On Vatican II and the Value of Contemplative and Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, it seems to me that Vatican II asked Christians to turn toward the world in service. In this way, we got a lot of service from the laity, which was very good. What I wondered was what that did to the contemplative life and even to esteem for contemplative prayer amongst the laity? Did it have an effect, or was it all kind of neutral? I am asking because you said few people understand your vocation, and I wondered if Vatican II had a part in causing that. For instance, you write against a notion of fleeing from the world when world means God's good creation, and I think I understand this, but how does contemplative life serve the world? Did Vatican II sort of cut the legs out from under esteem for the contemplative life?]]

What really great observations and questions! While some, including Thomas Merton, suggested he perceived a developing "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness leading Christians 'to repudiate all aspiration to personal contemplative union with God and to deep mystical experience, because [among other things] this is a pagan evasion, [and] an individualistic escape from community, '" others point to the very strong statement of Vatican II, "The contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church's presence" as part of their disagreement with Merton's position. Vatican II also took steps to preserve papal cloister and in the document on Religious Life supported contemplative life while asking that outdated customs and practices be pruned from the life. On balance I would say that Vatican II preserved contemplative life and required attention to what would invigorate or reinvigorate it, even as the Church, in response to the entirety of the council's writings and thrust, took a different and more incarnational perspective on the nature of the secular world.

Some of the Contributions of Vatican II

I do agree that while Vatican II wrote in ways that would preserve and stress the Church's esteem for contemplative life, the accent on apostolic service or ministry had consequences that were not wholly anticipated. So did the accent on a (sacred) secularity that reflected God's incarnation in Jesus. This supported the potential sacramentality of the created world and invited humankind to honor the sacred nature of creation, and it softened the gulf between heaven and earth, thus allowing people to think in terms of the new heaven and new earth being established right here and right now in light of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. Heaven and earth were seen by Scripture scholars and theologians to interpenetrate one another, and this implied letting go of a focus on "getting to heaven" while "fleeing the world"; it meant embracing more of what Rahner called a mysticism of ordinary life. This shift changed approaches to contemplative life to some degree,  but my sense is that it led to healthier and less elitist notions of contemplative and eremitical life.

It is true that Vatican II was confronted with specific interventions on behalf of eremitical life, and while the council did not establish eremitic life directly as a state of perfection as Bp Remi de Roo called for, the revised Code of Canon Law, which was also part of the council's mandate, made room for this with c 603. Still, while Vatican II did not take a direct stance on eremitical life, it did considerably strengthen the Church's dependence on Scripture, and this implied not only a recovery of the desert tradition and its strong accent on encounter with God in the silence of solitude, but also the importance of a deep prayer life accompanying and underpinning any active ministry. Jesus' own life, especially as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, gave us a strong theology of hospitality, including the importance of hospitality to the God who would be Emmanuel in silent and individual prayer. This strong emphasis on the importance of Scripture in the life of the Church also gave us the robust incarnational theology noted above.

Even Thomas Merton's criticism of Vatican II's influence was countered by his "turn to the world" and his reworking of the way the contemplative or the solitary life is related to and serves the world --- itself a clear theme at Vatican II. That was anticipated and prepared for by Merton's epiphany at 4th and Walnut on the streets of Louisville just a few years before the council. This epiphany was the root of his turn to the world, his rethinking of vocations to the silence of solitude, and his appreciation of the universality of calls to contemplation. It just took some time for this new plant to blossom, but my sense is it flowered in the soil of Vatican II, which, in her appreciation of the goodness of God's creation and in her universal call to holiness, did indeed take a new and non-dualistic view of "the world". For all these reasons, I would have to say Vatican II's esteem for and protection of contemplative life more generally, and eremitic life more specifically, though often accomplished indirectly, is well established. 

Justifying the Existence of Contemplative and Eremitical Life:

In other words, I would suggest that any failure to esteem contemplative life generally and eremitical life more specifically comes from somewhere other than Vatican II itself, and that makes me wonder if contemplative life hasn't always been misunderstood in some significant ways, not least by drawing a hard line between heaven and earth and treating the world outside the monastery or hermitage as profane. In any case, I would argue that the reasons for this are not due to Vatican II itself. So, how does contemplative life generally, and solitary eremitical life more specifically, serve the Church and the larger world? How can we justify its existence, especially if it is not escapist or individualistic? I have been writing about this under the label, "existential solitude", or interior solitude,  and the call to explore this, so let me just summarize my position on this here.

Every human being is constituted in a state of existential solitude. This solitude is inviolable, and no one can enter into it with us, no matter how close our relationship with them is. This state of existential solitude means that at the depths of our being, in the very center of our lives, we exist alone with God (though most people may be consciously unaware of God dwelling in the depths of their being). Whether we are consciously aware of this or not, this is how we are constituted as human beings, and it is in coming to terms with this specific solitude that we become authentic human beings capable of loving God, ourselves, and others. (By the way, this foundational relationship, which is intrinsic to human existence, is the source of the Church's teaching on the inviolability of conscience.) Contemplatives, and especially hermits, are committed to plumbing the depths of this existential solitude, to finding God there where he resides closer to us than we are even to ourselves, and witnessing for the sake of others to both God and the nature of authentic human being. 

