Becoming the Priestly People We Are

Several weeks ago my pastor sent me an article by ecclesiologist Massimo Faggioli. As part of the subtitle was the phrase:  ". . . how COVID-19 is 'unmaking the Clericalist Church.'" A couple of weeks ago I met with a directee who posed questions about some of the things that were coming to the fore in recent papal and other Church documents -- things like indulgences (a devotional practice she knew little about and viewed with rightful suspicion), but also questions re how we approach a Sacramental Church that is not able to minister the Sacraments? Both Faggioli's article and my client's questions pointed directly at a  couple of linked deficiencies we have been talking about for a long time, but which have, with this pandemic, become critical, namely, Vatican II and the post-Vatican II Church identified us clearly as 1) a priestly people dwelling in a 2) fundamentally sacramental world, and living (too-often unconsciously) by extension, a liturgy of everyday life (my expression), rooted in 3) the presence of God and nourished by His Word and Spirit.

To a large extent, Faggioli argued, the Church is unprepared for this pandemic precisely because we are so seriously clericalized. I agree. When we are deprived of access to the Eucharistic Liturgy we turn (and return) instead to a devotional approach to spirituality which tends to privatize spirituality in a way which is unworthy of a truly priestly people. Let me be clear; there is nothing wrong with devotions per se: rosaries, novenas, chaplets of mercy, etc., have their place in every prayer life. But there are other forms of prayer and sources of Christian and ecclesial life which can serve not only to give a rightful sense of sacredness to the whole day, but especially, to form us as Christians in and through the Word of God. In this post I want to say a little about the liturgy of ordinary life and also  look briefly at a couple of things which might help folks make the best of their time in "lock-down" and provide ways of praying which contribute to 1) a sense of the sacredness of our days, and 2) our sense of being a priestly people living from and for the Word of God. None of this detracts from our need for ordained ministry; in fact, it will underscore our need for this even as it relativizes it. But it will also help allow us to discover the roots of our Sacramental lives in the sacramental nature of all reality and to make of our families what Peter Damian once called "ecclesiolae" or little churches -- a central image he used for hermitages.

A Little on the Liturgy of Ordinary Life: Family Meals as Eucharistic:

One of the things folks recognize when they attend Mass is the similarity it bears to family life more generally. The liturgy centers around a meal, but also involves periods of storytelling as we hear about the important people and events in our own history, lives, and ancestry. We signal how important these are by framing them within a ritual with significant gestures and symbols, and we mark their holiness and the way they call us to holiness in the same way. What is important for us to realize at this particular time, I think, is how it is the Mass participates in and reflects the larger holiness of our world, our relationships, our meals and other activities together. Yes, as the Church teaches the Eucharist is the sum and summit of our spirituality but that means it reflects and perfects our more usual moments and spirituality of ordinary life. It invites us to see meals (including preparation and clean up), and time together sharing stories, history, struggles, consolation, etc, as sacred events in an overarching liturgy of ordinary life.

We mark this truth by praying grace before (and after) meals. But we also do it simply by treating meals as eucharistic moments where Church is created and we are nourished and give to one another in all the ways meals make possible. For families who never have the time to prepare meals or eat together, the sense that Mass is the reflection and perfection of what happens (or should happen) every time people come together for a meal may be a new idea, but in this time of shelter-in-place when attending Mass is not possible, it becomes especially important that we take the time to observe family meals for the sacred time and opportunity for creating community they really are. We  might then also take some time for sharing Scripture, reading a Bible story, and praying the Lord's Prayer, before dinner (or we could use the Lord's Prayer to end the meal perhaps). I would suggest that the Easter Season is a perfect time to begin such a practice, especially during the lock-down practices most of us are living with. Such meals are not Eucharist, nor do they replace Eucharist; even so, they are profoundly Eucharistic and point to Eucharist if we allow them to do so.

Just as Eucharist nourishes us and allows us to experience the strength of communal life and love needed for Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and so, for the variety of darknesses that assail us, such "ordinary meals" do the same and are essential for us. We must recognize that everywhere we look we see the hand of God and we use the things of nature for our Sacraments. In some ways these are the perfection of nature and Symbols (not mere signs) of the presence and power of God. Bread, wine, water, oil, and beyond these, even breath, stone and wood -- all become ways in which the sacred quality of out world nourishes and inspires. If we can allow our ordinary reality to function as the gift of God it is, if we can learn to allow God to bless us and all of reality, we will help fulfill our vocations as God's priestly people -- especially at this time when ordained ministry has been limited in the ways it can serve us.

