17 February 2024
On the Portrait for the Seville 2024 Holy Week Poster: Where is the real Blasphemy and Obscenity?
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 5:51 AM
Labels: Seville Poster
Followup on Does a Rule Need to be Perfect: More on Writing Several Rules over Time (Reprise)
[[Dear Sister, thanks for your reply to my question. What happens if I don't want to write more than one Rule and my diocese doesn't ask me to? What I have written so far seems fine to me and I can't see revising it. Besides I am not much of a writer.]]
Good questions and similar to others I have been asked (another person said they weren't much of a writer, for instance, and wondered what then?). The purpose of the suggestion of writing and using several different Rules over time is first of all to assist both the candidate and the diocese in maintaining a discernment process that is both long enough but not onerous to either relevant diocesan personnel or the candidate herself.
Sometimes it takes a while for the quality of the vocation to become clear to the diocesan staff working with the candidate. Indications of growth can be more clearly seen in the quality of the Rule (or portions of the Rule) being submitted --- especially since the hermit's life is lived in solitude and not in a house of formation with intense oversight and more constant evaluation. Moreover, dioceses are not responsible for the formation of a hermit; that occurs in solitude itself. Even so dioceses must evaluate the way the individual's formation in eremitical solitude is proceeding and they may be helpful in making concrete suggestions or supplying access to resources from which the candidate might benefit. Several different Rules written over a period of years will uncover areas of strength, weakness, and even deficiency and allow the diocese to respond both knowledgeably and appropriately.
What tends to happen when a diocese does not have such a tool to use is either the relatively immediate acceptance of candidates as suitable for discernment or a more or less immediate dismissal as unsuitable. Dioceses cannot usually follow the hermit's progress sufficiently closely otherwise and without such a tool they may have neither the time, the expertise, nor the patience to extend the discernment period sufficiently. Likewise they may not have the basis for helpful conversations with the candidate that such Rules can provide. I have always felt fortunate to have had a Sister work with me over a period of five years and during those years to actually meet with me at my hermitage. She listened carefully, consulted experts in the eremitical life and its formation and discernment, and generally did what she could in my regard; still, I believe the tool being discussed here would have assisted her and the diocese more generally. It would have helped me as well.
Of course, you are free to write one Rule and trust that that is sufficient in providing insight into your vocation for your diocese. Perhaps it will be sufficient to govern your eremitical life for some time as well. If you have a background in religious life and are familiar with the way Rules are written and function that is much more likely. Similarly, of course, your diocese is free to adopt whatever approach works best for them as well. I personally suggest the use of several Rules written over several years so that dioceses have 1) sufficient resources (including time) for discernment, so 2) the process of discernment and formation will not be curtailed prematurely or stretched endlessly and fruitlessly. I also suggest it so that 3) the candidate herself has a kind of structure which allows what happens in the freedom of solitude to be made clear to her diocese while assuring sufficient time for that to mature. (It is important to remember that the process of writing is a very significantly formative experience itself and contributes to one's own discernment as well.)
Ordinary time frames (for candidacy, novitiate, juniorate, and perpetual profession) do not really work for solitary hermits because the hermit's time in solitude is not so closely observed; neither does it have the degree of social interaction which is a normal element of growth in religious life. Beyond these there is a rhythm to life in eremitical solitude which will include both "tearing down" and building up and which occurs according to God's own time, not to a more or less arbitrary or even more usual temporal schema. Something must replace or at least approximate some of the functions the more usual elements of life in community serve but do so instead in terms of the diocese's relation with the candidate. It must allow and assist both candidate and diocese to have patience with this unique and sometimes counterintuitive process of formation. Moreover, both hermit candidate and diocese must recognize that the eremitical life is about the quality of the journey with God itself and not become too focused on destination points per se (postulancy, novitiate, juniorate, etc).
