by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
“In the cosmology of Jesus’ time, God and the heavens were up and human beings and Earth were below. Our 2,000-year-old gospel tells the story of the risen Jesus’ return to God in the cosmology everyone assumed in the first century. To return to God is to go to the heavens. As the Church celebrates Jesus’ ascension into heaven in 2013, we wonder where he goes, where God’s home is. We hunger for lasting communion with our loved ones.”
How do you imagine communion with God?
Learn more about Catholic Relief Services here.
In the winter of 1998, Ryan Hreljac was a first-grader who was listening when his teacher told the class about countries that didn’t have clean drinking water. Ryan lived in Canada and had never imagined schools without drinking fountains. He was interested in helping people in the African countries his teacher talked about so he started raising money to help build a well. His fundraising and advocacy turned into a social justice movement. Today Ryan is a college student. His first-grade project has evolved into Ryan’s Well, a foundation that has helped build 749 water projects and 992 latrines bringing safe water and improved sanitation to 789,907 people.
This Earth Day, Think BLUE! | Ryan’s Well Foundation Blog.
via This Earth Day, Think BLUE! | Ryan’s Well Foundation Blog.
On March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a cardinal from Buenos Aires, Argentina, was voted the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the first Jesuit, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first from the Americas to be named pope. These are all big firsts, and matched with the fact that Pope Benedict XVI decided to resign (the first pope to do so since 1415), it is an interesting season for the Vatican.
This book provides six faith-sharing sessions on Franciscan spirituality. Each session begins and ends with simple prayers from scripture or from St. Francis’ writings. Stories of Francis’ life and scripture passages he loved and lived by form the core of each session. Reflection questions help us readers and group users apply the theme of the session to our own lives.
In his first month as pope, Francis has won widespread acclaim thus far by gestures such as stopping to pay his own hotel bill, dressing down, choosing to live in the less fancy Vatican guest house and riding the elevator with the cardinals instead of by himself. Already this is sending a message of a less formal interpretation of his papal role, mirrored by his mode of speech in addresses to the public and during worship. He is not afraid to break convention in the name of simplicity. “This choice indicates about all a style for the church: simplicity, poverty, rigor,” said the Rev. Antonio Spadaro. On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis washed the feet of twelve inmates at a juvenile prison in Rome. Two of the inmates were Muslim women. This, again breaking convention since the pope’s ceremonial foot washing traditionally has only included men since in the biblical story Jesus washed the feet of twelve male apostles. Then, on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis’ address showed deep concern for the poor and marginalized among us, quite in line with his chosen name.
Bergoglio chose the name Francis upon his papal appointment, many are saying after Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi was raised in a rich family, went to war, was imprisoned, and became very ill. Upon returning to Assisi, Francis eventually denounced his wealth and worldliness to work to imitate Jesus in his own life. Francis of Assisi was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, but lived among beggars in Rome and worked to end the Crusades. He is the patron saint of animals and the environment and is associated with peace, poverty and simplicity. An interesting namesake choice for Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis. One month after his appointment, it is clear that there are eyes on the Vatican, wondering where Pope Francis will lead the Church.
The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
If you had to change your name, who would you want to be named after?
What would taking on that name mean for you as a reminder to how you want to live?
If you were to pick on line from The Prayer of St. Francis as your mantra for the week, which would it be? Why?
As Sisters of St. Joseph we celebrate the feast of our patron on March 19 and take a break from Lent for festivities. Joseph is also the patron of the universal Church, so March 19 is a feast we can all claim. Joseph also gives us an example of an ordinary husband and father who faces extraordinary challenges. Here is a prayer to him.
Joseph, most ordinary, on this your feast,
help us listen to our dreams with compassion and openness as you did.
Help us stretch, hold, and deepen our relationships.
Open our embrace of the future
as you opened your arms to a child not your own.
In these hard times may we like you
dream compassionately, provide wisely,
and build community that can hold us together.
We ask this through Jesus, whom you claimed and named. Amen.
Here at Good Ground Press we join the Church and world in giving Francis I a warm welcome.
The Sisters of St. Joseph have Jesuit roots. A Jesuit inspired our first sisters to form a little design, a community of women to move in among the poor, divide the city, and do the works of mercy. From this priest, Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, we have inherited our spirit as a religious community of doing all of which women are capable. We were the first religious community to gain Church approval for moving out of the cloister and into work among the people, into apostolic ministries. These roots have inspired excellence, compassion, and magnanimity among us for 363 years.
May our new leader appreciate women as partners in the mission of the gospel. He has asked our blessing and prayers. I join in praying for him and hold a fervent hope for dialogue with the whole Church.
By Joan Mitchell, CSJ, Editor
In Sunday’s gospel Jesus rescues a woman caught in adultery from its prescribed punishment – stoning. Jesus doesn’t condemn the woman but challenges her to transform her life. Prostituting women continues around the globe today, especially among the 40% of the world’s population that lives on less than $2 per day. Education and micro-financing hold out the possibility for women to transform their lives and our world.
In their book, Half the Sky, authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn describe the beginning of a new global movement to emancipate women and girls. These New York Times journalists have traveled the Third World for two decades and identify the education and empowerment of women as the key to ending global poverty.
The book has also inspired a film, Facebook game and worldwide movement to “turn oppression into opportunity for women worldwide.”
What stories of women and girls transforming their lives and countries have you heard?
The Second Vatican Council affirmed life in the parish I grew up in—St. Donatus, Brooten, MN. Our pastor from the time I was 12 involved the 55 families in the liturgical movement and the justice that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin advocated in the Catholic Worker. Dorothy Day came to our parish and spoke when I was a sophomore.