The Liturgy of Ordinary Life: Creating Days of Balance and Regularity

We do this by making of our days something ordered and given over to the regularity of prayer, work, recreation, community, and solitude. Psychologists tell us how important regularity is, how crucial it is to have things we can look forward to even as we fully engage with the present. How much more important all this is in a time of pandemic when the truth of our vocations to serve others with our lives removes us to the relative solitude known by hermits and cloistered religious. Monastics have known and practiced these things forever and the Church herself encourages us to build such things into our lives and, in a certain way, to make a liturgy of our days. As the priestly People of God we ARE Church and we are called to be Church in our everyday routines, our prayer, our family life, our solitude, our struggles, our work, recreation, and so forth. Again, our lives are meant to be liturgies and our homes are each meant to be "ecclesiolae" (little Churches) and we are the celebrants of this liturgical life.

Liturgy of the Hours:

One of the hallmarks of monastic life we can all gain from is the conviction that all of time is sacred and marked by the presence of God. Prayer is the way we make this presence conscious and real in our own time and space. In monastic, religious, and eremitical life one of the ways we do and have done this throughout almost the entire history of the Church is with the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. With Vatican II the Church began to promote this as the official prayer of the Church and encouraged every Catholic to pray at least Morning and Evening Prayer as well as Night Prayer if possible. It is time to renew this encouragement. Many of the laity already pray "Office" because they are Benedictine oblates, or because their parishes have been successful in fostering the practice, for instance. There are manageable resources which allow folks to pray an abbreviated form of the Office like Magnificat, Give Us This Day (print and online versions), Universalis (online source), as well as Christian Prayer (a 1 volume version), for instance.

Each of these can also be tailored by the individual. They include psalms, canticles, prayers (especially the Lord's Prayer and intercessions), and brief readings from Scripture. If one can give 20-30 minutes to pray this, one can easily choose a different hymn or song (or play a CD or even use none), select a single psalm to pray slowly alone or with others, spend some time with the Scripture provided, modify the intercessions to meet needs we know of, and finish with the Lord's Prayer and a blessing, for instance. If  families use this for Night Prayer (my personal favorite "hour"), and however briefly they do this, they could end their time together with each member being blessed (signed on the forehead as is done in Church) by a parent, or for a couple, by a mutual blessing by spouses, etc. We may not be able to "spend" time in the ways we ordinarily do, but we can certainly find effective ways to sanctify (allow God to sanctify) it. This is one way the Church does this.

Lectio Divina:

Above all, during a time when folks are unable to attend Mass and receive Communion, it becomes critical that we recall what Vatican II taught about the presence of the living God in the Word of Scripture, namely, [[The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body.]] (Dei Verbum, 21) Divine presence is very clearly affirmed in these two very different modes. This same affirmation is found in Sacrosanctum Concilium:  [[ He is present in His word since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.]] (SC,7). To take time praying with Scripture, to learn to read this under the impulse of the Holy Spirit is to allow Christ to truly be present to us in the same way he is present under the consecrated species of bread and wine. While this happens in a preeminent way during liturgy, it also happens among God's priestly people engage in the reverent reading of Scripture as part of their own liturgy of ordinary life.

Summary:

Over the past almost 60 years the Church has tried to encourage the whole People of God (laos) to take seriously the ways in which they are called to be a priestly people. As we enter into this Easter Season, often without access to ordained ministry because of this pandemic, it becomes even more critical that we begin to take advantage of the sources of Christian life which do not require ordination but are central to the vocation of each and all of us as Laity. We can turn primarily to devotions which are private and may, especially in the given circumstances, tend to privatize our spirituality, or we can more primarily turn to those forms of prayer which build the Church by recognizing the sacramental character of all reality, the sacred nature of space and time, or by mediating the very presence of the Risen Christ in the Word of God. In this way we make of our own household the "little churches" of St Peter Damian. After all, this pandemic will continue on for some time and we have the time to build new habits, perceptions, and increase our own deep reception of Vatican II's teaching. We will all rejoice together when we come together with our ordained ministers (and how we miss their ministry!), but we will also do so as people who know more fully and effectively our own identities as members and representatives of a priestly people in a sacramental world.

