Advent Reflection for Wednesday December 8 by Jean Padula

Advent Reflection for Wednesday December 8 by Jean Padula

Luke 1:38 “And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’”

As I approached this Advent season, I was reading The Naked Now by Richard Rohr*. He shared insights about Mary’s unwavering assent to God, which was accompanied by her “falling into” His plan for her life. Father Rohr’s point is that, on some mysterious level, we, too, can have this loving connectedness with God and His kingdom, not by any efforts of our own, but rather by our letting go and allowing God’s loving Presence to overtake us. Here’s a little of what Father Rohr has to say:

“Mature transcendence is an actual ‘falling into’ and an ‘undergoing’ of God . . . God is ‘done unto us,’ and all we can do is allow it, as both the similar prayers of Mary at the Annunciation and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane make clear. What we fall into is what Christianity would call both ‘an abyss’ and an ‘utter foundation.’ What a paradox. But in God they are not opposites.

“When we do get there, we almost wonder how we got there. We know we did not do anything nearly as much as we know we were done unto. We are being utterly and warmly held and falling helplessly into a scary mystery at the very same time–caught between profound desire and the question, ’Where is this going to take me?’ It has been said many times that, after transformation, you seldom have the feeling you have found anything. It feels much more like Someone found you!

“You find yourself having been grabbed, being held, and being Someone’s beloved. At first, you do not even know what is going on. All you know is that it is a most wondrous undergoing, but an undergoing nevertheless. You know you have been ‘had’. You are in Someone Else’s grip.”

Realistically, knowing myself and where I am right now, I won’t be experiencing long periods in that place of “foundness,” union with God, but I hope to be yielded to this Advent season, recognizing and embracing the divine moments that occur in my life and allowing them overtake me, to “be done unto me” according to His word.

“You find God in yourself and yourself in God”  -  Teresa of Avila

*Fr. Richard Rohr’s website can be reached through the Parish Blog of St. Edward the Confessor by clicking here.

(Jean Padula is a longtime parishioner of St. Edward the Confessor and part of the Hosanna prayer group. Members of Hosanna will contribute weekly reflections for Advent. If you would like to pray with Hosanna, they pray on Thursday nights at 7:30pm.) 

The Gift of Evangelism – Wait, We’re Catholic, What Evangelism?

Last night I was in attendance at a diocesan event called “The Evolving Local Church: Skills for Evangelizing Leaders.” I will return for the second and full day part of our workshop.

Does the very word evangelism not confuse and sometimes frighten those of us who are Catholic? And it may also do the same to any of you who are not Catholic and who might think you about to be sold some bill of goods that you do not want.

It is a word that can be challenging and we talked about that last night.

So today, I opened my dog-eared copy of Radical Grace, by Richard Rohr, OFM and found today’s reflection: Five Great Gifts: Evangelism. 

“I suppose that many of us still of evangelism as a Protestant term. But it’s a biblical term. The evangelist is the one who gives Good News. The evangelist has the specific charism of being able to welcome, to invite, to announce Jesus and the Kingdom with excitement. The evangelist is the door opener. Catholics have been, historically, very weak on this charism, since most Catholics were baptized as infants.”

He goes on to say a few other things and ends up with this:

“Yet the Church desperately needs a new evangelism. And many of us need to be re-evangelized – or perhaps hear the Good News for the first time.”

Roman Catholicism comes with such a long history and cultural context that I think that last sentence says it all.  While I have fond memories of the faith of my childhood, it took me an 18 year absence and a long, slow return of the past 20 years or so, to get where I am today. And in this second part of the journey, I feel I am only now truly hearing the Good News for the first time.

I don’t know about you, but the word “evangelist” often brings to mind TV preachers and the like, with messages of either gloom and doom or guaranteed riches. I really don’t like that. It makes me feel like I am forcing – or misrepresenting Good News, not sharing – or living -  Good News.  Or that it is being foisted upon me!

In addition, I am reminded – as we discussed last night – discomfort may be the most required step of real transformation. That is why I purposefully say it has been a long, slow return. It is long, slow and frequently uncomfortable, challenging. I mean- why else would we change? There has to be a reason and discomfort is a big motivator.

Transformation requires change. That pesky piece of information often makes what Fr. Pat says so true… It is so attractive to want to follow Jesus.

And so very hard to do so.

Looking forward to this day.