When Benedictines, for example, enter a monastery, they do so to "seek God". They do this not because God is not "out there" in the world, or because God is tucked away here in this monastery, needing to be found in the sacred place rather than the profane world! No! In light of the Christ Event, both the monastery and "the world" are sacred places! Instead, people come to the monastery to seek God because he is within us, deep, deep within us, and because the journey to the depths of ourselves takes time, patience, courage, determination, encouragement, and thus, various forms of structure and support. In particular, it takes the faith community and sacramental life of the Church along with the canonical structures, which provide for a stable state of life in which this journey to the depths of our being may be securely undertaken. The Church serves the c 603 hermit in this way so that s/he may undertake this journey that reveals human beings (and God as well) for who they really are. 

There are so many sources of (mis)understanding regarding what constitutes truly human existence in our world today. The hermit and contemplative life provide one radically countercultural definition. This vision stresses every person's existential aloneness and, at the same time, the communal nature of every human life. Merton was worried Vatican II would destroy any sense we each have that the inner journey to the center of ourselves must be made by every person in whatever state of life they live their humanity. When he used terms like, "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness", he was concerned individuals would no longer see the quest for union with God as essential to every Christian life, no matter the value of their active ministry. My sense is that Vatican II gave us a more robust access to Scripture and to a Jesus whose humanity was rooted in faithful prayer (i.e., dialogue with God at every level of his being) and expressed in his active ministry and life with others, as well as in his regular turn to solitude. Both of these revealed Jesus' union with God and the nature of divinity and humanity. Contemplatives, and especially hermits, live our lives dedicated to the dialogue with God that constitutes the core of authentic humanity. We each make this profound and profoundly humanizing journey over long years, and witness to this constitutive relationship for the sake of all of God's creation. That is the primary value of our lives.

Third Sunday of Easter: Made Fully Human in Dialogue with God in Christ

Sunday's Gospel includes the pericope where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. It is the first time we hear much about or from Peter since his triple denial of Christ --- his fear-driven affirmations that he did not even know the man and is certainly not a disciple of his. After each question and reply by Peter, Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." 

I have written about this at least three times before. About four or five years ago, I used this text to reflect on the place of conscience in our lives and a love which transcends law. At another point, I spoke about the importance of Jesus' questions and of my own difficulty with Jesus' question to Peter. It was in light of that reflection that I came to see that we love God as the commandment calls us to do, by allowing God to love us fully and exhaustively! We love God by letting God be the One he wills to be for and with us! Then, several years ago, at the end of the school year, I asked the students to imagine what it feels like to have done something for which one feels there is no forgiveness possible and then to hear how an infinitely loving God deals with that. The solution is not, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have termed it, "cheap grace" --- a forgiveness without cost or consequences. Neither is it a worthless "luv" which some in the Church mistakenly disparage because they hear (they say) too many homilies about the God of Love and mercy and not enough about the God of "justice". Instead, what Jesus reveals in this lection is a merciful love which overcomes all fear and division and summons us to incredible responsibility and freedom. The center of this reading, in other words, is a love which does justice and sets all things right.

But, especially at this time in the church's life, today's Gospel also takes me to the WAY Jesus loves Peter. He addresses him directly; he asks him questions and allows him to discover an answer which stands in complete contrast to and tension with his earlier denials and the surge of emotions and complex of thoughts that prompted them. As with Peter, Jesus' very presence is a question or series of questions which have the power to call us deeper, beyond our own personal limitations and conflicts, to the core of our being. What Jesus does with Peter is engage him at a profound level of heart --- a level deeper than fear, deeper than ego, beyond defensiveness and insecurity. Jesus' presence enables dialogue at this profound level, dialogue with one's true self, with God, and with one's entire community; it is an engagement which brings healing and reveals that the capacity for dialogue is the deepest reflection of our humanity.

It is this deep place in us that is the level for authentically human decision making. When we perceive and act at this level of heart, we see and act beyond the level of black and white thinking, beyond either/or judgmentalism. Here we know paradox and hold tensions together in faith and love. Here we act in authentic freedom. Jesus' dialogue with Peter points to all of this and to something more. It reminds us that loving God is not a matter of "feeling" some emotion --- though indeed it may well involve this. Instead, it is something we are empowered in dialogue with the Word and Spirit of God to d,o which transcends even feelings; it is a response realized in deciding to serve, to give, to nourish others in spite of the things happening to us at other levels of our being.

When we reflect on this text involving a paradigmatic dialogue between Peter and Jesus, we have a key to understanding the nature of all true ministry, and certainly to life and ministry in the Church. Not least, we have a significant model of papacy. Of course, it is a model of service, but it is one of service only to the extent it is one of true dialogue, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with all others. It is always and everywhere a matter of being engaged at the level of the heart, and so, as already noted, beyond ego, fear, defensiveness, black and white thinking, judgmentalism, or closed-mindedness to a place where one is comfortable with paradox. As John Paul II wrote in Ut Unum Sint, "Dialog has not only been undertaken; it is an outright necessity, one of the Church's priorities, " or again, "It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. . .any display of mutual opposition must disappear." (UUS, secs 31 and 29)

But what is true for Peter is, again, true for each of us. We must be engaged at the level of the heart and act in response to the dialogue that occurs there. Because of the place of the Word of God in this process, lectio divina, the reflective reading of Scripture, needs to be a part of our regular praxis. So too with prayer, especially quiet prayer whose focus is listening deeply and being comfortable with that often-paradoxical truth that comes to us in silence. Our humanity is meant to be a reflection of this profound dialogue. At every moment we are meant to be a hearing of Jesus' question and the commission to serve that it implies. At every moment, we are to be the response that transcends ego, fear, division, judgmentalism, and so forth. Engagement with the Word of God enables such engagement, engagement from that place of unity and communion with God and others that Jesus' questions to Peter allowed him to find and live from. My prayer today is that each of us may commit to be open to this kind of engagement. It helps us realize our dialogical nature and leads to the full realization of that New Creation which is truly "not of this world" but instead is of the Kingdom of God --- right here, right now.