Alleluia, Alleluia!! Christ is Risen, Indeed He is Risen! Alleluia!

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 them, and we ourselves, by virtue of our Baptism into Christ's death, are new creations as well. While all this makes beautiful poetry, and although as John Ciardi once reminded us poetry can save us in dark alleys, we do not base our lives on poetry alone. Objective reality was transformed with Jesus' passion and death; something astounding, universal, even cosmic in scope, happened in these events which had not only to do with our own salvation but with 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. We have already begun to see what happens in our Church as Christ's own life begins to shine forth more brightly in a myriad of small but significant ways. 

But, it is probably good to recall that the early Church struggled to make sense of the cross, and that faith in resurrection took some time to take hold. Surprisingly, no single theology of the cross is held as official, and variations --- many quite destructive --- exist throughout the Church. Even today a number of these affirm that in various ways God was reconciled to us 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, as the Christ who reveals God's power in weakness. Only in time did she come to understand how different the world was for those who had been baptized into Jesus' death. The Church offers us a period of time to come to understand and embrace all of this as well; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, in part, geared to this.

But, today is a day of celebration, and a day to simply allow the shock and sadness of the cross to be completely relieved for the moment. Lent is over, the Triduum has reached a joyful climax, the season of Easter has begun and we once again sing alleluia at our liturgies. 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 death has a different character and meaning than it did before Christ's resurrection and so does life. On this day 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! Sinful death could not hold him and it cannot hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia!!

The Crucified God, Emmanuel Fully Revealed (Reprised)

A couple of 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 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. He seems already to be "Emmanuel". 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 God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who enters exhaustively into the circumstances and lives of his Creation and makes these part of his own life.

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 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 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 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 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' active ministry he companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives and sanctifies us. He is 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 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 ostensibly having failed in his mission. Had he succeeded there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture and no crucifixion. Jesus had spoken truth to power and in the events of the cross, the powers and principalities of this world swallow him up. But even as this occurs 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 death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the 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 into himself and makes it his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

As I have noted before, John C. Dwyer, my major Theology professor for BA and MA work back in the 1970's described God's revelation of self on the cross (God's making himself known and personally present even in those places from whence we exclude him) --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel --- 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.

The Work of Holy Saturday (Reprise)

The following piece was written for my parish bulletin for Palm Sunday 2012. It is, therefore, necessarily brief but I hope it captures the heart of the credal article re Jesus' descent into Hell. It also represents a brief explanation of the significance of Jesus' experience of abandonment by God which itself is an experience of hell or godforsakenness. For us Holy Saturday marks a time of waiting, but it also is part of Jesus' work as, in his obedience to God even in the midst of godless death, he brings the Love of God to every dimension of God's creation including what we identify as "godforsaken".

During Holy week we recall and celebrate the central events of our faith which reveal just how deep and incontrovertible is God's love for us. It is the climax of a story of "self-emptying" on God's part begun in creation and completed in the events of the cross. In Christ, and especially through his openness and responsiveness (i.e., his obedience) to the One he calls Abba, God enters exhaustively into every aspect of our human existence and in no way spares himself the cost of such solidarity. Here God is revealed as an unremitting Love which pursues us without pause or limit. Even our sinfulness cannot diminish or ultimately confound this love. Nothing, the gospel proclaims, will keep God from embracing and bringing us “home” to Himself. As the Scriptures remind us, our God loves us with a love that is “stronger than death." It is a love from which, “Neither death nor life, nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, nor anything at all” can ultimately separate us!

It is only against this Scriptural background that we make sense of the article of the Apostles’ Creed known as Jesus’ “descent into hell”. Hell is, after all, not the creation of an offended God designed to punish us; it is a state of ultimate emptiness, inhumanity, loneliness, and lovelessness which is created, sustained, and exacerbated (made worse) by every choice we make to shut God out --- to live, and therefore to die, without Love itself. Hell is the fullest expression of the alienation which exists between human beings and God. As Benedict XVI writes, it is that “abyss of absolute loneliness” which “can no longer be penetrated by the word of another” and“into which love can no longer advance.” And yet, in Christ God himself will advance into this abyss and transform it with his presence. Through the sinful death of God’s Son, Love will become present even here.