To summarize then, the use of several Rules written to reflect stages or degrees of growth as the candidate herself is ready to do this helps ensure both individual flexibility from candidate to candidate as well as sufficient length of time and patience on everyone's part to assure adequate growth and discernment. It is merely a tool, though I believe it could be a very effective one in assuring authentic vocations are recognized and fostered.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:47 AM
Labels: Formation Process vs Program, Rule and formation, Rule as tool for discernment
13 February 2024
On Some of the Purposes of Lent (Reprise)
I really love Sunday's Gospel, especially at the beginning of Lent. The thing that strikes me most about it is that Jesus' 40 days in the desert are days spent coming to terms with and consolidating the identity which has just been announced and brought to be in him. (When God speaks, the things he says become events, things that really happen in space and time, and so too with the announcement that Jesus is his beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased.) Subsequently, Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Sonship, to explore that identity, to allow it to define him in space and time more and more exhaustively, to allow it to become the whole of who he is. One of the purposes of Lent is to allow us to do the same.
A sister friend I go to coffee with on Sundays remarked on the way from Mass that she had had a conversation with her spiritual director this last week where he noted that perhaps Jesus' post-baptismal time in the desert was a time for him to savor the experience he had had at his baptism. It was a wonderful comment that took my own sense of this passage in a new and deeper direction. Because of the struggle involved in the passage I had never thought to use the word savor in the same context, but as my friend rightly pointed out, the two often go together in our spiritual lives. They certainly do so in hermitages! My own director had asked me to do something similar when we met this last week by suggesting I consider going back to all those pivotal moments of my life which have brought me to the silence of solitude as the vocation and gift of my life. Essentially she was asking me not only to consider these intellectually (though she was doing that too) but to savor them anew and in this savoring to come to an even greater consolidation of my identity in God and as diocesan hermit.
Hermitages are places which reprise the same experience of consolidation and integration of our identity in God. They are deserts in which we come not only to learn who we are in terms of God alone, but to allow that to define our entire existence really and concretely -- in what we value, how we behave, in the choices we make, and those with whom we identify, etc. In last year's "In Good Faith" podcast for A Nun's Life, I noted that for me the choice which is fundamental to all of Lent and all of the spiritual life, "Choose Life, not death" is the choice between accepting and living my life according to the way God defines me or according to the way the "world" defines me. It means that no matter how poor, inadequate, ill, and so forth I also am, I choose to make God's announcement that in Christ I am his beloved daughter in whom he is well-pleased the central truth of my life which colors and grounds everything else. Learning to live from that definition (and so, from the one who announces it) is the task of the hermit; the hermitage is the place to which the Spirit of love and Sonship drive us so that we can savor the truth of this incomprehensible mystery even as we struggle to allow it to become the whole of who we are.
But hermitages are, of course, not the only places which reprise these dynamics. Each of us has been baptized, and in each of our baptisms what was announced to us was the fact that we were now God's adopted beloved daughters and sons. Lent gives us the space and time where we can focus on the truth of this, claim that truth more whole-heartedly, and, as Thomas Merton once said, "get rid of any impersonation that has followed us" to the [desert]. We need to take time to identify and struggle with the falseness within us, but also to accept and appreciate the more profound truth of who we are and who we are called to become in savoring our experiences of God's love. As we fast in various ways, we must be sure to also taste and smell as completely as we can the nourishing Word of God's love for us. After all, the act of savoring is the truest counterpart of fasting for the Christian. The word we are called to savor is the word which defines us as valued and valuable in ways the world cannot imagine and nourishes us where the things of the world cannot. It is this Word we are called both to grapple with and to savor during these 40 days, just as Jesus himself did.
Thus, as I fast this Lent (in whatever ways that means), I am going to remember to allow myself not only to get in touch with my own deepest hungers and the hungers I share with all others (another very good reason to fast), but also to get in touch anew with the ways I have been fed and nourished throughout my life --- the experiences I need to savor as well. Perhaps then when Lent comes to an end I will be better able to claim and celebrate the one I am in God. My prayer is that each of us is able to do something similar with our own time in the desert.