Another Look at Virtual Lauras

[[Hi Sister, I was wondering if you have the sense that a laura (lavra?) is a better way of being a hermit than being a solitary hermit. My diocese is not open to professing solitary hermits, but they may be open to hermits living in a laura. I'm not sure how that works since the diocese has no hermits at all; how can we wait until there are several solitary hermits if there is no openness to professing them one by one? I wondered, though, if being part of a laura is a better way of living as a hermit? Do you have experience with this? Thank you!]]

 Good questions! I love the implied chicken or egg analogy with solitary hermits and lauras. You are correct in wondering how this is possible if there is no openness to professing solitary hermits in the first place. Lauras grow out of the need for professed solitary hermits to have some mutual support with others making the same journey. Unfortunately, most dioceses have no genuine hermit vocations at all, and those who do have c 603 hermits have only one or two. If there are to be lauras, they cannot usually be what my delegate calls, "local lauras".  Instead, they will need to serve solitary hermits for mutual support and love, even while geographically distant from one another. I am part of such a "virtual" laura, a group of four c 603 hermits from different geographical regions in the US and England. It is on the basis of this experience that I can try to respond to your questions.

The first thing to see is that the answer to your question is not either/or but both/and. Each of the hermits in this laura is a solitary hermit perpetually professed under c 603. We each live alone and are otherwise about as different from one another as one can imagine. We have different educations, different experiences of religious life, different theologies and faith languages, different favorite authors, different limited ministries and relationships with parishes, different horaria, ways of praying, etc. At the same time, the relationships we have formed and are forming are incredibly profound, intimate, and sustaining. We generally come together regularly (monthly) via ZOOM to discuss a book on eremitical life (or related texts), and sometimes individually for other purposes. While we use the text as a focus, the discussions tend to be about eremitical life and each of our experiences in coming to, living, and growing in that. Canon 603 and what it means for each of us and our place in the Church and world is important for each of us, and we each share a commitment rooted in our gratitude to God for the existence of this canon. 

What is most important for us, besides the chance to learn from one another, is the chance to share our journeys with one another. The fact that we each have experienced the larger Church's lack of understanding of our vocation is an important piece of this, and while this is sharpest in our relationships with parishioners, it also happens with pastors, some bishops, and other religious as well!  (That said, I do find other religious tend to understand us better than most)! Still, we don't tend to commiserate with one another on this except to establish we each share the experience; instead, we mainly share the inner journey and joy of eremitical life and how it is that what we live every day is critical for the life of every Christian and the Church herself. Thus, when we read something like Cornelius Wencel's Eremitic Life, we explore it from within the eremitical life itself and our personal experience of that. Mostly, we know what Wencel is talking about, and whether we agree, disagree, or are simply sometimes surprised by what he writes, Wencel serves as a fellow traveler and a kind of elder who is part of the formative dialogue of our lives. For that matter, we serve in the same way for and with one another, and the time we spend together gives us some of what we need in living our vocations faithfully. We are both solitary hermits and those who "live community" in different ways. The (virtual) laura is one of the most critical of these.

Today, while I would not say living in a laura is the better way of being a solitary hermit, I understand the importance of having some experience of what a laura represents while one continues to live as a solitary hermit. Personally, I would not want to miss such an experience, and my eremitical life would be poorer without it. Of course, my delegates understand me and my life (sometimes better than I do!!), and others respect me and this vocation. But being able to share with other c 603 hermits who know the challenges, commitments, loneliness, hungers, graces, joys, etc., of this life is a blessing. That is especially true because the inner journey, the exploration of existential solitude within an eremitical context, defines this vocation even more than external solitude does. No one can make the inner journey to the depths of ourselves for us, but the sense that we are not alone in this critical life exploration, and that some of the folks who pray, laugh, and learn with us have made (or are making) the same journey themselves, and need our support too, is an unalloyed blessing. 

As I have written in the past, all of this reminds me of the following quotation: [[What we alone can do, we cannot do alone.**]] Of course, in the eremitic vocation, the hermit and God are the primary referents in such a quotation, but throughout the history of eremitical life, Christian solitary hermits have recognized the need for community, especially with others making the same eremitical journey they are. Unfortunately, this essential need has often tended to morph into established or juridical communities whose hermits cease being hermits and become cenobites. (A variation on this is c 603 "hermits" who really have a cenobitical call and want to found communities. These individuals do not have eremitical vocations but seek to use c 603 as a stopgap means to establishing communal life.) At the same time, solitary eremitical life can also tend to isolationism and individualism. When the pendulum swings to either of these extremes, eremitism ceases to be what it is meant to be and, to some extent, is lost to the Church. When that happens, the Church is less the community of faith God calls it to be.

