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Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Aug 31, 2013

No Two Alike – Each a Unique Creation

Summer 2013 has brought a marvelous experience of the ways God creates each person as a unique individual, even twins who are nearly identical in outward appearance. Each person is a unique creation.

For about four months this year, twin boys who are ten years old have lived with us and shared our activities, including a long road trip to visit family and a short camping trip this summer. They are not from the United States and English is their second language. When we first met them in January and spent six weeks together then, they did not understand much of the family conversation. Now, after an additional 2½ months, they are able to understand much more and have spent many hours in the past two weeks composing brief stories about the many things we have done while they have been here.

The boys are very talented musically and share many interests in common. They are nearly the same height and weight. They look very much alike. Each day, their clothing matches. They play the same games and learn to play each other’s instruments. One’s face is slightly more rounded and the other’s is a bit longer. It’s much easier to know which one I am speaking with when they are together!

Yet despite all of these similarities, they are different people. One speaks more slowly and seemingly with greater difficulty. The other speaks more easily and quickly. However, when the time comes to write, the one who speaks slowly writes many pages and the one who speaks easily struggles to think what to write. One is more daring and has learned the basics of swimming. The other is still very nervous in the water and barely dog paddles. He struggles to relax enough to float. One eats quickly, the other slowly. One is quick to seek his mother’s help. The other is more independent. One tries to draw dogs while the other makes stick figures on a baseball field.

Both of these boys have one foot in younger childhood and the other firmly in middle childhood. Our family four-year-old’s tricycle is so very attractive, but all the adults keep insisting they use their own bicycles instead! One minute they are playing with a fabric ball and the next they are outside kicking a soccer ball. Chutes and Ladders is the game of choice one minute and Go is preferred the next.

Still, each is a unique individual. It surprises them to discover their differences. “He weighs more than I do!” “He isn’t writing as much as I am.” “I can swim better than he can.” “He doesn’t play this piece as well as I do.” “He doesn’t want to play this game with me.”

The boys will be returning home very soon now and our home will become a much quieter place for a while. Our families have become close, however, and I expect we’ll spend time together again in the coming years.

The time we’ve had together this summer has helped me see in ways I would not otherwise have experienced how truly creative our God is. Despite the fact that these two boys are so alike, they are separate and unique individuals. God does not create identical people, even if they happen to have the same genetic signature. No two of us are alike. We each have our own relationships with God and with each other. Each of us has our own path through life and we are blessed to share it with family and friends. Yet each of us is the unique handiwork of an infinitely creative God — a God who is love overflowing into Creation.

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Aug 8, 2013

St. Dominic’s Insight and Evangelization Today

Insights from Conversing with an Innkeeper

Dominic Guzmán (1170-1221), a Spanish priest traveling with his bishop in southern France, spent an entire night talking with an innkeeper who was a believer in Catharism, a dualistic religious cult that originated in the East. He discovered that the man had not really rejected Catholic teachings but rather was ignorant of them. This discovery led to the founding of the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans), a group dedicated to learning theology and other disciplines and communicating the beliefs of the Church to all they met, while living as beggars and travelers on the highways and byways of Europe. Many great theologians and prophets, both men and women, have served the church through the centuries as followers of Dominic and his early companions.

Moving into a Changing World

Dominic’s insight that the Gospel must be taught both with words and through the lives of the ones proclaiming it in the contemporary world with all of its challenges holds as true today as it did some eight hundred years ago. In many ways, we as a community of faith had, until recently, settled into an almost self-satisfied attitude that all of the answers to the questions of faith and moral behavior had been resolved by theologians of the Middle Ages and/or at the Council of Trent. As Tevye (of “Fiddler on the Roof”) might have expressed it, “Everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to be!”