Merton quotation taken from Contemplation in a World of Action, "Christian Solitude," p 244.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:55 AM
Labels: First Sunday of Lent, Lent
25 January 2024
Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 12:42 AM
22 January 2024
Fundamental Questions from a Reader in China Interested in Eremitical Life
[[Sister Laurel M O'Neal, Praised be Jesus Christ! I am Chinese and live in China. I am seriously considering Eremitical Monasticism, now I decide to visit the Chartreuse in France. I was attracted to Eremitical life and Carthusian way of life by the examples of Desert Fathers. I found your blog by chance and I have to say your articles are great! It brings much edification and inspiration to me! I have some questions. Could you share what draws you to Eremitical life in the form of Diocesan Hermit? Did you consider other forms of Eremitical Monasticism like Carthusian or Camaldolese? I wonder what is life like being a hermit under the provision and guidance of a Bishop? It seems very strange for me because a Diocesan Bishop is not a hermit, he is not even a "monk" (In the traditional usage), how could you live your hidden, solitude and ascetic life under a man who is not a monk? I also wonder, as a hermit, how do you practice the commandment of loving thy neighbour? I am certain hermit loves God, but I am not certain do they love people. Besides, have you ever consider Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic, I think you know the Eastern Christianity always honour hermit, if you ever consider them, why do you remain Latin Catholic?]]
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:04 AM
Responses to Questions about Friends, Family, Wills, "the World" and Similar Questions
Hi there, I have cited part of your email to respond to what you said about family and memento mori. First, I now have only my sister and niece living. We see each other rarely --- a function of distance and finances!! When we have been able to get together, it has been wonderful; in those cases, I go to where my sister lives and we spend time together talking, watching her favorite movies, eating favorite dishes, and even going to Disneyland! One thing I know is that loving family, communicating with them in whatever way one has available (including occasional visits, internet, phone calls, etc), thinking about and praying for them, and remembering life at home, do not need to detract from life with God or from looking forward to eternal life with God.
One of the things you may have gathered from earlier posts or emails is that I do not refer to everything outside the hermitage as "the world". Instead, while I do live within my hermitage embracing and moving toward "the silence of solitude," and while God draws me more and more deeply into intimacy with him, what has often denigratingly been called, "the world," is more accurately defined as that which is resistant to Christ, resistant to love, and tending to reject the God who is the source and ground of all creation. My family is not necessarily part of "the world" in that sense any more than I am or a convent or hermitage is part of the world in the way you use the term. Moreover, God dwells with and in them, just as he does with anyone I know in "life on earth". It is important to recognize that what we call heaven is less a place "out there somewhere" than it is a state wherein the very life of God is shared with us and also (importantly) through us. We don't know what that final sharing will be like once God is "all in all" and there is "a new heaven and a new earth," but we do know that life here shares in the One's life who is Emmanuel, God with us, and one day will do so fully.
I am not pulled away from life with God by my loves, memories, friendships, and so forth; they do not necessarily detract from my life with God, i.e., my life in heaven or what Mary Coelho, in writing about the Gospel of John, calls "eternity life". Quite often these things can mediate God's presence/love to me and turn me towards God more fully and intimately. I recognize this is a different perspective than that which is often associated with "contemptus mundi" or similar dated monastic motives; I also note the need to cultivate the silence of solitude that allows the hermit to spend quality time with God alone. At the same time I recognize that my own heart is marked and marred by "the world" in the way this phrase might be most familiar to you; if I speak so easily about "leaving the world" in entering a convent or "returning to the world" when leaving the convent or hermitage behind perhaps, I will never recognize the way I have closed "the world" up inside the hermitage right with me. That would be the real and blind tragedy!!