The Fathers who wrote c 603 did their best to establish and codify the nature of a healthy solitary eremitical life in the life of the Church. While not mentioned in the canon, lauras are allowed (according to the Dicastery on Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, DICLSAL) and can certainly enrich and help protect the vocations of solitary eremitism. Bishops who might sense this are correct. Still, as you pointed out, the ability to establish local lauras when one has only a single solitary canonical hermit (or none at all!!!) is non-existent. More importantly, lauras are composed of solitary hermits who come together with other professed and consecrated hermits for support in living solitary eremitical life. In other words, there must be solitary hermits living this vocation before there can be a need for a c 603 laura, and lest a juridical community is established instead. 

I sincerely believe that the solution to how we create lauras when the vocation to solitary eremitism is so rare today is to establish intentional (and optional!!) virtual lauras connected by computer and ZOOM (or a similar service).  This solution protects and even strengthens the solitary eremitical life not only by encouraging the existential journey to meet God and Self in one's depths, but by preventing both individualism and isolationism, as well as providing an authentic experience of community that eschews those non-hermits who would like to use c 603 as a disingenuous way to establish a religious community!

** Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light

Forever was Never Until Now

 Hi Sister, I have been meditating on the e e cummings' poem you recently posted. This is the first time I have tried to do this. I wondered how you understand the line "forever was never until now"? If you understood it in terms of God and knowing or being known by God, would this change the meaning? Would you mind sharing that?

Thanks for the question. What I can do is to outline what meanings this line suggests to me. I hope that is sufficient. The first thing I will say is that as I focus on it, it seems to have several different but interrelated meanings or layers of meanings. So, the basic situation is that cummings (or someone he is writing about) has fallen in love and his entire world has been turned upside down while his life makes an entirely new kind of sense. This causes him to write: 

. . .so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough

(and birds sing sweeter

than books

tell how)

so here is away and so your is a my

(with a down

up

around again fly)

forever was never till now. . .

The first impression the last line gives me is that cummings has a sense of eternity that was not possible before. Maybe that's because he only had access to "book learning" up until now, and maybe it's because love gives him access to eternity. What cummings seems to be saying to begin with is that nothing was lasting for him until this new experience and relationship. everything was finite and limited. Being was temporary at best, meaning was provisional or partial, while in the present, even the smallest thing in creation explodes with larger and cosmic meaning or import (so world is a leaf, so tree is a bough). This meaning is potential within each and every part of creation. It is realized in love.

The second impression this line gives me comes when I look at the word never a little more closely: "forever was never. . .". It could mean cummings believed there was no such thing as forever, or it could mean that his life had been marked by constant negativity: "not possible", "it''ll never happen", "not for me", and these would especially apply to the eternal, to love, to meaningful relationships, to belonging or being free, etc. If I read this theologically, I hear: "A God of love? Nonsense!" or "A God who loves me in and beyond even sin and death? Absurd!" Whichever of these is the case (if either), what does seem clear to me is that Cummings is saying that before this experience of loving and being loved, life held no real possibilities, no future, no meaning. It was limited and closed off from transcendence, much less the Transcendent. 

And then there is the word now. Now is a place where cummings stands in light of loving and being loved. It is a place where time and space open up into eternity. It seems to mean being at home in space and time. Book learning, as the source of ultimate answers and wisdom, be damned; love turns even the laws of physics on their head. He explains, 

                                   now i love you and you love me

(and books are shuter

than books

can be)

and deep in the high that does nothing but fall

(with a shout

each

around we go all)

there's somebody calling who's we

At the center of the universe there's a we calling, a we that symbolizes the fulfillment of one's greatest capacities as a human being --- the capacity for truth and love and compassion, for transcendence and intimacy, for personal growth and wholeness. A while back, I posted a piece using the quote, "What only I can do, I cannot do alone!" and I hear that quote in all of this. It is here that God assumes (his) most important place in our lives. St Catherine of Genoa once said that "the deepest ME is God". I have written here before about each human person being a dialogical event, and it is in that dialogue that human beings participate in the eternity of God's own life. Most commentators I have read on this poem reflect on the fact that cummings fell in love with a woman, but I don't think there is any reason we couldn't read this poem as speaking about what happens when one discovers God (Love itself) at the center of one's life! 

Doesn't cummings capture the joy and new orientation of a life given over to God and, therefore, to Love-in-act? What God does with our lives when (he) is allowed to grasp us is unimaginable and indescribable. We are freed to be our true selves, freed to live our lives for God's sake and the sake of others, freed to make significant commitments for the sake of the Kingdom of God in this world, and freed to write poetry like e e cummings does! My own experience is that this Love-in-Act frees one to live in the present moment, and thus, too, to "know forever" (or eternity, which is the fullness of being and meaning) in a way one had not and could never have truly known it before this.

I hope this is helpful.

Second Sunday of Easter: Thomas's Doubt, What's That Really All About? (Reprise)

A little late, but last Sunday's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, and especially, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. In other words, it is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we, precisely as embodied persons, will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls that are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul (and in fact, the whole of creation is meant to be renewed)!