Grace – Not A "Begrudged Mop Up Exercise"

January 2010 will go down as a time in my life when writing did not come easily to me. Part of it is time – or a lack of it. Part of it is… I don’t know. I wish I could explain it; I wish I could lean into it and keep writing. Not much comes.

Today however, I read this link from the Center for Action and Contemplation, home of my favorite Franciscan, Richard Rohr, OFM. It got me thinking about a lot of things and I will make some attempt to write about them here.

Rohr starts out with this (emphasis mine):

God fills in the gaps of human deficiency by a great act of mercy and compassion, and the word for that great act for St. Paul is “Christ.”  For him Christ is the name for God’s great compassion, God’s great plan, God’s readiness to fill in the gaps of human sin, brokenness, poverty, and failure.  It is not a begrudged mop-up exercise after the fact, but as John Duns Scotus taught us Franciscans, “Christ was the very first idea in the mind of God.”  “All was created through him and for him …and he holds all things in unity and reconciles all within himself” (Colossians 1:16-17, 20).  Christ is God’s master plan and blueprint for history!  Salvation was the plan from the beginning, and not a mere response to our mistakes.

God fills in… I love this beginning because it points to a God that loves us and so generously cares for us. This is the opposite of a meaner view of God, put forth by so many and accepted by so many. In fact, accepted by people who are not even sure that God exists!

I think this also addresses a school of religious thought that puts the focus on us as humans. If we do all this heavy lifting, from prayer to whatever actions and devotions, it is as if we were cleaning up with the Cosmic Swiffer.

Make no mistake, I think that our actions matter – but not because we are changing God! No God is always changing us, when we allow such change.

Rohr continues:

So why do we make the Gospel into a cheap worthiness contest? After all, we have all fallen short of the glory (Romans 3:23, 5:12) and all are saved by mercy (Romans 11:32-36). Even Mary proclaims it of herself (four times!) in her “Magnificat” (Luke 1:47-55). Popes and priests, presidents and politicians are all saved “en Cristo” and by mercy and in our undeserved state. No exceptions.


God does not love us if we change. God loves us so that we can change. These are two very different scenarios, but most of Christian history has sadly chosen the first.

Not if we can change, but rather so we can change. This isn’t a cleanup operation, it is an invitation to become the very people that God has loved into being. This is an invitation to respond to the grace that is all around us.

How this propels me on a January morning and makes the embers of my writing fire begin to glow again.

Seeing With The Third Eye – More From Richard Rohr, OFM

(I have a personal blog, which I have never linked to from here before. I am doing so today, this was posted there also. Please feel free to read and comment there, the content will be a bit different from what you typically see here. Fran)

If you are at all like me, you may have thought that the idea of a “third eye” is a concept of new age thinking and practice. Not exactly!

When I was listening to Richard Rohr, OFM last week, it was interesting to learn that there is also a Catholic foundation for this way of “seeing.” I should not be surprised, given the rich, full corpus of Catholic thought and learning through the centuries. (I am always greatly saddened when others, Catholics often among them, think of Catholicism as some tightly bound ideology that is narrow and harsh. I do understand why some might think that however.)

Richard Rohr, during his talk for the Naked Now book tour gave some insight into the “third eye” way of seeing. Hugo of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor, both 12th century Franciscan mystics, expressed this way of prayer and being.

Richard of St. Victor wrote of the oculus carnis (eye of the senses), oculus rationis (eye of reason) and the oculus fidei (eye of faith). It is the eye of faith that is the “third eye.” This eye takes us beyond what we can physically see and experience, what we know through reason, to what is both beyond and within. This eye helps us to see and know God.

Beyond and within – note those words. If you read my Rohr inspired post from the other day you recall the need to leave duality at the door and enter into the ambiguity of both/and to experience God and the world at a deeper level. This reminds of a labrynth – a journey that might seem to go nowhere, yet goes everywhere.

Consider the Cross of Jesus Christ… Great suffering and great love in one nexus that changed (and continues to change) the world in ways that we could never imagine. Follow that with death followed by resurrection, which is where the Cross leads to and from. Perhaps you can see the numerous non-dualistic paths of the both/and way of seeing and how deeply Christian it is.

This is why we so desperately need the oculus fidei. The oculus carnis or the eye of the sense sees the resurrection. The oculus rationis or eye of reason denies this. It is only through the oculus fidei or eye of faith that we can begin to follow the Risen Christ.