Yet such an attitude of self-confident satisfaction with who we are and what we believed did not serve us well. The world’s people continued to discover new truths in science and new understandings of human behaviors and cultures. Industrialization brought changes in family life and opportunities. Education of both boys and girls has become a given in Western societies and increasingly this is also the case in non-industrial societies around the world as well. More strikingly, perhaps, we did not as intelligent inhabitants of this planet learn how to live together in peace, with the common good as our highest concern. Instead, we set about conquering each other, with the nations having the strongest military plundering the regions they had conquered. Somehow the old teachings no longer answered the new questions about God, life, and the reality of evil in the world.

Evangelization Today

Pope Francis and his recent predecessors have called the Church to a new focus on evangelization. The teachings of the Church, including new insights from theology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology and other disciplines, must be presented to the world and lived out joyfully by Christian believers. Pope Francis repeatedly stresses the importance of going out into our communities and meeting people where they live and work. We are to work to alleviate poverty and suffering. We are to serve without judging others whose lives and values differ from ours. We are to be true to the traditions of our community, but recognize that those traditions may need to be presented in different words and explained using different images. Some of those traditions may need to be stretched so they express the lived experience of a new generation of believers. This is the age of the Holy Spirit in salvation history and we must recognize that God is so much bigger and more amazingly wonderful than we could ever imagine, that no human formulation could ever totally express the full reality of who God is.

Like the times of Dominic Guzmán, there is a great need in today’s world for people of faith to learn about God, about our Christian beliefs and traditions, and about the newly emerging insights of our living faith community. The days when the catechism lessons of childhood sufficed for an adult life of faith are long since gone, if they ever truly existed. We are all called to continue to learn, to study Scripture, to reflect on God’s active presence in our lives, and to share what we have learned with others. And we do this not just at Church or in catechism classes, but also in our daily activities on the highways and byways of our lives. The People of God are once again called to be proclaimers of the loving presence and activity of our God.

And that innkeeper with whom Dominic spoke all night? He returned to the Catholic faith once he understood what the community really believed.

St. Dominic, Pray for us!

Image: St. Dominic by Fra Angelico, Side panel of the Altarpiece in Perugia

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Aug 6, 2013

Transfiguration: Letting the Glory of God Shine Through

The Transfiguration

On the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6) we celebrate the day when Jesus, having taken three of his disciples to the top of a mountain to pray with him, experienced the presence of God so dramatically that the disciples saw the glory of God shine through his very being. The disciples witnessed Moses and Elijah visiting with Jesus and offered to build three tents so Jesus could stay in his glory with these representatives of the Law and the Prophets. Then a cloud covered the mountain top and those standing on it. The disciples recognized God’s presence in the cloud and heard the Father’s voice proclaim Jesus to be his chosen Son to whom they were to listen. The next moment they were alone again with Jesus. All were left feeling speechless to describe the experience. (Lk 9:28b-36) Only later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, were the disciples able to speak about what they had seen and experienced that day.

Did it really happen?

Looking back at the event with the perspective of nearly 2,000 years, we might wonder at the description of what happened and question how literally Jesus’ face “changed in appearance” and how his clothing could have become “dazzling white.” This is especially true because such statements are commonly used in apocalyptic literature when describing a Son of man or the Ancient One, as for example we see in the Book of Daniel 7:9-14. Was this simply a literary device to tell an audience familiar with such images that Jesus was truly the chosen one of God? Or is there some literal basis for the narration?

I have to admit that I don’t know which interpretation is factually true. I suspect, however, that what is reported in the gospels actually happened to Jesus pretty much as described. The reality of the divine is so much more vibrant, powerful, encompassing, radiant, loving, compassionate, respectful and gentle than we can imagine that, in a moment when Jesus was facing the probability that things might not go well for him in Jerusalem, the Father’s encouragement and gentle caress might well have such an effect.

Could it happen today?

