Beginning the Easter Season: First steps into a Life of Hope

Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!!! All good wishes for a wonderful Easter Season!!

For the next 50 days, we have time to attend to what Jesus' death and resurrection changed. In light of these events we live in a different world than existed before they occurred, and we ourselves, by virtue of our Baptism into Christ's death, are new creations as well. We have been embraced by God and live as God's daughters and sons in Christ, heirs of the inheritance he grants us. While all this makes beautiful poetry, it is also all true in the profound ways the very best poetry is true. Objective reality was transformed with Jesus' passion and death; something astounding, universal, even cosmic in scope, happened in these events which had to do with our own salvation and the recreation of all of reality. One of Paul's shorthand phrases for this transformation was "the death of death," something I hope to be able to look at a bit more as these 50 days unfold. Especially, I would like to look at the way we have become an integral part of God's story, the story of his will to bestow himself on and dwell with the whole of creation. 

At this point, it is probably good to recall that the early Church struggled to make sense of the cross, and that faith in Jesus' resurrection took some time to take hold --- though amongst the disciples, that period is greatly abbreviated. Surprisingly, no single theology of the cross is held as official even today, and variations --- many quite destructive --- exist throughout the Church. Many of these mistakenly affirm that God was reconciled to us in various ways rather than the other way around. Only in time did the Church come to terms with the scandalous death of Jesus and embrace him as risen, and so, they came to see him as the Christ who paradoxically reveals God's power in weakness. Only in time did she come to understand how different the world now was for those who had been baptized into Jesus' death, and even more time was required before she began to understand the cross in light of an unfinished and evolving universe. This last shift in understanding, though responding to new scientific knowledge of the world in which we live, is entirely consistent with Paul's and Mark's theologies of the cross. The Church offers us a dedicated period to come to understand and embrace all of this meaning; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, at least partly, geared to this.

Today is a day of celebration. It is a day we begin to allow hope to take greater hold of our hearts. Lent is over, the Triduum has reached a joyful climax, the season of Easter has begun and once again we sing alleluia at our liturgies. Jesus is revealed as Israel's Messiah and the sanest man who has ever lived. Though it will take time to fully understand and embrace all this means, through the Church's liturgies and the readings we have heard, we do sense that we now live in a world where both death and life have a different character and meaning than they did before Christ's passion and resurrection. On this day we call Easter, darkness has given way to light, and senselessness to meaning -- even though we may not really be able to explain to ourselves or others exactly why or how. On this day we proclaim that Christ is risen and begin our first steps into a life rooted in hope! Sinful death could not hold Jesus nor can it hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Indeed he is risen!! Alleluia, alleluia!!

Madman or Messiah? We Wait in the Darkness

In reflecting on the periods of silence after Tenebrae, Holy Thursday's Mass and reservation of the Eucharist, and especially after Tenebrae, and the celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday, I am freshly struck by their importance and ambivalence. After all, in the first instance, our joy is bittersweet and marked by the anticipation of Jesus' betrayal and passion, while in the second instance, we have just marked the death of Jesus; there is yet a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call "Holy Saturday" still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection. The Triduum is one long liturgical event that embraces different moods and salvific moments. Because of this, the silence we observe between services is critical to our ability to enter into this extended liturgy.

After all, Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to hear and live with something of the terrible disappointment and critical questions Jesus' disciples experienced as their entire world collapsed is a significant piece of coming to understand why we call today "Good" and Saturday, "Holy." It is important if we are to hear our own deepest questions, and truly appreciate the meaning of this three-day liturgy we call Triduum; it is also a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday, but spending some time waiting and reflecting on who we would be (not to mention who God would be!) had Jesus stayed good and dead is something Good Friday (essentially beginning after Holy Thursday Mass) and Holy Saturday (beginning the evening after the passion) call for.

In explaining the theology of the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During Holy Week, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement. Sin has increased to an extraordinary extent, and the one people touted as the Son of God has been executed as a blasphemous, godforsaken criminal. Throughout this week, we have watched the darkness and the threat to his life intensify and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for Wednesday, we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials. For weeks before this, we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematic. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer, and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands (or billions!) of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry were punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret, and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably, "He slipped away," we are told, or "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover, as darkness closes in on every side, Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet and reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple, understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart, and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker, colder, and emptier yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here, as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentic human being is revealed, made known, and made real in space and time. Here, in the midst of the deepening "Night," God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or it is the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. Amid these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days, this Holy Triduum, we will see the answer.

On the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensified. During the night, Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today, he was brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement, and then handed over anyway by a fearful, self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position to those who threatened Pilate and would kill Jesus. There was betrayal -- of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship, and political and covenantal bonds on every side -- but on God's. The night continued to deepen, and the threat could not be greater. We marked this darkness during Tenebrae services, both yesterday morning and today as well. Jesus was crucified and eventually cried out his experience of abandonment even by God. He descended into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call sinful death and hell. The darkness became almost total. It is difficult for us to see anything else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the single question these events raise haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Can I trust God vindicates Jesus,  or not? Is Jesus simply another idealistic but mistaken person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) Is this darkness and emptiness the whole of the reality in which we live? Was Jesus' preaching of the reality of God's reign and his trust in God in vain? Is the God he proclaimed, the God in whom we also trust, incapable of redeeming failure, sin, and death --- even to the point of absolute lostness? Does he consign sinners to these without real hope because God's justice differs from his mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply, and we Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, Beloved, brother, and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools, the most pitiable of all. 