The scenario with Thomas continues this theme but is contextualized in a way that leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith --- as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt (or whose demands!) SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is often perceived to be that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.

What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. I think Thomas knows, on some level anyway, that insofar as the resurrection really occurred, it does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead, it renders permanently valid what was revealed (made manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding that could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead, it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked and revealed in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.

Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law, and it was the Law (combined with human sinfulness) that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc., on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to have him crucified not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify (or have him crucified) to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.

There are many gods and even very many manifestations of the real God available to us today (many partial, some more or less distorted), and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets (and false "messiahs") showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.

In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way, (and only in this way!) their own discipleship could and would come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.

Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence on seeing the wounds and putting his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect instead, he was the most astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.

We should not trivialize Thomas's witness by transforming him into a run-of-the-mill empiricist and doubter (though doubting is an important piece of growth in faith)!! Instead, we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes and the lance wound inflicted by the world of power and prestige. Everyone should be checked for signs that this God is capable of, as well as generous and merciful enough to assume such suffering on behalf of a creation he would reconcile and make whole. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the God of Easter, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place; only this God is the One who makes all things new by loving us with an eternal love from which nothing at all can separate us.

Becoming all Fire (Reprised from 2018)

 In the apothegmata (sayings) of the Desert Fathers and Mothers there is a famous story. It was rooted in the personal experience of these original Christian hermits but it resonated with a line from today's reading from Paul's second letter to Timothy:  [[For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.]] A young monk, Abba Lot, came to an elder, Abba Joseph, and affirmed that he had done all that he knew to do; everyday he did a little fasting, praying and meditating. He maintained hesychia (stillness) and purged his thoughts to the best of his ability. He wondered what else he should be doing. The story concludes, [[Standing up, the elder stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire; and he said to him, "If you are willing, you can become all flame!"]]

I suspect most of us have experienced the formal laying on of hands that occurs during the reception of some sacrament or other. If we are not ordained we would still have experienced this at confirmation and during the reception of the anointing of the sick. Some of us who were baptized as adults may have experienced this during our initiation into the Church. In every case the laying on of hands signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit and the mediation of a kind of vocational event, a call to discipleship in and of the love and presence of God in Christ. (The sacrament of anointing has been called a vocational sacrament to be sick in the Church, a call to proclaim the Gospel of God's wholeness and holiness in and through the weakness and even the relative brokenness of illness. cf. James Empereur, Prophetic Anointing) And of course there are all the other ways God lays hands on us as "his" love comforts, heals, and commissions us to God's  service. I wonder if we realize the invitation these occasions represent, the invitation not merely to be touched and enlightened in so many ways by the love and presence of God, but to be so wholly transformed by him so that we become "all flame"!

This is another way of describing the coming of the Reign of God among us. In today's readings the Kingdom of God is not so much a place as it is an event. Jesus described it this way: [[Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.]] (Matt 11:4-5) And we know that beyond this, the coming of this mysterious event often involved the healing of those with inexplicable illnesses and forms of unfreedom or outright bondage, victims of the demonic in human hearts and the world at large. According to tomorrow's readings the seeds of  this event are planted deep within us, a potential harvest which is natural to us and whose fullness we cannot even imagine. With every encounter with Jesus, every encounter with the Word of God, every direct or mediated experience of the love of God, this human and vocational potential is summoned or drawn to fruition.

One of the privileged ways this encounter occurs just as it did in Jesus' time is through Jesus' parables. These are stories which quietly draw us more and more into the world Jesus calls home, the world of friendship with God, the countercultural world whose values and life we call prophetic. I have written about parables here before --- about their power to summon us out of this world, to empower us to leave our baggage behind and to embrace the newfound freedom of an enlarged and hallowed humanity. It is a world which, through the narrative power of the Word made flesh, transforms and commissions us to return to that same world we left and act as Christ-for-others --- in the world but not of it. Jesus says, "the Kingdom of God is like. . ." and our minds and hearts alert to the promise and  challenge of a reality we cannot explain, a mystery we cannot comprehend unless, until, and to the extent it takes complete hold of us.

This gradual but continual process of call, encounter, response, and missioning is the way the event we know as the Kingdom of God comes, first to us and then to others we meet and minister to, then to the whole of creation. And it is what the Gospel writers are calling us to today. May we each find ourselves grasped and shaken, comforted, healed and commissioned, disoriented and re-oriented by the Word of God that comes to us in Christ. And may we each come to know and believe the truth of our own potential and call --- that we are not merely meant to be touched here and there by the fire of God's love and presence, but that we are made, called, and commissioned to "become all flame" in and through that love. Amen.

We Are Pioneers! Part 2, Being Part of a New and Ancient Vocation!!!

[[Hi Sister, I loved what you wrote about being pioneers, but I was surprised you didn't speak of c 603 hermits specifically as pioneers. After all, it is the new vocation "on the block." Aren't you a pioneer in living c 603?]]