If you give this any thought at all, it is the ultimate cognitive dissonance. And yet for many of us, it is the Truth and the Way. No wonder people think we are nuts! The only way for things to make sense at all to have them make no real sense at all. Which is of course ultimately the only thing that makes sense. Are you still with me here?

Richard Rohr, in his newest book further plumbs these depths of mystery and contemplation. During his talk, he elucidated the need to seek the place in between. It is no coincidence that Rohr runs the Center for Action and Contemplation, another place for the oculus fidei. In order to have action, we must feed it with contemplation… and vice-versa.

It must be noted that Rohr diverted from his talk to relay a story of giving an 8 day retreat at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, where Thomas Merton was a monk. Rohr kept mentioning Merton and clearly the monks seemed disinterested. Finally he asked the abbot why and he was informed that Merton had told his brother Benedictines that they were not contemplatives but rather introverts! And perhaps that is the bitter fruit of dualistic thought… One is an introvert or an activist, but where is one’s heart in the end? It seems it might be found in this place of both/and, lest we be lost in the either/or, which seems to go nowhere.

One of the points that Rohr made was that Jesus does not so much give us the answers, rather that Jesus is The Answer. He told us that in the Gospels, Jesus was asked 183 different questions…

And Jesus only answered 3 of them directly. (Three of them? How trinitarian, now that is interesting.)

Jesus is not an answer giver, as I said. He is The Answer.

Consider this, Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. Hmmm – do you see how we can’t simply see with the eye of the senses or of reason? It doesn’t make sense? A God that does not rumble from on high alone, but rather becomes one of us? It is truly mind-boggling if you just sit with that that thought.

I guess that God had really been working on this, rather cooperatively at that point – we were made in God’s image after all. That clearly did not do it; we could not accept that as humans it seems. So God made the conscious, active and loving choice to not simply make us in God’s image, but rather to fully be one of us. Rohr reminded us of the “scandal of the incarnation”, to use Irenaeus’ term for it.

I can only glimpse all of this, like a flash of light at the edge of my vision or perhaps a dream that I know I had, but yet can’t fully recall. I glimpse this with my oculus fidei. This is my journey and may be yours as well, as we know without understanding and how we understand without knowing.

It is a mystery indeed and yet all very clear. Isn’t it?

(Interested in the work of Richard Rohr? Click here to read and learn more about him and The Center for Action and Contemplation, to see where he might be giving a talk or workshop or to buy his books.)

Transformation

If religion is not primarily a belonging system, but is truly a transformational system, one would need, it seems to me, a very different kind of authority. One would need the guidance and conviction of one who has actually walked a journey of transformation himself or herself. One would need the authority of a person who can say, “I know what God does with pain. I should be blaming or bitter, but because of God and grace, I am not.” Not just the authority which says, “You must believe in this and you must believe in that” when often there is no evidence that the authority has ever drunk “of the cup that I must drink” as Jesus put it.

This utterly changes the nature of all true spiritual authority. I will offer you a simple litmus test to determine whether a person has healthy or unhealthy religion. What do they do with their pain—even their daily little disappointments? Do they transform their pain or do they transmit it? People who are practiced in transforming actual life pain, like Jesus on the cross, are the only spiritual authorities worth following. They know. They can lead and teach. The rest of us just talk.

-Richard Rohr, OFM, Adapted from The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered

This came to my email inbox well over a week ago and it struck me hard. At that time, our blogfriend Missy at St. Anne Pray for Us had written about it and I really got a lot out of her words.

It is still on my heart.

I can think of far too many times in my own life when I transmitted my pain and I still do that, however unintentionally. Walking that ongoing journey of transformation is a challenge.

So many of us “belong” to a “church” so we can be a part of something. I know that I have done that at various times in my life. Church however is not simply about me fitting in and finding a comfortable spiritual home – while those things are nice, that is not really “it.” I mean if that happens, great, but that is not the ultimate goal.

No, it would appear that it is about transformation and there is not so much about “comfortable” or “fitting in” when that word is used.

I am thinking of Jesus’ transformation and how that is what Eucharist is and just how this impacts our lives. It is almost overwhelming to consider if you really dive into it.

Jesus’ spiritual authority trumps all, but I think of all the saints, recognized and not, who have authority of their own because of their journey of transformation.

And as Rohr says, the rest of us just talk.

Or blog.

Felix Culpa

We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. The journeys around the edges of sin lead us to long for a deeper life at the center of ourselves.