In our parish the Eucharist was the Church’s greatest prayer, piety was best expressed in daily Mass, and a scripture passage was a common penance. A simple altar table replaced the plaster wedding-cake altar. Our Madonna and child were handcarved in oak and polychromed. The Easter Vigil required full, active, conscious participation of almost all of us; we loved moving out of church and back in with candles. Young married couples participated in CFM conversations. I did my first college research paper on the new St. John’s Abbey Church, a creative, poured-concrete, semi-circular Church where Father Geoffrey Diekmann and other Benedictine monks worshiped and put into practice what their magazine Worship taught about liturgical renewal.
As a child of the 1960s, I experienced change and progress in both church and country. The liturgical movement came to fruition for the whole Church when the Second Vatican Council passed its first document, which was on the Sacred Liturgy (1963). It turned altars around and gave us worship in the vernacular. The Civil Rights Movement came to fruition in the Civil Rights Act of 1965. In its final session that same year the Council brought the Church into the modern world with Gaudium et Spes, the most complete articulation of Catholic social teaching and human rights (1965). I made first vows that year, having been formed on these documents, ready for the second wave of feminism that arose with the ERA and anti-war protests that grew fierce by 1968.
Vatican II is an experience of the Holy Spirit I work to keep alive.
The devil had been tempting Jesus in the desert.
Jesus said, “Scripture says, ‘You shall not put the Holy One your God to the test.’”
Luke 4.9
In their theological duel Jesus and his antagonist express two very different interpretations of the role and mission of the messiah. The devil tempts Jesus to display his power―to turn stone to bread, to take over world rule to prove he is God’s Son. Jesus answers each temptation with a scripture verse from Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of Israel’s law or Torah. Jesus is God’s Spirit-filled prophet who trusts God’s word.
What temptations do you as a Christian face in our society today?
A guest post from Claire Bischoff
In last week’s gospel, Jesus stands up at the synagogue and reads the following passage from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Holy One is upon me; therefore, God has anointed me and sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty for captives, sight to the blind, release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from God.” With all eyes upon him, Jesus announces, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus makes it clear that he is the anointed one of God, the one who ushers in God’s kingdom in which the poor will receive good news, the captives will be freed, the blind will see, and all will experience the favor of God.
So what happened after Jesus makes this proclamation? Taken by Jesus’ inspiring message ourselves, we might imagine Jesus’ family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances standing up, cheering, and asking what they can do to help him accomplish this wonderful mission. This is the sort of inspirational speech that can move hearts and spark movements for change. Yet in this week’s gospel from Luke, we read that the reaction of the crowd is, at best, a mixed bag. While some present say nice things about Jesus (perhaps how fitting it is that this kind carpenter’s son should be God’s prophet), others ask with some disbelief, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” In other words, they seem shocked that someone from their class, from the lowly, working poor, could possibly be God’s anointed one. (This shows evidence of what can be called “internalized oppression.” Having been treated as less than fully human by others in their society, the poor come to believe this about themselves and thus have trouble fathoming that God’s anointed one would come from their midst.)
Jesus’ answer to this disbelief is to recall instances where other Hebrew prophets were not accepted in their own lands. This seems to only stoke the fire in those who doubt him, and the mob ends up not only kicking him out of town but also making an attempt on his life by trying to throw him over the edge of a hill. Those in Jesus’ hometown clearly have trouble seeing him for who he really is.
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When I was a senior in college, the one job I was offered for the following year was teaching middle school religious studies at a Catholic school. I had to really think about the job offer, even though it was my only one, because it was not just at any school. It was at the school that I had attended for eight years and that my youngest brother still attended. Before making my decision, I had a long talk with my brother to see what he thought about me being his teacher and his friends’ teacher. We enumerated all of the potential negatives of me taking the job, but in the end, we decided that the negatives could not outweigh the fact that I would have gainful employment. So I took the job.
Far from being a negative, taking that job ended up being the best thing that ever happened to my relationship with my youngest brother, who is ten years younger than me. I had left for college when he was eight years old and, in a sense, missed the next four years of his life. So when I started teaching him, not only did I not know him all that well, but I also had the idea in my head that he was the comedian/goof off in the family who needed me to take care of him. As his teacher, I saw him as I had never seen him before. He was still funny, but he was also a leader in his class who took some risks to speak up when he noticed some unjust treatment of students both by other students and even some of the teachers. He was kind and sensitive, and people sought out his advice and friendship. It took me seeing him outside of our family, where his role is to be the youngest and goofiest of the five kids, to really see who he was as a person.
As it turns out, he had the same experience of me. In our family, I am the nerd, the one who cries at the drop of the hat (admittedly I did cry at the American Pie movies), the one who needs help cutting my steak (I do not even remember how this characterization of me started, but it is the most consistent joke made about me by family, even to this day as I cut my children’s food for them). But having me as a teacher enabled my brother to see me doing what I love doing best: teaching and talking about religion. It helped him to see me as my own person and not just his big sister.
In this week’s Spirit magazine, Father Greg Boyle uses the analogy of holding up mirrors for people so that they can see who they really are. In my experience, I have discovered that people in my family have a tendency to hold up foggy mirrors to each other, allowing our impressions of how that person interacts in our family to cloud out ability to see who they really are. But I don’t want to drive my siblings and other family members away, as Jesus’ community did to him in this week’s gospel. Perhaps the solution to cleaning up my foggy mirrors is to find a way to meet the people in my life who I care about the most in their environments, in places outside the family where they can be who they really are, so that I am in a position to better reflect back to them their goodness, their gifts and talents, and the love that God has for them.
Are there people in your life who see you through a foggy mirror? What can you do to help them get to know the real you?
Are there people in your life who you see through a foggy mirror? What can you do to get to know the real them?
Photo courtesy of Paul Keller via Creative Commons License