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees this year in our country, in the larger world, and in the Gospel accounts as well. Though we do not see how it is possible, we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. But on the Friday we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy" we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.

The Crucified God: Emmanuel Fully revealed in the Unexpected and Even the Unacceptable Place (Reprise)

 Several years ago, I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. There are several reasons here. 

          + First, we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide, so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. 

          + Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way at all. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel," so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility, which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) 

          +  And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus (that is, his entire living into death) to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God-in-Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history, but in that same Christ, God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event, heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms dimensions of it in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives, and sanctifies us. He is a mentor, and brother, and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum, we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death, God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us that our God embraces in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us, as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross, having apparently failed in his mission and shown his God to be a fraud. (From one perspective, we could say that had he succeeded completely, there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross, this comes to a climax, and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus, even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. 

Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto godless death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the absolute lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death, Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

In perhaps the most powerful passage I have ever read on the paradox of the cross of Christ, John Dwyer (my major professor until doctoral work) speaks about God's reconciling work in Jesus --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel to transform everything --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.

Wouldn't it Be Better to Focus on Christ?

[[ Sister Laurel, did Bishop de Roo write the canon for your vocation? What was Remi de Roo's role in the creation of the canon? Was he pushed into it by the monks who came to him to ask him to lobby for them? Also, why are you so obsessed with this canon? Wouldn't it be better to focus on Christ? I guess I have the same question about trusting in a law made by man and not by God and being consecrated by a man and not by God.]]

Thanks for the questions. I don't believe Bishop Remi de Roo had anything to do with writing or creating Canon 603, per se. At least I hadn't considered that before this last conversation and series of posts. I suppose it is more than possible that Bishop de Roo, and perhaps the hermits he supervised, were consulted on the canon by the panel of Church Fathers charged with actually composing the canon because of his experience with these Hermits of St John the Baptist, but if that is the case, I was unaware of it. The same is true of the role of the Hermits of St John the Baptist. Bishop de Roo esteemed them and the life they led as well as the significant sacrifices they made to embrace secularization in a Church with no universal law recognizing eremitical life. Bp de Roo made a written intervention at the Second Vatican Council affirming the need to recognize the eremitical vocation as a state of perfection. As far as I know, that was the extent of his involvement in the creation of c 603.

Beyond this, the canon itself is a beautiful and integrally complete guide to solitary eremitical life. It is inspired by God and written by human beings, just as much in the Church is written, composed, sculpted, or otherwise created by human beings who were inspired by God, including the Scriptures themselves. We do not treat these as either/or kinds of things or texts, but rather as both/and -- both truly of God and of human hands. They are sacramental, just as bread and wine are "made from human hands," but come to us as gifts of God transformed into even greater gifts of God in the Eucharist. Thus, the Church believes canon 603, and the vocation it governs, come from God and from the many eremitic lives lived before and after its composition. It certainly reflects their lived experience and inspired wisdom. 

Each Rule of Life, written by each professed and consecrated hermit, acts similarly; each one incarnates the living wisdom of the Canon uniquely as this is reflected in a unique eremitical life. Each one is both inspired by God and constructed by human hands, hearts, and minds. The canon must be contextualized as an ecclesial text, one that cannot be understood or lived out effectively apart from the experience of the whole Church and the Living God who inspires it. We read Scripture and truly appreciate the sacraments the same way. Either/or ways of seeing things, especially when posed as "either of God or of human hands," don't generally work well in such a context.

Can the canon be misused or vocations lived under it be badly discerned and formed? Yes, of course. It can be and has been! It is a rich, yet unpretentious text that surprises everyone approaching it with its hidden depths and presuppositions regarding what is required to live it well. Those who read it superficially, merely as law, for instance, or from one narrow and rigid ideological stance, for instance, are missing its very heart and charism. This is one reason I have chosen to write or post about the nature of this canon; also, I am concerned enough with the value of the life it governs to try to explain it. In Christ, it has incredible breadth, heights, and depths, and I believe I have been called by God to write about the significance of this life for others, not only for other hermits, but for the marginalized, the chronically ill, the entire Church, and the world beyond her. I believe this enterprise is one way (part of a very much larger way, of course) that I have been called to glorify God.

I did not start out trying to do this, but over the past almost 20 years, I have done so consistently, with deepening experience, reflection, insight, and wisdom. One can mistakenly see my focus as a personal obsession, or one can more rightly see it as a dedicated service to the God who received my profession and consecrated me through the hands of his Bishop, as well as to his Christ, his Church, and his larger world as well. It seems to me that this has sometimes called for significant attention because of the vociferously incorrigible lack of understanding some have apparently shown this canon and the life it codifies. 