Often when those who have had a “close encounter” with the divine speak of their experience, their faces shine with the joy of what they experienced. The newly baptized have a glow about them for weeks after their baptismal experience. Jesus himself told us that only those who became like little children would enter the kingdom of his father. The simple joy and wonder with which young children explore and enjoy their world, trusting that all they need will be provided for them, is the attitude presented as the ideal for the child of God. Though ordinarily most of us don’t consciously notice the radiance of the divine shining through each others’ faces and the wonders of creation, at special moments we do sometimes notice something different.

Is the radiance of divine love shining through a human face something that could happen to one who is not a divine person, not a member of the Trinity? I would argue that God’s love is to shine through each one of us. Perhaps not so obviously as it did through Jesus on the mountain top, yet even for Jesus, it was a brief moment that was followed by the return to what quickly became a very difficult reality. In the moments when we act with compassion and generosity to meet the needs of those less fortunate among us, the divine love shines through. In times when we hold the hand of one who is suffering, the divine love shines through. When we visit those who are in prison, or in the hospital, or home-bound, the divine love shines through. When we care for our children or go to our workplace or smile at a passerby, the divine love can shine through us as well. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me,” we are told.

God smiles in joy whenever love is given and received — and the glory of God shines through into our world!

Image by: JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved August 7, 2013].

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Jul 31, 2013

Becoming Radiant in the Presence of the Lord

The readings of the Church recently have been focused on the experience of entering into the Presence of the Lord and spending time there. One way of describing the experience of spending time with God is to use the word prayer.* An ancient definition of prayer, attributed to St. Augustine, is this: “Prayer is lifting our minds and hearts to God.” On this feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, it seems fitting to spend a few moments reflecting on ways we enter into the presence of God and the results of doing so.

Jesus taught his followers to be very direct and straightforward in their prayers, asking for what they needed with confidence and persistence. They were (and we are) to ask for the coming of God’s kingdom and that God’s will be done both in heaven and on earth. Their prayer was also to include such seemingly mundane issues as requesting their daily bread and forgiveness for having hurt others, failing to live in loving ways, as well as the much more serious concern that they be spared from the soul-shaking temptations that sometimes afflict even good and holy people at difficult points during their lives. Jesus himself spoke familiarly and intimately with God, calling him Abba — a word that means Father in the sense of a loving parent, a “Dad,” or even the “Daddy” of a small child. The result of the conversation would not always be the reception of exactly what was requested or preferred (remember the Agony in the Garden and Jesus’ prayer there), but it was always frank and based in trusting love. Those who learn to rely on God for the “little” things (daily bread and forgiveness) become more able to rely on God for the big things (courage to make the hard decisions and accept the consequences of following the Lord).

Among those whose relationship with God we have seen as examples are Abraham, who spoke with God directly, pleading for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah if as few as ten good men could be found within their walls. Many years later, Moses met God and entered into the cloud with God for forty days, returning to the people with the gift of the Law that would guide their lives in holiness. When Moses returned to the people, his face was so radiant it was frightening to the people. He covered his face when among them and only lifted the veil when he again entered into the presence of God. Jesus’ friend Martha, who had spent many hours in easy friendship with him, did not hesitate to speak frankly to him, complaining at one point that she had been left to do all the work of entertaining the large group of people who accompanied him on his visit. But Martha also is known for her declaration of faith in Jesus: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” These and many others model for us the importance of speaking directly with God and of doing so on a regular basis.

Ignatius called his followers to contemplation in action, recognizing that the fundamental basis for a fruitful discipleship is the time spent in the company of the Lord. Out of the experience of friendship with God comes the gift of seeing how God would respond to those we meet in our lives today and the courage to act accordingly.

Entering into the presence of the Lord is not for the faint of heart. The great mystery of Love is not tame, nor is it particularly predictable. Love is a powerful force that can sweep away obstacles but can also be as gentle as a mountain stream bubbling through a meadow and washing the feet of children playing by its side. Yet as we enter regularly into the Presence, we are changed subtly and profoundly. Peace, joy, patience, gentleness, kindness, persistence, confidence, compassion, and zeal for justice become characteristic of ones who have spent much time with the Lord. Like Moses, if to a somewhat lesser degree, they become radiant with the joy of that relationship. And when at last they return to their Father and we remember them with love, sometimes we portray that radiance with a golden aura or halo surrounding their heads.