Ruthless ambition can lead one to the very failure and emptiness that is the point of conversion. Is the ambition, therefore, good or is it evil? Do we really have to sin to know salvation? Call me a “sin mystic,” but that is exactly what I see happening in my 40 years of pastoral experience: Darkness leads us to need and admire and make room for the light, and the closer we get to the light, the more the real darkness becomes apparent.

That does not mean that we should set out intentionally to sin, but we only see the full pattern after the fact. Blessed Julian of Norwich put it perfectly, she said: “First we fall and later we recover from the fall—and both are the Mercy of God.” How did we ever lose such unique Biblical wisdom? It got hidden away in that least celebrated but absolutely central Easter Vigil service when the deacon sings to the Church about a felix culpa, the “happy fault” that precedes and necessitates the eternal Christ. So often the church does not know how good its message really is!

Richard Rohr, OFM
Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 257, day 267
(Source: Radical Grace, “Center and Circumference”)

I read the words above earlier in the day and I had to stop and re-read them several times. First of all, the notion of living our way into a new way of thinking is surely the truth. I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time trying to think my way into a new way of living. It still hasn’t worked yet, but I persist.

*sigh*

Then the real question comes – do we really have to sin to know salvation? That is our condition, so I believe that must be true. We tend to think of sin as something to be dealt with, eliminated or erased – as if it is an item on a list. Then we can rationalize the items on the list – the lies, the anger, the lack of reconciliation and so forth and potentially miss the root cause.

Maybe I am crazy, but I think that we must attempt to meet our sin head on – which is basically what Rohr is saying. It is so hard to conceive of this, but it may be the only way. And what a gift that sin may turn out to be – Felix culpa!

As always, we are invited by God to be healed – something that usually can’t happen in any way that we can imagine. As Julian of Norwich reminds us – “First we fall and later we recover from the fall—and both are the Mercy of God.”

Felix culpa indeed!

Grace and Ego

Grace is always a humiliation for the ego. Salvation is always a defeat for the ego; because I want to feel, “I’ve done something to accomplish this, haven’t I?” That’s the only way the ego feels satisfied and competent.

At some point, we must realize that salvation is absolutely, objectively, metaphysically, universally a FREE GIFT, and all we can do is RECEIVE IT. It’s free for the taking, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being worthy of it.

We are all unworthy. If receiving the Eucharist depends on worthiness, no one would be in line, including the presiding clergy, Archbishops and Popes. Why do we waste time trying to prove that I’m better than you, I’m higher than you, I’m holier than you, I understand better than you, I’m purer than you? Don’t even go there! Just surrender to grace, which will feel like a kind of death. And it is!
-Richard Rohr, OFM

Once again, I find some inspiration from Richard Rohr.

What a thought – that we might be worthy! And that we might have something to do with that worthiness! How foolish we are – as if we could do something to earn God’s love. Not to mention that puts the focus on us and not on God.

We say it at every Eucharist… Lord, I am not worthy. It is not meant to make us feel bad. It is simply to remember that God is God and loves us all.

This does not mean that we shouldn’t try to live according to standards, of course we should. However, we should also know that God’s love as grace is what transforms us… that and our response to it.

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Process Theology in the Easter Season

Our Catholic Christian faith is so dynamic and I am ever troubled when I experience things that deny that.

Our faith tradition is broad and wide and meant to be entirely incarnational – we must be fully alive and engaged in the world as Roman Catholics and not withdrawn from it. It was the disciples huddled in the Upper Room that the Risen Lord sent forth… The desire to be in the Upper Room is not justification for staying there; we must be alive, engaged and in process with our faith in the world.

When I refer to Process Theology I am reminded of something that I read in a book by Richard Rohr, OFM.

Our faith is not static or linear. No – we might just look at the Stations of the Cross, which many of us “followed” during Lent. As Rohr says in his book, the stations are about “movement, stages and phases: First this has to happen, then you have to go through that; you have to remain on the path in all its stages and relationships.”1

Have you been attending daily mass or just praying with these Easter readings? If not, I hope you consider clicking on the link to the US Catholic Conference of Bishops so that you can read the daily scriptures and pray with them or to go to mass. These readings are so rich and are redolent with faith and new life.

Our faith is alive and engaged. Our God is alive in the form of Jesus! He is almost always on the move in some way. This is our model – not to only be in silent prayer before an altar but to bring our faith out into the world in a fully integrated way.

It is only when this happens that we are transformed and that we can transform others as God intends.