Even so, and much more importantly, this canon is a blessing, and like all of God's blessings, it is also an obligation that has mainly been a joy to embrace. Those who believe it is an obsession driven by a need for prestige seem to believe they can read my mind and heart and attribute motives to me when they are absolutely incapable of any such thing. And those who truly know me, and other diocesan hermits, know c 603 is a gift from God that empowers ever greater humility as the nature, especially of its ecclesiality, is more deeply penetrated and embraced. While you may not have appreciated this, it is all about focusing on Christ!

Bishop Remi de Roo and Indigenous Peoples in Canada

Dear Sr Laurel, Thank you for writing about the way the presence of privilege can lead one to greater humility. I have been listening to someone who clearly has problems with diocesan hermits. I think the truth is that she has problems with you and can't get past those, but I digress. I wanted to ask you about Bp Remi de Roo and the indigenous people of Canada. Do you think Bishop de Roo failed members of the Indigenous People of Canada via the schools the Church ran? I remember hearing a story about de Roo being made a chief of some indigenous tribe in Canada. Have you heard about that?

Thanks for your question. I don't have any details on whether Bp Remi failed the indigenous people of Canada or not, though I am aware of accusations, but yes, I have heard the story you mentioned and can fill in a few details on that. I believe it makes the likelihood of Bishop de Roo failing indigenous people difficult to assert because their esteem for him was something that meant a great deal to him. Further, as a Bishop he decried the "colonial amnesia" Canadians sometimes showed and stressed the tragedy that was the Church's participation in such "cultural domination"; Bp Remi notes in his own writing that all of this abominable treatment by missionaries was rooted in an inadequate reading and understanding of the Gospel, as well as a failure to recognize that God had preceded missionaries on their ambitious journeys and that they had misread and denigrated the symbols God had inspired and "fashioned with indigenous hands." But, regarding the esteem the Indigenous People showed de Roo, here is what he writes about the honor they showed him:

One of the most heartwarming encounters I had [with the First Nations Peoples of Vancouver Island] was a special event sponsored by several tribes that live in this territory. It took place on February 14, 1963, and was held in the huge Longhouse in the TSawout East Saanich Indian reserve near Sydney. It began with a ceremonial canoe ride, recalling the arrival of the first bishop, Msgr Demers. After the welcome by one of the leaders, I was invited to plant a large wooden cross fashioned from a cedar tree. We then processed to the longhouse, where a large crackling fire had been lit at both ends of the building. Chiefs from several tribes made speeches marking their accord with the purpose of the ceremony. I, in turn, presented a woolen blanket to each orator. Then two elderly women approached and placed a decorated blanket on my shoulders. "Now you are one of us," was the theme of the comments made by several of the Chiefs. I was given my new name, "Siem Le Pleet S'HWUWQUN," which translates as, "Great High Priest White Swan" indicating that I was now formally adopted into the [Indigenous] race.(Chronicles of a Vatican II Bishop, pp 82-83

Bishop de Roo goes on to note on another occasion,  

The Native Peoples gave me more than a new name. I am one of the few white people who have gone through the initiation into the native race. I'm a blood brother, not just an honorary chief. Of that I am very proud because it gives me a link with Canada which is more than an immigrant status. It's a link with these people who are the original Canadians. I'm very conscious of the fact that we are in their home here, enjoying their hospitality. We owe so much to the Native Peoples who are the original Canadians. . . The fact that Confederation was born in a context of and injustice towards the Native Peoples, we must right that wrong; otherwise, our Canadian democracy has nothing to say to the rest of the world. ("Keynote Speech," Mosaic's annual general meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, September 23, 1986.)

Bishop Remi's funeral

So, while I don't know whether Bishop de Roo failed Indigenous Peoples from the infamous schools run by the Church, I recognize a sensitivity and mutual esteem between him and them that militates against the truth of such accusations. Given that Remi de Roo was ordained and consecrated as Bishop in 1962 and the Indigenous Peoples' adoption ceremony took place not quite a year later in 1963, it sounds like Bishop de Roo had a good relationship with the Indigenous Peoples of Vancouver Island before he was made a Bishop. And given the way he spoke about these Peoples in 1986, 23 years later, and just 13 years before he retired from his See, the idea that he failed them in some egregious way becomes truly doubtful. 

I also believe he was the simple (and truly wealthy) man I met in Northern California, and as he portrayed himself or was portrayed in several books. He was wealthy in Christ, in the richness of his commitment to serve God and the Church, and in the love so many had for him and he for them. The picture of his coffin at his funeral also says to me that he was buried as he lived and conveyed himself. I think he was an example of religious privilege leading to, as well as inspiring, greater and greater true humility. Until this recent discussion, I mainly esteemed Bp de Roo for helping move the Church to codify the eremitical life in universal law. Now, however, I recognize freshly just what an exemplary Church leader Bishop de Roo was, and in some ways, still is. I pray I can do half so well in my own public (canonical) life of eremitical hiddenness and praise!!! What perfect timing to return to all this freshly during Holy Week!! God is indeed so very good!!! Thank you for your questions, and my thanks to all those who prompted me to read and write about this once again!!