*Philip St. Romain offers a good presentation of Christian prayer and contemplation. See also Fr. Ron Shirley’s reflections on prayer.

Public Domain image by Robert & Mihaela Vicol

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Jun 24, 2013

A Song of Praise as a World Turns — The Benedictus

Zechariah and John the Baptist

On the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, I find myself reflecting on the song of praise attributed to his father, Zechariah, known by its Latin name, the Benedictus.

Who was Zechariah?

Zechariah was a priest from the family of Aaron. His wife Elizabeth was of the same family line. They were elderly and had no children. According to the Gospel of Luke, one day when Zechariah was serving at the temple in Jerusalem, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer sacrifice. This was the most solemn duty for any priest and large numbers of people gathered outside to pray. Suddenly, an angel appeared to him, “standing at the right of the altar of incense.” The angel announced that his prayers and those of his wife for a child would be answered. The child would be a son and was to be named John. The angel explained that this child would be filled with the Holy Spirit while still within his mother’s womb and would bring back many of the sons of Israel to God. He would prepare “a people well-disposed” for the Lord. (Lk 1:5-17)

Zechariah found all of this hard to believe, so he asked the angel for more details about how it could happen — after all, both he and Elizabeth were beyond their normal child-bearing ages. The angel, Gabriel, responded that because he questioned the message, he would remain mute until the birth of the child. Then he would see that the Lord’s promise had been fulfilled. And so it happened. (Lk 1:18-25)

Nine months later, the child was born. Elizabeth’s cousin Mary, who had also been blessed by a visit from Gabriel, had come to help her for a few months and the child within Elizabeth’s womb leaped with the joy of Mary’s coming. (Lk 141) When John was born, all the relatives and neighbors expected that he would be named for his father, Zechariah, but both Elizabeth and Zechariah insisted that the child’s name would be John. With that, Zechariah’s tongue was freed and he spoke, praising God and uttering a prophecy regarding his son’s role in salvation history.

A Prophetic Canticle

Zechariah’s prophetic song is not a statement like that of a fortune teller. Prophecy in Biblical terms refers to speaking on behalf of God of the underlying reality of what God is doing in the lives of the members of the community.

Zechariah begins by blessing God as the God of Israel who visits and ransoms his people. God raises a savior from the House of David, the royal house, as promised in days of old. This savior will rescue the people from the hands of their foes in fulfillment of the covenant established with Abraham, delivering them from fear and freeing them to serve the Lord all the days of their lives. Only after laying out the ancient promises, Zechariah speaks briefly to his own child — a child who will be called a prophet of the Most High because he will go before the Lord to announce the coming of salvation and to help the people prepare to receive it (the image used is to prepare straight paths for the coming savior). Zechariah concludes by noting that all of this is a work of kindness from the Lord, the Dayspring who in his tender mercy will visit Israel, freeing those who sit in darkness and guiding their feet into the way of peace. (Lk 1:68-79)

A World Turns

In the birth of John the Baptist, the trajectory of history began to turn. The final step of God’s plan to reclaim all of creation and return it to the initial unity with God has been initiated. God does not force this transition or the people involved in it to cooperate. But God persistently works with humans and through human history to bring it about. Zechariah reminds all who hear his voice through the ages that God keeps the covenant, rescues the people, gathers the community, and wants to bring all people back to joyful unity in Love.

The Christian church (community) remembers this song of prayer, praise and promise in the Liturgy of the Hours. As part of Morning Prayer, the People of God around the world recite or sing this canticle daily. Some chant it. Some arrange its words to fit other religious or popular tunes. One of my favorite versions was set to the tune of an English folk song by Ruth Duck. Those who really listen deeply to it find a special joy bubbling into their day as they join Zechariah in praising a God who works such wonders.