Yesterday I attended a funeral liturgy at the parish that employs me. (I worship and am involved in ministry here at St. Edward’s but I work at Immaculate Conception in nearby Glenville.)

The Gospel of John 20:11-18 was proclaimed. I was reminded in a most profound way as I heard Father Jerry proclaim, “Jesus said to her, “Mary!” of how clearly God calls our name.

Jesus is very clear in saying to Mary:

“Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and tell them,
‘I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”
Mary went and announced to the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord,”
and then reported what he had told her.

Stop holding onto me. The imperative is clear. Go and tell. Be in the world.

Our faith is a process. I often get into some challenging discussions while reading some other Catholic blogs. (each word is a different blog, go visit our brothers in faith and see what they have to say. I visit them often so that I may stay engaged and alive in faith.)

Flu. Graduation speakers. Politicians. Our family troubles. Death. Birth. Life. Despair. Money. Employment. Food. The Curia. Rules. Faith. Practice. Fidelity. Sin.

Not that we should not be aware of these things, but we should not hold onto God in a static way… No we must be in process with Jesus, doing this and then that and thus may we all be risen and transform the world as we ourselves are transformed.

That is process theology for me.

1 Radical Grace, The Catholic Worldview: Process, Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter.

Triduum 2009 – Good Friday

For so many centuries people have been spilling blood to get to God.But in the crucifixion it is reversed – God spills his own blood to reach out to us. This is to take away our old fear, that by spilling blood we try to appease an angry God. There is no such thing as an angry God – only an unconditionally loving God.
--Richard Rohr, OFM

How can we appease an angry God, when it is God himself in human form that is the sacrifice?

So much of atonement theology pushes us into a fearful place where God must be satisfied with sacrificial offerings.

The only sacrificial offering that I think God may long for is for each of us to open our hearts and turn towards God.

Turn to God this Good Friday. Jesus reigns from the Cross, arms open, awaiting your response.

Lent 2009 – Metanoia

(Today’s offering is a re-worked version of something that was published here last year. The sentiments remain the same although the piece needed an update.)

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. -Thomas Merton

Choices lead us to change. And if Lent is about anything it is about a time of change or metanoia. This is a theme that we will be exploring through the Lenten season here on our parish blog. You are all welcome to contribute your own thoughts and writings here, as well as share your thoughts on Scripture on our Lenten Reflections page.

What is metanoia you may ask? Metanoia as a way of change is not simply saying I want to do this instead of that… No, metanoia is much more than that. It is change that is deep, change that is transformational. Metanoia is a form of repentance.

Metanoia is authentic conversion.

It is the nature of our human condition that one way in which we focus on change, transformation and repentance- especially during Lent – by turning from sin. Now that is a good thing, but sometimes we get caught up in what Richard Rohr, OFM refers to as “sin management”, which is another story altogether.

We have heard Jesus using similar language to John in the Gospel. “Repent, for the kindgom of heaven is near.”

I find this interesting because I myself, as well as many others tend to see this more literally. Recently I read something – sadly I can’t find the link right now – that made me do a double-take. Whereas John is calling for people to repent and confess their sins, Jesus when he comes along tends to shift the focus.

Jesus alters the approach by not focusing on exactly what the sin was. Jesus focuses on sin as a barrier to relationship, barrier to community and barrier to change. Jesus is very clearly saying that no matter what you did, you can turn to God now and change. Real change. Deep change. Transformational change. Repentance change. Break-your-heart-wide-open-change. Metanoia change.

He doesn’t want to exclude those who have sinned – we have all sinned. He does not want to shame those who have sinned. He wants to call us closer and bring us farther. This is a message of real mercy and compassion for one and all.

And that is much more of an invitation to come to God, not the use of fear to bring us in closer.

The “sin management” referred to earlier is a more linear and perhaps more superficial approach. That approach becomes a “if this- then that” mathematical equation and that is a transaction and not a transformation.

It also has the potential to be easier… seriously. “I did this so now I will do that” is much more efficient than looking or listening very deeply to our hearts. When we do go to the deep place, we are more likely to be confronted by the reality of who we are… and the reality of who we long to be.

It is to be the real and authentic selves that God created us to be, the authentic selves that God has tenderly loved us into being… each with a unique role and with a unique mission. If we answer the invitation, that is.

While I can write about this, I am not sure that I have a clue about how to do this. However, this Lent and always, I try over and over and over again.

God’s invitation to come to Him, to true change, to metanoia is always here and Lent is a time to surrender to that call.