Thanks for this question! It is a good one and one I have been discussing a little with other c 603 hermits. Yes, you are correct; because c 603 is a new norm defining consecrated solitary eremitical life, and because every diocese that chooses to implement the canon is also doing something quite new, every c 603 hermit is a pioneer in this sense as well; it is a very new thing to have hermits living as integral members of parish communities and doing limited ministry besides being a contemplative at the heart of the local Church, and what this means to and for everyone is something we are all exploring together. However, I wanted to write about the heart of the adventure, the inner journey, before I spoke about this other central way c 603 eremitical life involves being a pioneer.  I did mention the dimension of ecclesiality, which is central to canonical vocations, and that anticipates this second post. 

So, yes, besides the inner journey that makes hermits explorers in profound and extensive ways, there is the whole outer dimension of being representatives of a "new" (and ancient) vocation in the Church itself. I'd like to look a little at that in this post, because it comes up indirectly every time someone asks one of us "what order are you?" or any time a potential candidate for profession and consecration contacts their diocese seeking to become canonically what they are already living non-canonically. In each of these situations, one needs to be prepared to speak of the new thing God is doing with one's life, and to do so in a way that allows people unprepared to hear this to truly hear it. That takes enormous preparation and courage (in the case of the diocese, for instance), and a sense of who one truly is (in either case).

It isn't enough for the Church to have created c 603. She must implement it and implement it wisely. This means hermits must come to their dioceses with sufficient preparation and a strong sense of God's call, and they must do so after some years working with a good spiritual director. And even then, the hermit does not know that she will be professed and/or consecrated. She responds to God's personal call to her, and after some years, she approaches the Church to submit to a mutual discernment process. If this goes well, the Church will call her to profession and then, to consecration as a diocesan hermit --- a hermit with an ecclesial vocation. But there are no guarantees in any of this. The solitary hermit has no community to fall back on should the diocese decline to profess her. Unless the diocese gives her substantive reasons to move in another direction, she will continue living as a hermit because she knows it is God's call to her. Perhaps she will contact the diocese again in another five or ten or twenty years, but whether she does or does not, she is a pioneer living the loneliness of every true pioneer.

For those hermits the Church does profess and eventually consecrate, the pioneering is still not over! In some ways it has only just begun. The journey one now makes is not only a solitary one for oneself and God, but becomes an explicitly ecclesial one lived for the sake of the Church and her own embodiment of Christ. The c 603 hermit reminds contemplative religious of the primary relationship their lives are really about, and she reminds apostolic religious of the relationship and depth of prayer necessary for all truly fruitful apostolic ministry. She reminds married persons of the faithfulness to one another and to God that is so essential to their vocation. She reminds the single person that even in their loneliness, there is Another who is always present, and always seeking to be heard and to hear, to love and be loved. 

She, especially if she is chronically ill or disabled, reminds the chronically ill that they are called to an essential wellness that is possible in spite of illness, and that their lives can be full and fruitful as one learns to live and witness to this essential wellness and the one who makes it possible. And, paradoxically, she reminds everyone in whatever state of life they are called to wholeness, that human life, even in its deepest physical solitude, is essentially communal or relational, that escapism and individualism are antithetical to the humanity to which we are each called by God, and that learning love and compassion are the work we are each called to if we wish to be truly human and "successful." The eremitical life is human life stripped of everything but the essentials (because it focuses on the one thing necessary for every life), and so, it witnesses in a universal way so long as it is truly eremitical and not simply idiosyncratic or "bizarre". The authentic hermit is a prophetic voice motivated by hope and love, and she serves in that way wherever the Spirit moves her.

But none of this happens without the hermit learning these things herself in her own relationship with God, and then in relating and speaking as needed to the people of her parish or diocese or larger world! Every step reflects a yet-untraveled path that only the hermit can take. No one can do it for her, for it is her knowledge and wisdom that is called for. Yes, mentors can help here, especially if they have been pioneers themselves, but again, the path being taken is the hermit's own, and she trusts in herself and the grace of God that she can be successful in this. And, after a decade or two, a diocese that has taken a chance on professing and consecrating this hermit will come to understand that the risk was a fine one and entirely justified. They may, therefore, be open to professing other candidates in the future.

For diocesan hermits are also largely responsible for the future of this specific vocation. If dioceses are not careful in who they admit to profession and eventually, consecration, and if they do not do all they can to be sure the person can live eremitical life for the right reasons and with the right spirit, for instance, they may well find other dioceses responding by saying what I once heard one Carmelite Sister being told. She was approaching her diocese regarding becoming a c 603 hermit and was told by the Vicar General of the diocese, "They are telling me to stay away from that!" Again, this vocation is made up of pioneers, and the responsibility of each one of us to live this vocation as well as we can is very weighty indeed. (By the way, this also means that bishops and diocesan personnel may be required to do some pioneering work themselves if they wish to have healthy hermits representing the diocese! Sometimes this doesn't work out, and hermits might do better to seek standing under c 603 in another diocese.)

There is so much more to say about this pioneering dimension of the solitary eremitical vocation, but I have gone on for a while here. I am sure I will return to this theme in the future, and I want to encourage readers to ask questions that push me to be more detailed in my explorations of the topic if it seems that it will be helpful. Thanks for doing that.

We Are Pioneers! The Goal and Witness of Eremitic Life

 I have always been a fan of Star Trek and its spin off series. Some I have liked more than others, but all of them have engaged me on some level. I am finding Strange New Worlds especially wonderful, not only because of the exploration being done in each episode, but because of the rich characterizations, the struggle each player has to be their best selves, and the ethics of equality and compassion that permeate the show. In all of these aspects, Star Trek generally, and in Strange New Worlds specifically, reminds me of a world we have the potential to be as part of a universe we can hardly imagine yet.