Image from Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on May 31, 2013

Feast of the Visitation – Celebrating Blessings Hidden Within

The Feast of the Visitation is a celebration of the meeting of Mary with her cousin Elizabeth when both women are expecting their firstborn children. Mary, a very young woman, has given her consent to become the mother of Jesus in response to God’s request. Elizabeth, a much older woman who has never been able to have a child, has conceived a son miraculously in her old age following the visit of an angel to her husband while he was serving in the temple. Word of Elizabeth’s pregnancy has been offered to Mary as a sign that “nothing is impossible with God.” Knowing how difficult the last months of pregnancy can be, especially for an older mother, Mary hurried to help her cousin. The joy of their meeting and the song of praise Mary offers to God for the wonders they are experiencing have resonated through history. In fact, Mary’s prayer, known as the Magnificat from its first word in Latin, is part of the daily prayer of the Church, included as part of Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.

Celebrating the Feast

This feast is remembered among the Joyful mysteries of the Rosary. Readings and prayers for the Mass celebrated on this feast are all focused on the great joy of the gift of these two improbable pregnancies and of the women themselves, as well as our joy with and for them. The prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours also remind us of the event.

The Magnificat has been set to music by many gifted men and women through the ages. David Haas, John Michael Talbot, and Rory Cooney have composed some of my favorite versions.

One way to celebrate this feast is to make cream puffs and share them with family and friends. Praise God for coming to share life with us through the Incarnation of his son. Give thanks for all the women who have courageously born and raised children, treasuring the wonder of sweetness and life hidden within their wombs.

JESUS MAFA. The Visitation – Mary and Elizabeth meet, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48279 [retrieved May 31, 2013].

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on May 26, 2013

A Fundamental Mystery of Our Faith: The Trinity

The first Sunday after Easter (the whole season) is Trinity Sunday. We celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection at Easter for fifty days, beginning with Easter Sunday and finishing with Pentecost. Before we move ahead with the counted Sundays known as Ordinary Time, we pause to celebrate the mystery of the interior life of God, the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

With our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers, we Christians believe in one God. However, as Christians, we believe that God is a very complex Unity. We speak of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit: three persons yet still one in being. Efforts to explain this reality in any sort of logical fashion always fall short. God is so much more than we can conceive. Nevertheless, through the centuries, Christians have offered many models and analogies to help each other appreciate the wonder of our God’s life — a life which we are gifted to share. Some early models speak of the Trinity as a dance. Some speak of a God who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Some speak of the Father as knowing “himself” so totally that the divine self-knowledge becomes the Son, with the Father and Son so accepting of their relationship of knowing and being what is known that that acceptance itself becomes the Holy Spirit. We are told that God is Love, with the Holy Spirit then being the Holy Spirit of Love. Add in the notion — a fundamental belief of the Church — that God became a fully human being in Jesus and we have even more to ponder. How can the Divine One become human? What is it to be human and divine? How does divinity make a human even more fully human? How can it happen that through the life and death of the man Jesus, who is fully human and fully divine, God pours out God’s own life into the lives of all humans?

Fr. Ron Shirley suggests that our efforts to understand the Trinity are much like those of the proverbial blind men who try to describe an elephant based on feeling only one aspect of the animal. Each of us has a unique experience of God and brings that experience to the community to share. God is bigger than any one of us can comprehend and none of us can put God into a box and tie it up with a ribbon of satisfied comprehension. God will always burst out from our boxes and surprise us with another facet of the reality of what it is to be God.