To say that Christ died what the New Testament refers to as sinful, godless, “eternal”, or “second death” is to say that through his passion Jesus entered this abyss and bore the full weight of human isolation and Divine abandonment. In this abject loneliness and hopelessness --- a hell deeper than anyone has ever known before or will ever know again --- Christ, though completely powerless to act on his own, remains open and responsive to God. This openness provides God with a way into this state or place from which he is otherwise excluded. In Christ godforsakenness becomes the good soil out of which the fullness of resurrection life springs. As a result, neither sin nor death will ever have the final word, or be a final silence! God will not and has not permitted it!

The credal article affirming Jesus’ descent into hell was born not from the church’s concern with the punishing wrath of God, but from her profound appreciation of the depth of God’s love for us and the lengths to which God would go to redeem us and to bring creation to fulfillment. What seems at first to be an unreservedly dark affirmation, meant mainly to terrify and chasten with foreboding, is instead the church's most paradoxical statement of the gospel of God’s prodigal love. It is a stark symbol of what it costs God to destroy that which separates us from Love-in-Act and bring us to abundant (eternal) Life. It says that forgiveness is not about God changing his mind about us – much less having his anger appeased or his honor restored through his Son’s suffering and death. Instead, it is God’s steadfast refusal to let the alienation of sin stand eternally. In reconciling us to himself, God asserts his Lordship precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world.

Madman or Messiah? In the Darkness We Wait and Hope

Silence and a sense of loss will mark today and tomorrow not only because this is the day on which we solemnly mark the betrayal and death of Jesus, but because there is a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call Holy Saturday still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection. Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to 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 tomorrow "Holy." It is important for appreciating the meaning of this three day liturgy we call Triduum and a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday; 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 -- beginning last evening after Holy Thursday Mass -- and Holy Saturday -- beginning this evening after the passion -- call for.

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In trying to explain 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 blaspheming godforsaken criminal. We watched the darkness and the threat to his life grow and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for last Wednesday we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials as well. 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 problematical. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even Jesus' 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 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, 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 and colder and more empty 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 authentically 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 the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. In the midst of these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days we call Triduum we will see what the answer is.

Today, the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensifies. 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 will be 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 would kill him. There will be betrayals, of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continues to deepen and the threat could not be greater.  Jesus will be crucified and eventually cry out his experience of abandonment even by God. He will descend into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call hell. The darkness will become almost total. We ourselves may see nothing else because this is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the question these events raise will haunt the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Is Jesus simply another 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 this God consign sinners to these without real hope because Divine justice differs from Divine mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply and we Christians wait in the darkness today, throughout the night and the whole of tomorrow. In our grief we will 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 of all.

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees; and 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 this day we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy" we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.

Nothing Can Make Up for the Absence of Those We Love

I first posted this piece several years ago, but it is particularly significant today for two reasons:1) this Holy Thursday is the anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's execution by the Nazis at Flossenburg, and 2) we are experiencing a time of learning to be Church in new ways during a pandemic which separates us from those we love, as well as from much of the ministry and other activity which also make our lives meaningful.  Still, the Holy Spirit is with each and all of us and we are joined as the Body of Christ in that Spirit; as we begin to celebrate the Triduum, each in the relative solitude of our own homes, let us hold onto that truth in whatever ways we can.

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A couple of years ago or so I wrote an article about Jesus' cry of abandonment on the cross; I suggested that it was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the mutual love of Father and Son  that maintained their bond of love while keeping open the space of terrible separation  experienced as abandonment and occasioning the suffering of both Father and Son which reached its climax on the cross and Jesus' "descent into hell". Both connection and separation are necessary dimensions of the love relationships constituting Trinitarian life characterized by the Divine mission to our world and thus, by the kenosis (self-emptying) eventuating in the cross.

Similarly, in writing about eremitical life I noted that stricter separation from the world was an essential part of maintaining not only one's love for God, but also for God's creation, because without very real separation we might instead know only enmeshment in that world rather than a real capacity for love which reconciles and brings to wholeness. In everyday terms we know that the deficiencies and losses we experience throughout our lives are things we often try to avoid or seek to fill or blunt in every conceivable way rather than finding creative  approaches to genuinely live (and heal) the pain: addictions, deprivations and excesses, denial and distractions, pathological withdrawal or superficial relationships of all kinds attest to the futile and epidemic character of these approaches to the deep and often unmet needs we each experience.