As a hermit, I don't imagine I will ever explore outer space! But I, and other diocesan hermits, are excited by the prospect of exploring inner space, the realm of life with God, and with living on the frontiers of eremitical life with our canonical commitments. More, we do this as part of our ministry to and within the Church, precisely so the Church can be alive in the way she is called to be. This is also essential to the health and well-being of the world around us, and integral to God's own will for the whole of his creation. We are pioneers of sorts, and we struggle in the ways all pioneers struggle, first to live our lives with an integrity that is true to the solitary eremitical tradition we represent, and secondly, to be open to whatever new the Holy Spirit wills to do in and with our lives. That makes our lives a strange mixture of old and new, inner and externalized, traditional and novel, profoundly personal and expansively cosmic, all at the same time. Like many who have gone before me, and numbers of others journeying in the same way today, I think this is what it means to be a contemplative and to live in the present moment!! 

It is also what it means to live in and from the Risen Christ, who abides at once in heaven and on earth. He is the one in whom the interpenetration of these realities is made real. In all of the Scripture I have done in the past years, two themes are newly important for my understanding of the nature of eremitical life and the journey I have been called to make. The first is the affirmation that God is the One who, from the beginning, has willed to be Emmanuel, an image of God that affirms his desire to be with me (and the whole of his creation) in every moment and mood of my life. Emmanuel is the name in which heaven and earth are drawn together to make the whole of God's dwelling place. The second theme that affirms this same will of God is that Jesus is the new Temple. A temple is not merely a holy place set apart for God or for worship of God. It is the place in which heaven (God's realm) and earth (creation's realm) are quite literally drawn together. Jesus as the new Temple becomes the One in whom heaven and earth interpenetrate one another, and the renewed world becomes God's own once again. 

Into this incredibly weighty story I have been born and born anew, and what I also know now for the very first time, is that both I and this solitary eremitical vocation were made for times like these. It is something of a truism to say that eremitic life tends to reappear or flourish during difficult times. But here we are, just 42 years into the life of the canon 603 vocation, and our world faces crises on every front. The US is facing a Constitutional crisis and the endangering of our democratic society on numerous fronts; our people need to be able to hold onto hope, and religious freedom needs to be protected, especially from "Christian Nationalism" and the assault on religious freedom that represents.  At the same time, the Catholic Church has just lost Pope Francis, one of our strongest voices for human rights, social justice, the threat to our environment, as well as to the place of a synodal Church in establishing and maintaining a just and compassionate Church and world. We look to the election of a new Pope and the renewal of the Church's mission, especially in the face of growing fascism, oligarchies, "Christian" Nationalism, and factionalization throughout the Church and the World.

I have written on this blog for almost twenty years about the task to become the person God calls each of us to be. A vocation is a means by which we achieve this task and goal. An ecclesial vocation also means being part of those directly responsible for allowing the Church to be the Church God calls her to be. As a part of this task and goal, I have worked with a highly skilled spiritual director during this entire time, and together we have explored the ins and outs of my own journey to growth, healing, and union with God. It has been surprising, at times gratifying, at others exhilarating, and at other times (though especially the past nine years) extremely difficult. In the main, just as it is for every hermit, it has been a journey of love --- loving, being loved, learning to be loved, and learning to trust and love more fully in return. This has meant exploring the depths of myself, learning what it means to be true and, through the love and mercy of God and others, to be made true and whole.  

In all of this, our relationship with the creator God is so central to our lives, so constitutive of who we are, that we can say we ARE this relationship, and like any relationship, it is both demanding and fulfilling. This is the inner world the hermit explores, commits to allowing being enlarged and deepened even to the limits of her human weakness and the darkness of personal alienation and fragmentation. The desert Abbas and Ammas spoke of doing battle with demons, and the vivid pictures they sometimes painted reflected the awesomeness of this same inner world. It was sometimes terrifying, always challenging, and, so long as one persevered, inevitably exhilarating in the victory of love over personal woundedness and brokenness. This is true of contemporary hermits as well. This victory culminates in union with God and the certain sense that one's life is given to God so that He may be the Emmanuel He wills to be, even as he makes of us those we are called to be, too. 

No, this isn't the final frontier of a Star Trek program. But it is every bit as exciting an adventure, and of much greater moment! At a time when truth is generally neglected and betrayed, when personal truth is sacrificed for the sake of inhuman disvalues like greed and power, when Christianity itself is betrayed by a "prosperity gospel" with no room for the Cross or the authentic grace of God, when individualism replaces the commonality of brothers and sisters in Christ, hermits explore and witness to this deepest of truths, namely, to the extent we are truly human and live this with integrity we ARE a relationship with God in which we both fulfill the telos of our lives and participate in the fulfillment of the whole of God's creation. This is the source of all hope in our world, and it is the one thing hermits are called to witness to with their lives. As Strange New Worlds might describe this vocation, Ad astra per aspera: Through difficulties to the stars!!