For a scholarly consideration of the Trinity, the history of development of our understandings of the Trinity, and the importance of understanding God as a community of being inviting us to enter into the Divine community, Catherine LaCugna’s work, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life is well worth reading. For a thought-provoking exploration of the Trinity in the life of individuals today, William P. Young’s novel, The Shack, offers a compelling vision of the Trinity and the divine perspective on human life, death, suffering, and forgiveness. C.S. Lewis’ novels of Narnia offer yet another vision of the relationship between God and all of creation, including the insight that the divine is not tame. Jose Antonio Pagola’s work, Jesus: An Historical Approximation, offers an engaging look at Jesus’ life in the context of his culture and religious tradition, with the contemporary scholar’s eye distinguishing among factors such as known historical facts, the probability of accuracy in quoting Jesus’ words, and the theological reflections that combined to form the Gospels as we know them today.

Regardless of how we try to explain the interior life of God, we are continually invited to enter into that life. May we have the courage to step forward and let ourselves be drawn into the wild dance of Love.

Orion Nebula – Space Galaxay – NASA image

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on May 6, 2013

When Christian Life is Like Going to the Library with a Cat

Living a Christian life requires a great sense of adventure, curiosity, trust, and a recognition that some things are too serious to be faced alone. In a real way, Christian life is like going to the library with a cat.

This morning, my grandson and I set out walking to our local library for story-time. Our cat noticed our departure and began to follow after us. She often follows us around the block or to the local park, so it was not out of character for her to come along. None of the cats that normally give her an argument about passing through their territory were around today, so it was smooth sailing until we got half way around and surprised her. Instead of turning the second corner, we walked across the street and down the next block. She was a bit surprised, but gamely followed, probably thinking we simply planned to walk around two blocks instead of one. By the time we had crossed two more streets and were still going away from home, she was getting a bit nervous, but now she wasn’t sure she wanted to let us out of her sight. We were getting to be a long ways from her territory. A few more blocks and she was positive she was on very thin ice.

One block from the library, two relatively busy streets meet at a four-way stop. We waited for the cat to catch up with us just before the corner. My grandson carried the bag with the book we were returning and I picked up the cat. This in itself was quite a feat as she and I have had a rather rocky relationship through the years due to differing opinions regarding the place of a cat in a household. Nevertheless, she was quite willing to be carried across the the first street and tolerated being carried across the second. Then she wanted DOWN. NOW! So I let her down.

At that moment, what should arrive but two large, noisy dragons, screeching in protest as they bore down on the intersection from opposite directions. (Humans might have said they were garbage trucks, but she knew the truth of the matter. They were definitely fearsome dragons.) She tried to escape through a picket fence but found that she was too big. So in a moment of total panic, she turned and raced across the street in front of the dragons, hoping they would not turn and chase her. Fortunately, they did notice (or at least their drivers did) and they patiently waited for her to make her escape.

We followed after her when it was safe, calling to her reassuringly, but she remained safely hidden in the bushes in front of one of the houses. So we left her there and went to story-time, where we enjoyed some lovely tales of children’s gardening adventures. The librarian had bean seeds for the children to plant after decorating a pot in which the seeds could sprout. We returned our library book and found another before leaving the library about 45 minutes later.

Crossing the street again, we called and whistled for our cat. (Yes, she does come when we whistle for her.) With obvious relief, she emerged from the bushes and once again began to follow us, but the cars zooming down the street clearly were frightening to her. When we got to the corner, we waited and again called her. She came and allowed me to pick her up once more to cross the street. By the time we got to the other side, she was jumping out of my arms with nervousness, wanting to be sure she could find a safe place if necessary. We continued on our way home and she followed a little ways behind. Sometimes she stopped to explore something interesting, then hurried to catch up with us. By the time we got home, she was one tired cat. She spent most of the rest of the day sleeping close to the screen doors on the deck, not wanting to be far away from me at all. Once she even invited me to pet her.