Speaking to Parish During the Pandemic |
So, what happens to the things I own when I die? Some will be gifted, others sold, and a lot will probably simply be thrown away. Every person in the church preparing for public profession is required to make up a will before that day and to keep it updated as needs change. Also, since diocesan hermits need to support themselves, and since for me that means a theological library, clothes, furniture, music, computer and equipment for ZOOM, etc. I have a small household of "stuff" to get rid of at some point. Other kinds of provisions are also my responsibility, insurance, DPOAH, and so forth. Whether it is more fitting to rent or own, I can't say. But since I cannot own, I must rent. I would prefer to own (or to have a secure hermitage on church property) --- I would like to own a hermitage (I would actually love to have a tree house as we see on the TV show, Treehouse Master), but it has never been possible. Poverty implies living simply, of course, but for me personally, I define it mainly or primarily in terms of my dependence upon God alone as the sole source of strength, meaning, and validation of my life. So long as I truly put that first and continue to grow in it, everything else tends to fall into place --- no matter the material or financial circumstances.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:44 AM
16 January 2024
From the Desert Fathers and Mothers: The Hermit's Need for Human Relationships in Achieving Genuine Holiness (Reprise)
[[When one desert father told another of his plans to “shut himself into his cell and refuse the face of men, that he might perfect himself,” the second monk replied, “Unless thou first amend thy life going to and fro amongst men, thou shall not avail to amend it dwelling alone.”]] (Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers)
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 10:32 PM
Labels: Desert Fathers and Mothers, Friendships and Hermiting
10 January 2024
Why Canon 603?
Here is what I read: [[But I do sense and have cited instances noticed, of the division that is being created, plus some detraction even if subtle or recently reworded. Eventhough you state correctly that the centuries-and-into-antiquity style of hermit vocation should not be demeaned, the traditional historic way of hermit life is in effect being negated or presented/treated as illegal by virtue of having the relative recent, diocese hermit path "legalized" by a canon law with procedural structure created by humankind, albeit clerics, but perhaps some who wanted this structure and stature developed, lobbied for and assisted in the creation of the canon law.
So again, to re-cap; my sincere appreciation if you can shed light at least on the reason why a canon law to legalize and make public, organized, and structured a diocese hermit vocation--was determined necessary to begin with, or who promoted the diocese hermit or "by law" type of public profession into the hands of a bishop over private profession in and consecration by God?]]
::Sigh:: I have written about this an awful lot over the past 17 years or so, so let me be brief and point you to past posts. First of all, while one form of eremitical life is called canonical (because it is an ecclesial life that is normative of what the Catholic Church understands such a life to be) and another is called non-canonical (that is, not normative nor appropriately governed as such vocations need to be), this does not mean the second one is "illegal" (nor that those living it are not leading exemplary lives the church respects). Only one person I know of has called the lay eremitical vocation illegal; she did that in a way that tended to demean her own non-canonical vocation and I wrote a piece against this. Later, I had the sense she thought I had said lay eremitical vocations were "illegal".
Some forms of eremitical life have been made canonical (normative) for hundreds and hundreds of years --- long before there was a universal Code of Canon Law. These include monasteries or hermitages associated with the Carmelites, the Carthusians, the Camaldolese, and so forth. In the Middle Ages anchoresses and anchorites (women and men) as well as hermits (always men) were supervised by local bishops and practices governing anchorholds including liturgical praxia were developed as were regulations for hermits seeking permission to wear the hermit tunic or preach openly. In such cases, local dioceses had canons (norms) regarding such vocations, despite the lack of a universal code in their regard. So, no, it is not the case that there has been only one kind of hermit living "traditional" hermit life on their own until 1983 when Canon 603 came to recognize the new possibility of consecrated solitary eremitical life.