Easter Homily, Bishop Marianne Budde

 

Bishop Budde breaks open the Word of God for us. She does a really fine job with the otherness of the resurrection and the style of the narrative. Of course she balances this with a wonderful treatment of God's new presence in our everyday world! Finally, she treats the center of our Easter Hope. I hope you enjoy this!

Pope Francis: Requiescat in Pace

Though not exactly unexpected, there is shock at the death of Francis, sadness, and prayers for the Church as she moves forward in hope for her future in Christ. Just yesterday, despite his apparent frailty, I was celebrating the Pope's continuing recovery from life-threatening pneumonia! I never thought today I would be mourning his death. I am using the news article rather than writing something myself. I have to agree that the timing of Francis' death is striking. To complete Holy Week and then to die on Easter Monday is literally remarkable. May we all live our lives in light of Francis' life and values. They were quintessentially Christian. I wish readers here the peace of the Risen Lord, knowing that death does not have the last word!

Archdiocese of Glasgow

April 21 at 11:31 AM ·

The Vatican has tonight published the late Pope’s death certificate which records the cause of death this morning as a stroke, leading to coma and heart failure .

 
Also published is his strikingly simple final testament detailing his wishes for burial outside the Vatican near the shrine to Our Lady where he often went to pray. It reads:
In the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

As I sense the approaching twilight of my earthly life, and with firm hope in eternal life, I wish to set out my final wishes solely regarding the place of my burial.

Throughout my life, and during my ministry as a priest and bishop, I have always entrusted myself to the Mother of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary. For this reason, I ask that my mortal remains rest - awaiting the day of the Resurrection - in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.
I wish my final earthly journey to end precisely in this ancient Marian sanctuary, where I would always stop to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey, confidently entrusting my intentions to the Immaculate Mother, and giving thanks for her gentle and maternal care.

I ask that my tomb be prepared in the burial niche in the side aisle between the Pauline Chapel (Chapel of the Salus Populi Romani) and the Sforza Chapel of the Basilica, as shown in the attached plan.

The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus.

The cost of preparing the burial will be covered by a sum provided by a benefactor, which I have arranged to be transferred to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major. I have given the necessary instructions regarding this to Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, Extraordinary Commissioner of the Liberian Basilica.

May the Lord grant a fitting reward to all those who have loved me and who continue to pray for me. The suffering that has marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and for fraternity among peoples.

Santa Marta, 29 June 2022
FRANCISCUS

Alleluia! He is Risen!! Alleluia, Alleluia!!

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

For the next 50 days, we have time to attend in a more focused way than we might otherwise do, 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. 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 not only had to do with our own salvation, but with the recreation of all of reality and our promise of an unimagined future for it. One of Paul's shorthand phrases for this transformation was "the death of [godless] 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 because of synodality, for instance. Not least is the figure of Francis, and his continuing recovery from his recent illness, which has many of us singing a heartfelt alleluia in gratitude to the God of Life.

Still, 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. (Today's lection from the Gospel of John makes that clear all by itself!) 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 mistakenly affirm that, in various ways, God was reconciled to us rather than the other way around. Only over time did the Church embrace Jesus as risen, and then come to terms with the scandalous death of Jesus, and so, knew him as the Christ who exhaustively reveals God's own power in weakness. Only over time did she come to understand how different the world is for those who are baptized into Jesus' death. It is a lesson we are still learning, each of us, as we grow in faith. Thus, each year the Church offers us a more focused time to come to understand and embrace all of this more fully; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, in part, geared to this.

But today is a day of unqualified 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. The question raised in my last post has been answered, and, startling though this may be, Jesus, precisely as the Crucified One, is God's Messiah, his anointed One, his only begotten Son. Though it will take time to fully understand and embrace all this means, through the Church's liturgies and Scriptures especially, 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 resurrection. 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 that is so. On this day, we proclaim that Christ is risen! Sinful death could not hold him, nor can it hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia!!

Exultet (or Exsultet)!!!

Madman or Messiah? In Darkness We Wait in Hope

 In reflecting on the periods of silence after Holy Thursday's Mass and reservation of the Eucharist and especially after the stations and celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday, I am struck by their importance. 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; yet, there is 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 tomorrow "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 watch the darkness and the threat to his life intensify and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for Wednesday, we hear 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 would kill him. There was betrayal -- of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship, and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continued to deepen, and the threat could not be greater.  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 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? 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; 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.

Holy Week Meditation from Sister Thea Bowman FSPA

Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA

The following Holy Week meditation comes from Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA through the Sisters of Social Service.

"Let us resolve to make this week holy by claiming Christ’s redemptive grace and by living holy lives. The Word became flesh and redeemed us by his holy life and holy death. This week especially let us accept redemption by living grateful, faithful, prayerful, generous, just and holy lives.

Let us take time this week to be present to someone who suffers. Sharing the pain of a fellow human will enliven Scripture and help enter into the holy mystery of the redemptive suffering of Christ.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by participating in the Holy Week services of the Church.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by sharing holy peace and joy within our families, sharing family prayer on a regular basis, making every meal, where loving conversations bond family members in unity.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by sharing holy peace and joy with the needy, the alienated, the lonely, the sick and afflicted, the untouchable. Let us unite our sufferings, inconveniences and annoyances with the sufferings of Jesus. Let us stretch ourselves, going beyond our comfort zones to unite ourselves with Christ’s redemptive work...