Reflecting on our adventure, the thought struck me that our Christian lives are not all that different from the experience of that cat. We may start out our daily journey with an idea of what is ahead of us. We’ve been down this road in the past. We know where we’re going and what to expect along the way. But then someone throws us a curve ball. Something is different and unexpected. We trust the Lord, so we keep going forward, but we look around nervously, watching for those who might challenge or hurt us. Sometimes we hide for a bit until we’re sure it’s safe to come out. Sometimes we try to stay very close to anything or anyone familiar to us, even those who haven’t been our favorites in the past. When things get really dangerous or hard for us, sometimes the Lord picks us up and carries us across to a safer place. But then we get scared again and run away to hide. Always, though, the Lord sticks around and waits for us. He calls us by name and carries us to safety again and again. Then, when we reach our home again, he strokes us kindly and smiles at us fondly. And who would not melt with joy to be safely at home with such a One.

Yes, the Christian life can be like going to the library with a cat.

Orange Tabby Cat by Robert & Mihaela Vicol, PublicPhoto.org

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Apr 19, 2013

Forgiveness Requires a Response

Beach at the Sea of Galilee

Easter season is a time when we rejoice in Jesus’ Resurrection. We celebrate God’s great love in becoming human, living a totally human life, and being faithful in obedient love even through torture and a shameful death on the cross. We speak of salvation for all resulting from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Yet sometimes we also beat ourselves up for our sinfulness and responsibility for Jesus’ sacrifice and death. But beating ourselves up is not what Jesus wants for us. Jesus comes bearing forgiveness and that forgiveness requires a response. The evidence is clear in Scripture and we need to remind ourselves of it regularly.

Jesus’ disciples did not expect that he would be raised from the dead. In those first hours and days after the crucifixion, they must have been terribly upset with themselves. If only I had … If only I hadn’t … We should have …. We should never have allowed him to … What will I say to my family when I go home? I’ve been such a fool. I should have known it was all too good to be true. They all said I was chasing a dream. On and on their thoughts must have raged. When the first reports came in regarding the resurrection, from the women of all people, their response was natural. The women must be hysterical. Such a thing could not happen.

Nevertheless, throughout that first day of the week, the risen Jesus came to them. They did not recognize him at first. He looked like a gardener. He looked like a fellow traveler on the road and potential dinner companion. Once they recognized him, — when he came into the room despite locked doors it was pretty clear who he was, — but the feared they were seeing a ghost. Always, however, Jesus reassured them. “Peace,” he said to those hiding behind locked doors. “Do not be frightened,” he said to the women in the garden who first found the empty tomb. “What little sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced!” he said to the travelers on the road to Emmaus. Then at supper with the travelers, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and shared it and they knew it was the Lord. Immediately they walked back to Jerusalem to tell the others.

As the days passed, the disciples left Jerusalem and returned to Galilee as he had told them to do, through Mary Magdalene and the other women. They had been fishermen and so they went fishing. Anything to bring some sense of normality again! Yet early in the morning, after fishing without luck all night, a man in seen on the shore. The man calls out to them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. They do and the nets are filled. “The disciple Jesus loved” told Peter, “It is the Lord” and Peter threw on some clothes and jumped into the water to swim to the Lord. The others brought in the boat with its marvelous catch. Jesus may not have looked like the man with whom they had lived for the past three years, but this time they knew it was he. He cooked breakfast for them and then spoke directly to Peter, three times asking “Do you love me?” Each time Peter responded that he did and Jesus instructed him with slightly different words each time, “Feed my lambs; tend my sheep; feed my sheep.”

Each time Jesus appears, he reassures his friends and he reassures us as well. All is forgiven. All is OK. We need not dwell on the past. We must move ahead and tell others what we have seen and experienced. We are not to beat ourselves up about what we have done wrong or the times we’ve failed to do the right thing. We must recognize those times as having happened and accept forgiveness for them. Forgiveness is always offered to us. Then we must move forward rejoicing — carrying that peace, love, and forgiveness that comes from our Lord God into our world. There’s plenty of bad news there already. Our job is to carry the Good News, spreading it far and wide through our actions and our words.

Alleluia! He is Risen!