While we may expect our relationship with God to fill these needs and simply take away the pain of loss and grief, we are more apt to find God with us IN the pain in a way which, out of a profound love for the whole of who we are and who we are called to become, silently accompanies and consoles us without actually diminishing the suffering associated with the loss or unmet needs themselves. In this way God also assures real healing may be sought and achieved in our separation and suffering. It is a difficult paradox and difficult to state theologically. Paul did it in terms of the God of all comfort who comes to us and resides within us in the midst of our suffering. Today, I found a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer written while he was a political prisoner of the Nazis and separated from everyone and everything he loved --- except God; it captures the insight or principle underlying these observations --- and says it so very well!

Nothing can make up for the absence

of someone whom we love,

and it would be wrong

to try to find a substitute;

we must simply hold out and see it through.

That sounds very hard at first,

but at the same time

it is a great consolation,

for the gap --- as long as it

remains unfilled ---

preserves the bond between us.

It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap;

God does not fill it

but on the contrary keeps it empty

and so helps us to keep alive

our former communion even

at the cost of pain.

from  Letters and Papers From Prison

 "Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge: Christmas Eve 1943"

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As a hermit embracing "the silence of solitude" I know full well that this charism of eremitical life is characterized by both connection and separation. It is, as I have written here many times a communion with God which may be lonely --- though ordinarily not a malignant form of loneliness! --- and an aloneness with God which does not simply fill or even replace our needs for friendships and other life giving relationships. Sometimes the pain of separation is more acute and sometimes the consolation of connection eases that almost entirely. Sometimes, however, the two stand together in an intense and paradoxical form of suffering that simply says, "I am made for fullness of love and eschatological union and am still only (but very really!) journeying towards that." This too is a consolation.

Today I am grateful for the bonds of love which so enrich my life  --- even when these bonds are experienced as painful absence and emptiness. I think this is a critical witness of eremitical life with its emphasis on "the silence of solitude" --- just as it is in monastic (or some forms of religious) life more generally. I also believe it is the terrible paradox of relatedness-in-separation Jesus' almost-inarticulate cry of abandonment expressed from the Cross.  Thanks be to God.

Finished Work from "Worlds Within Worlds"

I wanted to put this up as the "finished picture" from Kerby Rosanes' Worlds Within Worlds, compared to what I put up two weeks ago or so. (cf Work in Progress) The mediums used for this picture include Prismacolor Premium colored pencils, Signo white gel pen, some Neocolor II water soluble crayons (for background water), and some white acrylic paint to enhance the Signa.

 Last night I thought I had ruined the picture and felt pretty bummed out. Except for  the background the entire picture was finished and I was really happy with it. I began the background. Awful!!  I actually considered giving up even the hours and hours worth of good work I had done; I then considered a couple of other unworkable (read "totally crazy") "solutions"! Fortunately, this afternoon I came back to the picture and continued adding layers and colors. I'm not entirely happy with it (it is not what I envisioned or wanted!), but it's not bad. More importantly, it reminds me of the need for patience, perseverance, and the importance of not judging such things until one is truly done.  

One book I am rereading parts of for Holy Week is, Triumph Through Failure, by John J Navone, sj. It's an important lesson we can take from Jesus' Passion, namely, that even human failure can be redeemed by God and become a means of Divine Triumph. That is the story of Jesus' passion; the triumph of Divine Love is the essential story of Easter.

As a Hermit Were You Prepared for Sheltering-in-Place?

[[ Hi Sister, I was wondering if your life changes much during this pandemic? Since you are already a hermit I was thinking you probably were pretty well prepared for all of this.]]

Thanks for your question. I have heard from a number of people calling to check on me or just to talk a while and they have often said something like, "Well, I guess you are used to this"! That was even truer at the beginning of the shelter-in-place requirement. In the beginning I answered, "well, yes and no!" but over time I have come to realize that while my life in Stillsong has not changed much, I have been feeling sort of disoriented. I tried to explain that to someone yesterday and it was clear I failed. So, when I was talking to Sister Susan this afternoon I tried again and I think I was a bit clearer. Let me try to explain it to you because this is the main way my own life has changed in this pandemic.