Bishop Remi de Roo |
Please check the labels to the right of this post to find similar responses. See especially Canon 603 - history.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:58 PM
Labels: Canon 603 - history
08 January 2024
Feast of Jesus' Baptism (Reprise)
Of all the feasts we celebrate, the feast of the baptism of Jesus is one of the most difficult for us to understand. We are used to thinking of baptism as a solution to original sin instead of the means of our initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, or our adoption as daughters and sons of God and heirs to his Kingdom, or again, as a consecration to God's very life and service --- a new way of being human. When viewed this way, and especially when we recall that John's baptism was one of repentance for sin, how do we make sense of a sinless Jesus submitting to it?
I think two points need to be made here. First, Jesus grew into his vocation. His Sonship was real and completely unique but not completely developed or historically embodied from the moment of his conception. Rather it was something he embraced more and more fully over his lifetime. Secondly, his Sonship was the expression of solidarity with us and his fulfillment of the will of his Father to be God-with-us. Jesus will incarnate the Logos of God definitively in space and time, but this event we call the incarnation encompasses and is only realized fully in his life, death, and resurrection -- not in his nativity. Only in allowing himself to be completely transparent to this Word, only in "dying to self," and definitively setting aside all other possible destinies does Jesus come to fully embody and express the Logos of God in a way that expresses his solidarity with us as well.It is probably the image of Baptism-as-consecration and commissioning then which is most helpful to us in understanding Jesus' submission to John's baptism. Here the man Jesus is set apart as the one in whom God will truly "hallow his name." (That is, in Jesus' weakness and self-emptying God's powerful presence (Name) will make all things Holy and a sacrament of God's presence.) Here, in an act of manifest commitment, Jesus' humanity is placed completely at the service of the living God and of those to whom God is committed. Here his experience as one set apart or consecrated by and for God establishes God as completely united with us and our human condition. This solidarity is reflected in his statement to John that together they must fulfill the will of God. And here too Jesus anticipates the death and resurrection he will suffer for the sake of both human and Divine destinies which, in him, will be reconciled and inextricably wed to one another. His baptism establishes the pattern not only of HIS humanity but that of all authentic humanity. So too does it reveal the nature of true Divinity, for ours is a God who becomes completely subject to our sinful reality to free us for his own entirely holy one.
I suspect that even at the end of the Christmas season we are still scandalized by the incarnation. (Recent conversations on CVs and secularity make me even surer of this!) We still stumble over the intelligibility of this baptism, and the propriety of it especially. Our inability to fathom Jesus' own baptism, and our tendency to be shocked by it because of Jesus' identity, just as JohnBp was probably shocked, says we are not comfortable, even now, with a God who enters exhaustively into our reality. We remain uncomfortable with a Jesus who is tempted like us in ALL THINGS and matures into his identity as God's only begotten Son.
We are puzzled by one who is holy as God is holy and, as the creed affirms, "true God from true God" and who, even so, is consecrated to and by the one he calls Abba --- and commissioned to the service of this Abba's Kingdom and people. A God who wholly identifies with us, takes on our sinfulness, and comes to us in smallness, weakness, submission, and self-emptying is really not a God we are comfortable with --- despite three weeks of Christmas celebrations and reflections, and a prior four weeks of preparation -- is it? In fact, none of this was comfortable for Jews or early Christians either. The Jewish leadership was upset by JnBp's baptisms generally because they took place outside the Temple precincts and structures (that is, in the realm we literally call profane). Early Christians (Jewish and otherwise) were embarrassed by Jesus' baptism by John --- as Matt's added explanation of the reasons for it in vv 14-15 indicates. They were concerned that perhaps it indicated Jesus' inferiority to John the Baptist and they wondered if maybe it meant that Jesus had sinned prior to his baptism. And perhaps this embarrassment is as it should be. Perhaps the scandal attached to this baptism signals to us we are beginning to get things right theologically.
