that John the Baptist told his disciples, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

Jesus’ baptism was a life changing event for him. He went out into the desert to pray and to ponder and absorb the immensity of what had been revealed to Him as He stood in the water with John. This experience of coming to know that He is God’s Beloved Son was the foundation for His entire ministry. When He returned from the desert, He began going among the people and spreading the Good News that God cares about what happens to people here and now, that God loves even the most insignificant person, that loving actions speak louder that pious prayers, that joy and peace are signs of the presence of God.

Each of us, in our own baptisms, have been given the gift of sharing in the life and work of Jesus. This feast is a reminder to us of that great gift and of the fact that our response is to be like that of Jesus - to go out now and share the same Good News through our actions in our daily lives, with peace and joy and love.

Many years ago, in the olden days when I was young (as one of my children once put it), we had a new young assistant pastor in our parish. He blew into town and began immediately making changes in the parish - cleaning out closets, tossing stuff for which he didn’t see an immediate need, organizing new people to participate in ministries, etc. It was not an easy time for those of us who had been ministering in the parish for many years and had just happened to be out of town for a couple of weeks when he arrived and found no one filling our places in the community. Some toes got crunched. Some feelings got hurt. Some people moved into new ministry in other communities. And some people got newly involved in service within the community who might never have stepped up to serve if he hadn’t asked them! As they say, with every cloud, there’s a silver lining.

I thought of this today as I reflected on this week’s readings from the First Letter of St. John that have appeared in the daily Mass liturgies. Their themes have been those of light shining in darkness, of love overcoming all else, and of living in the light, letting God’s light and love shine forth into our world through our love of those around us.

One day in that long ago time, I received a note in the mail from Fr. New Young Priest. I had done something for which he was sending a “Thank you” note. (I’ve no idea today what it was.) Those were the days when it was a new, exciting idea to cut a picture from a magazine and make your own notes and cards. He had cut a picture of a young woman from a magazine and glued it to a half sheet of blue paper. He wrote a quote from John’s Gospel beside it. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5) It was a very simple note, but striking in its simplicity and power. On the back of the note, he wrote, “Pretty good news, huh!” and a simple thanks, with his signature.

The note really touched me. It was so lovely that I covered it with clear contact paper and taped it to the wall in my room. When I left home after college, I took it with me. Once in a while, I still find it in my attic, in a box of well loved treasures from my childhood and youth, and it always brings a smile.

He was right. And St. John was right. That the light cannot be overcome by even the greatest darkness is indeed “pretty good news.”

Today’s Gospel reading is from St. Mark, the story known as “the feeding of the five thousand” (Mk 6:34-44).

In this familiar story, Jesus and the twelve apostles have traveled across the Sea of Galilee to a deserted area, to get away from the crowds of people and get a bit of rest. The people had seen where they were going and followed on foot, around the lake. Mark says that Jesus was “moved with pity” when He saw them and began to teach them. It was getting late and the disciples suggested that Jesus should send the people back to the towns so they could find food and places to spend the night.

Jesus surprised them by telling them to feed the people themselves. They protested that it would cost “two hundred days’ wages” to feed so many. This didn’t faze Jesus. Instead, He asked, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” They returned with the news that they had five loaves and two fish. Jesus instructed them to have the people sit down in groups. Then He took the food they had, blessed it, broke it into pieces and told the disciples to pass it out among the people.

When everyone had eaten their fill, they gathered up what was left and found they had 12 baskets full of leftovers.

In this last week of the Christmas season, following our celebration of the shining forth of the light to the Gentiles too, what are we to make of this story? Why is it told here?

It seems to me that it’s here with good reason.

First, however, it’s important to understand a bit about the customs of the people at the time. We’re used to going places and taking a food with us, which we can eat in front of others without experiencing any social requirement to share it with people who are not part of our group. That was not the case in Palestine at the time. If you had food, you could only eat it if you had enough to share with those in the group with whom you found yourself. Hence the disciples’ dilemma - where and how could they get so much food?

It seems to me that we should assume that families took some food along with them when going out into a deserted area with their children. Most of us would grab something for the children (and for ourselves too, in most cases) when racing out the door to see a celebrity, if for no other reason than to keep the children quietly occupied during the event. I don’t think it would have been that much different in those days.

However, no one would have had enough to feed all of those around them, so the food would have stayed packed up, hidden within the robes and traveling bags of the people.

When Jesus told the disciples to share what they had with the large crowd (5,000 men plus women and children), He didn’t tell them He was going to multiply the food miraculously. He just gave thanks for the food they had, asked a blessing on the meal, and began sharing it. With that example, everyone else who had food with them was freed to take it out too, and share it with those around them. It became a great picnic! No one was restricted to only what they owned or had brought. On the other hand, no would have felt compelled to hide or guard what they had. All could share it. And the result was that there were 12 baskets more of food than was needed!

During this week, as we reflect on the great gift of salvation having been extended to all peoples, this lesson is appropriate. We each have something. It may not be much. But it is something that we can share with the community, with our community on a local level and with our larger global community. There are problems that need to be solved. There are wrongs to be righted. There are joys and sorrows to be shared. None of us can do everything. None of us can change all of the structures of our society or our church. None of us can even meet all of the needs of our individual families. However, all of us can step out in faith and do a little bit. Show a little compassion. Give a hand to someone who is down. Listen to someone who needs a friendly ear. Pray with someone who is alone.

As we do this in faith, we join the larger community of Christian witnesses who have truly changed the world, one problem and one little step at a time. Jesus asks us to look at what gifts we have, give thanks for them, and then start sharing them with those we meet. As we respond to His leadership, “miracles” will happen in our world.