Often I have written that eremitical solitude is not the same as isolation, that eremitical solitude is a form of community --- unique, absolutely, but community nonetheless. What I have learned during this pandemic is that no matter how solitary my life is within Stillsong, I live this life against the background of a world and community I know and care about and for. When that world changes it affects my life here within the hermitage. One dimension of this is that the world outside Stillsong is an active, bustling world, and those ministering in this world are involved in active ministry. I live my life within this larger situation and context. I understand myself and my vocation within this context and against this backdrop, which includes my parish, diocese, and the Church more universally. And now, that context has changed. Everyone is sheltering-in-place. Active ministry has ceased in most ways. People are unable to live their lives in usual ways. Mass is not being said in ways I can participate in, and on the whole I find it disorienting.

I have known for a long time that my life is not only with God alone, but very much "for the sake of  others". Canon 603 says this explicitly when it refers to the "salvation of others". This has meant my solitude has been set against and within a communal background and context. What I was not so aware of is how very pervasive   that context has been -- even in a subconscious way. With this pandemic that context has shifted significantly --- and so, it is disorienting. I have  no doubt that part of this is due to the concern and even outright fear I have for those I love and care about, but again, this has to do with the communal nature of my solitude, the fact that I have been called to this from the midst of my parish community, for my diocese, for the Church universal. I suspect that most people feel that hermits shut the door on the world around them and carry on their lives without much awareness of that world --- except for limited moments of intercessory prayer. Some hermits do this. Personally I doubt the validity of such an approach in a Christian hermit and certainly in someone living eremitical life in the name of the Church.

The "stricter separation from the world" I am vowed to live defines "the world" as that which is resistant to Christ or which promises fulfillment apart from Christ. The larger world is an integral part of my vocation. As is true for many religious, and for some much more intensely than for me I think, a life of prayer in the silence of solitude allows me to "hear the anguish of the world" around me. But I also hear the joy of that world. Again, eremitical solitude is a unique form of community and while whole parts of my life are left unchanged, none of it is left untouched or unaffected. At the same time, life here at Stillsong continues as it ordinarily does. I continue to pray, write, study, etc. My relationship with God is fundamental and unchanging in the way God is unchanging and foundational. I think of the Carthusians who see themselves as a still point in an ever-changing world. I look at the cross (which for me and the Carthusians) is THE still point in an ever-changing world. And I reflect that here on Palm Sunday and during Holy Week more generally, we celebrate the events which establish that Still Point.
                                                       

So, yes, in some ways I was prepared for a time of enforced solitude (as others have described this), especially in the sense of an established regularity (horarium, prayer, study, writing, spiritual direction etc), and already having my life centered in the hermitage itself, but I was not really prepared for a pandemic or the degree of suffering and chaos resulting from that. The way people have stepped up to run errands, to be sure no one is forgotten, to extend resources to those whose health is compromised in some way and must stay in even beyond what the shelter-in-place requires, has also been marvelous and I am very grateful for it; it mitigates but does not obviate the degree of suffering in the world now. Like everyone attempting to learn new ways of working, I am trying to find ways to continue teaching Scripture at my parish (the need for this is even more critical now!), and folks are stepping up to assist in that. I am able to meet with clients via Zoom or Skype (and will likely do class that way as well). At the same time, it is Scripture that is a source of support, encouragement, and consolation to me in this situation.

During this week especially, I am reflecting on the way the entire world changed with the life, death and resurrection of one Man. It took time for the disciples to come to terms first with Jesus' death, and then with his resurrection. It took time for the disciples to begin to hear their Scriptures differently, to recognize the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread, or to begin to move out of their time of seclusion and fear to proclaim the risen Christ and a new world, to write what would eventually become a new set of Scriptures, to build new communities of faith. They too were isolated, disoriented, bereft, terrified, AND they grew into a people of hope, courage, and strength who were capable of speaking boldly their own truth now rooted in a risen Crucified One. I believe the same thing will happen to all of us now suffering from this pandemic. In my own life I know that the truth is rarely either/or; more usually it is paradoxical both/and. So, now I recognize that my own disorientation will co-exist with the more usual stability of my life and reveal more vividly the meaning of eremitical solitude --- not as something that protects me from what is going in in the world around my hermitage, but as a paradoxical witness to my profound participation in the life and hope of this same world.