After all, today's feast tells us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a ritual washing, consecration, and commissioning by God which is similar to our own baptismal consecration. The difference is that Jesus freely accepts life under the sway of sin in his baptism just as he wholeheartedly embraces a public (and one could cogently argue, a thoroughly secular) vocation to proclaim God's sovereignty. The story of the desert temptation or testing that follows this underscores this acceptance. His public life begins with an event that prefigures his end as well. There is a real dying to self involved here, not because Jesus has a false self that must die -- as each of us has --- but because in these events his life is placed completely at the disposal of his God, his Abba, in solidarity with us. Loving another, affirming the being of another in a way that subordinates one's own being to theirs --- putting one's own life at their disposal and surrendering all other life possibilities always entails a death of sorts -- and a kind of rising to new life as well. The dynamics present on the cross are present here too; here we see only somewhat less clearly a complete and obedient (that is open and responsive) submission to the will of God, and an unfathomable subjection to that which human sinfulness makes necessary precisely so that God's love may be exhaustively present and conquer here as well.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:18 AM
Labels: Baptism as Consecration, Baptism of Jesus
03 January 2024
Christmas 2023 - New Year's 2024 and the Canticle of the Turning
I have posted this in the past at points when I have experienced something in the day's liturgy that speaks directly to me in a way that lets me know God is present and active, and intimately so. I have written in the past that my spiritual director and I have been doing a particular kind of inner work that leads to the healing of various forms of personal woundedness. There have been moments in the past 7.5 years where I have experienced significant healing and the sense of newness that comes with that and I have written about this occasionally --- the last time with the publication of "Classical Gas" which so well-reflected the way I was feeling.
This Christmas/New Year's has been the same kind of season: a time of great promise and the realization of that promise achieved in unimaginable ways. God's grace and a lot of hard work (made possible via Grace!) have achieved the deepest and most fundamental healing Sister Marietta and I have been working towards. As a result, the language of Mary's Magnificat has been strong in my mind, along with the promise associated with Paul's letter to the Romans, and also this song that so beautifully echoes the Magnificat. (Because some of my own experience is the result of trauma (childhood and young adult) whose deepest effects reach into the present, many lines in this song speak to me vividly; today it was, [[. . .Your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.]] God is doing something new (kainetes) in our world with the Christ Event; God is doing something new in (and through) us in Christ.
Unimaginable healing and growth can come to us when we let the Spirit of the Risen Christ and his Abba work in us in this way. He does not spurn our weakness; instead, it is in and through our weakness that God's power is perfected! (2 Cor 12:9) Through the transformation of that same weakness into the medium of God's grace, our own brokenness can become the astonishing revelation of God's wisdom and justice. Let us open our hearts to God's creative presence in ways that resonate with Mary's song and with this Canticle of the Turning as well!
My thanks again to Sister Michelle Sherliza, OP for the wonderful video version of this song.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:28 PM
Labels: Canticle of the Turning, Christmas 2023, Sister Michelle Sherliza OP
01 January 2024
New Year's Day 2024
I am getting ready to teach Romans this year (Jan-June) and I am anticipating the Spirit of God bringing newness to birth in the lives of those who are participating in the class. Romans will surprise and even shock folks in some ways --- especially if they have tended to hear it in short elections at Mass, or if their notion of salvation is too-highly individualized. One of the most striking things that Paul teaches the early Church is precisely that our God-willed destiny is not about going to heaven, and even less about existing as a disembodied soul after death, but instead is about being part of the new heaven and new earth that will come when God is all in all. As noted above, it is the whole of reality that is recreated, a process that began especially with Jesus' resurrection (the climax of the Incarnation of God in Jesus' life) and the victory of God over godlessness, sin, and death.
We have so focused on "getting to heaven" that many of us have disregarded and even participated without care in the destruction of God's good creation --- as though salvation is an "us and God only" affair. Similarly, Christians have treated God's Chosen People as though God has changed his mind and rejected them, rather than recognizing God's election has been extended to us and to all the nations in the world. We tend to treat the Risen Christ as though he is still locked in his tomb (though we may exchange a tabernacle for a rock-hewn cave here) rather than alive and active in the Holy Spirit everywhere and for/with everyone.