Posted by Kathleen Brewer de Pozos, PhD on Apr 1, 2013

Rejoice — He is Risen!

Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this week. We sing “Alleluia, praise the Lord,” with great gusto. We rejoice in God’s power over death and the promise of new life. We call out to all who will hear, “He is risen.”

In the midst of such celebration, I find myself thinking about the experience of the disciples during the final hours before Jesus’ passion and the first days following his resurrection. As Catholics, we don’t skip over those experiences in the race to celebrate Easter. Begining with Palm Sunday, we spend an entire week remembering those crucial events of salvation history, as well as the promises and prophecies that were fulfilled during that week so long ago. From the excitement of seeing Jesus greeted with hosannas and hailed as the one who had been so long expected as he entered Jerusalem in a procession, to the devastation of his death as a condemned criminal in a place of public execution, his followers then and now experience a roller-coaster of emotions. By the time we reach Holy Saturday morning, there is a certain emotional numbness that sets in. What more could there be that will happen?

On Holy Saturday morning, I usually feel a bit detached and quiet. There’s so much to be done before Easter Vigil and then Sunday morning’s celebration. Yet there is that numbness that follows Good Friday’s liturgy and the recognition of what happened to Jesus, as well as what continues to happen to so many who follow his lead in serving the poor and announcing God’s command that we love and care for each other and our world.

Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one knows the numbness that follows. Whether death was the final moment of a long or painful illness, or release from a period of mental/physical decline, or the peaceful final breath of a person who has lived long and well, those who remain experience a certain emotional pain and numbness to other concerns and activities. When death occurs unexpectedly, through violence or accident, the devastation is extraordinarily powerful. We question how God could let something like that happen. We may yell at God or turn away. We may also turn to each other in faith: giving and receiving support.

For the disciples on that Saturday morning, when they couldn’t even hold a proper funeral for Jesus, I suspect “numb” would not begin to describe the way they felt. Their hopes and expectations had been dashed. They feared for their own lives. They didn’t know how they would ever be able to face their families and friends, many of whom had probably warned them against leaving home and jobs to follow an itinerant preacher around the country. Unlike our experience, based as it is on knowledge of the Easter event, there was no hope of redemption in the suffering they were experiencing or that Jesus had endured.

Yet into the midst of this experience, on the first day of the week, the women took spices to the tomb and discovered that death cannot hold the author of life in its snares. The stone had been rolled away; the tomb was empty; angels asked why they sought the living among the dead; Jesus met them in the garden and sent them to tell the others that he was risen and would meet them in Galilee. The news was greeted with disbelief. The women must be mad with grief, maybe a bit hysterical. The men went to see and discovered for themselves that the women had not been mistaken about the tomb: it was definitely empty. Later that day, Jesus came into the locked room where his disciples were gathered: fear and sorrow had by this point been joined by confused concern about the story told by the women and others who claimed to have seen the Lord. He invited them to touch him. He ate with them. He instructed them about the new reality that had burst forth into their world and all of creation. Life does not end with physical death. God is not defeated. We are children of God who will share in new life forever.

The numbness of loss turns to the numb wonder of gain. Could it really be true? Could God really love us that totally? Can all be forgiven? Does life continue unended? Is death really a passage into newer, more abundant life? Are we really the ones who will bring the good news of this reality to our world?

If all of this is true, and with the early Christians we believe it is, then thankful rejoicing is the most appropriate response. So we move from the rejoicing in a promise of earthly power (Palm Sunday processions), through the mandate to serve each other and feast on the Lord’s own Body and Blood (Holy Thursday), into the mystery of death (Good Friday), and out the other side to the assurance of new, more abundant, unlimited life in the Resurrection. For this we shout, Alleluia! Rejoice and be glad! The Lord is risen, He is ruly risen!

Happy Easter – all fifty days of it!

Easter Lily by Boston Public Library – George Cochran Lambdin 1830-1896 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher)

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