This Illness will not End in Death

[[Dear Sister, when Jesus hears about Lazarus's illness, Jesus replies it will not end in death. But Lazarus dies! Also, Jesus says the sickness is for the glory of God and that Jesus will be glorified through it. Is he saying God causes illness so that he might be praised or glorified? My mind is really on this pandemic and all the "why?" questions that occur. It is ending in terrible numbers of death and awful suffering. How is God praised or glorified in this?]]

Thanks for your questions. I am sure they occur to many people during this Fifth Week of Lent when we reflect on Jesus and Lazarus within the context of this epidemic. The text you are referring to reads: [[3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.” 4When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”]] There are a couple of ways of approaching its meaning. I think the key, however is the meaning of the word "end". It can mean the termination point of something and there is no doubt the NT generally uses the word telos (τελος) in this way, both here and in texts like those speaking of Jesus as the end of the Law, for instance. But, it can also mean a goal or purpose, so that when we speak of τελος in this way, we are saying that the very purpose of something and the place or goal it leads to is not death. (When we speak of Jesus as the end of the Law in this latter sense, we are saying he is the one who embodies the very meaning and goal of Law. He is the one who fulfills its meaning, perfects it, and reveals all of this for us in a way which empowers us to "obey" or respond to and embody in our lives the law's deepest reality.)

So, the statement, "This sickness will not end in death," means not only 1) there is something beyond death, but also 2) this sickness will allow the revelation of the real meaning and goal of life itself. I used this text as one of those which illustrated the place of chronic illness in my own life as part of my Rule of Life back in 2004 or 2005. I did so because chronic illness had led me to understand a number of things about my own life and the grace of God. Especially it has been tied to learning in a deeply personal way the paradox of God's power being perfected in weakness; for me illness became a source of grace. It would not end in death (that is, in a graceless, purposeless, absurd, and empty "life"), but to an almost infinitely meaningful life where God's love is profoundly redemptive and transformative. At no point do I mean that God sent this illness (either my own or COVID-19) so that a lesson might be learned; instead, I mean that the situation of sin (i.e., the situation of estrangement from the source, ground, and goal of Life itself whom we call God) produces a situation of life-subject-to-death (in this case in the form of illness) and that God accompanies us in a way which can bring life and hope out of even the worst of circumstances --- ultimately including Death (absolute separation from God) itself.

Glorification or Praise:

Sometimes people will say that "everything happens for a reason".  I am not saying this. I am saying, however, that with God everything can be made purposeful, everything can acquire a meaning or reason for being it did not originally have. No one could have believed that COVID-19 could be a source (or, better, an occasion since God is the source) of grace. But it has. Tonight I attended a "town hall" of my parish. It was a virtual meeting and I was there before most people except our pastor and pastoral associate because ZOOM opened up automatically a little before the meeting began. Suddenly the faces of parishioners began popping up on my screen, people who attend the daily Mass usually, some from my Scripture class, and more from Sunday Mass, and I felt completely overwhelmed just by the sight of them. Several people shared stories of the way people are assisting each other, the warmth with which people greet one another on walks or runs, the generosity people are meeting in others in what is ordinarily a me-first world. People shared resources for worship, suggestions for allowing Christ to be first in a strengthening and inspiring way when Mass attendance was not possible, etc.

Certainly in all of this God is being glorified. But let me be clear; the primary meaning of the term "glorified" does not mean praised but rather, "revealed" or "made real in space and time". The glory of God is God's presence made known; to glorify God is to make him real in space and time (history), to manifest God in human history. Yes, to do this is to praise God, but that meaning is secondary at best. In this pandemic --- as with the Cross of Christ -- we will see people revealing the very worst human beings are capable of, but we will also see human beings achieving the very best we are made and have the potential for -- with and through the grace of God. Whenever that happens, whenever human beings act out of a love which is (perhaps) more generous. more sacrificial, more inspiring than usual, God is glorified. In these cases our lives praise and celebrate God, not because of COVID-19, but because even here God brings light out of darkness, life out of death, and meaning out of senselessness. In this way, "this illness will not end in death." On another level, we Christians believe God will bring life out of death through resurrection as well and that too is part of what we proclaim, especially as we approach Holy Week.

I hope this is helpful! Please stay well!
Sister Laurel, Er Dio.