As we begin this new year, we might first take note of what we think we know about God, ourselves, and the future we look forward to -- usually without asking mature and searching questions. How many theological words do we use routinely without ever asking what they really mean? How many know, for instance, that heaven is not so much a place, but a euphemism for God's own self and that it can thus refer to God's own life shared with us? Christian Theologians will recognize that a central task of their work is guarding the docta ignorantia future (the "learned unknowing" of the future).
Rahner wrote that the "critical role of theology is to resist closure with regard to the future, to recognize what we do not know". (cf. Theological Investigations, vol XII, "The Question of the Future") Christian humility involves this kind of awareness --- though, too often our teachers may have failed to give us a real sense of this. When coupled with a radical trust in God's promise we can enter our world with greater hope and commitment to work in Christ and the power of the Spirit toward that new heaven and earth God so yearns for. While we cannot do this ourselves alone, science tells us time is short and prudent action is urgent; our faith tells us the choice is a critical one (in every sense of the term critical!!).
All good wishes for a fruitful and truly New Year!!
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:27 PM
27 December 2023
Born in Littleness and Vulnerability: Jesus, God-With-Us
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:10 PM
23 December 2023
A Lullabye for the Infant Jesus
I spoke with a Franciscan friend this afternoon about Christmas plans. She shared that, partly to mark the 800th anniversary of St Francis and the Creche, her house was using the above carol (and the same version) to conclude their evening prayer. Susan believes that trumpets are more suited to Easter; for Christmas we need lullabies!! I love the Celtic sound and the minimalist accompaniment done by Yo Yo Ma who supplements the drone of bagpipes. All good wishes for this Christmas Feast. May it truly be a time of nativity, new birth and new creation for us all.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 4:20 PM
17 December 2023
Gaudete Sunday and the Sacrament of Anointing (Revised)
In the past I have felt keenly my need for healing, but too, my compassion for all those who stood in front of our brothers and sisters in Christ and implicitly proclaimed our vulnerability and need for one another and the prayers of each and all. We each have our own story of personal suffering, brokenness, illness, and neediness --- and we also have our significant stories of the Christ who comforts and strengthens us in every difficulty. I don't know the details of all of these stories -- though yes, I know a few; in every case, however, I know how moving it is to witness to the Gospel in weakness and brokenness and how inspiring to stand silently with others who, though tacit about what the details of their vulnerability involve, say clearly with their presence that they trust in God, trust in the Sacraments, trust in the support of the ecclesia and cannot, in fact must not, do otherwise.
We each come to this Sacrament looking for God to work miracles -- "acts of power" as the NT puts it --- whether or not there is physical healing. We come as supplicants looking for God to transform our weakness into a complex canvas at once flawed and sacred, a Divine work of art, Magnificats proclaiming the One who is sovereign and victorious over the powers of sin and death even as (he) embraces and transforms them with his love and presence. It is especially significant that we do this on the day proclaiming the greatness of JnBap who is the greatest of "those born of women" and who prepared the way of the Lord who, [[Strengthen(s) the feeble hands, (and) make(s) firm the knees that are weak, say(s) to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.]] (Isaiah, today's first reading.)
Through the years I have written of a vocation to chronic illness -- a vocation to be ill within the Church, to bear our illness in Christ and (thanks to James Empereur, sj) of the sacrament of anointing as a prophetic sacrament of commissioning and call. This is what we have celebrated at St P's on this Gaudete Sunday: brothers and sisters in Christ who came forth together in their vulnerability and need in order to be strengthened in our witness to Christ and help inspire the faith and prayer of the entire assembly. Physical healing is not necessary for the effectiveness of this sacrament (though we certainly open ourselves to it) but the increasing ability to bear our illness in Christ --- the ability to trust in and witness to the God whose power is perfected in weakness and who puts an end to fear and deep insecurity is the real vocation here.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 3:25 AM