Seeing is Believing

KaPow!!  I suppose that's what Lent feels like to those of us who haven't been looking forward to it,  And, frankly, who does?  I mean, really.  Not me.  Let's face it -- Lent never really has fit into our lifestyles since modern times.

Clearly, Lent is meant to challenge productive, busy people -- which more and more of us are these days.  Lent is a warning to DO less and REFLECT more.  Lent makes now the time to LET GO of things and (better) to SHARE the best of our things with those who really need them, rather than accumulate and protect them for ourselves and loved ones.  And all this prayer, generosity, and personal discipline really should be done in PRIVATE anyway, so where's the fun in that? 

It's no surprise that Lent feels counter-cultural, even counter-intuitive.  For those who take pride in their independence,  free spirit, and success, Lent is the time to acknowledge just how llittle value these passing things have; just give them a little time and all such things are forgotten.  Pretty bleak agenda, or so Lent seems at first.

The truth is, of course, not bleak at all, at least not if we follow the Christian Scriptures during these 40 days.  No matter who were are or what we've done -- so our Tradition admonishes us -- NOW is the time to know how each of us is precious, loved, and given the chance of a lifetime to cash in on this truth.  All we have have to do is SEE it.  Easier said than done, seeing/hearing the truth (as Jesus constantly bemoaned with his own friends and disciples!). 

The fact is (and for me, a wonderful fact) most of us can use up a lot of lifetime just learning to SEE and to HEAR the Good News.  It took Peter his own humiliating betrayal of his Master to know how to recognize and welcome Jesus' healing forgiveness-- making this the hallmark of his own preaching.  Vincent de Paul struggled until middle age before beginning to grasp that his own salvation was tied to God's plan to love, care for, and evangelize the poor.  Long delays and endless missteps on our part will never stop the News from being good nor true.  Indeed, "getting" the Good News happens in God's time and is God's grace (gift) at work in us.

But when it does take root in us, the Good News never leaves, but often will make us uncomfortable and hopefully contagious.  We kind of lose our taste for the things we had thought mattered, as we now yearn for that restored kingdom described both in Jesus' teachings and His life -- the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure in the field, the lost coin, the inappropriately forgiving father, the peasant-rabbi so willing to suffer just to show his friends how to live in freedom...  We do become restless -- thanks to Lent -- which is what most of us have felt anyway, deep inside.  (Caution:  anyone ruined by God's saving grace makes a poor celebrity!)

And Lent's nicest touch?  Well, once we have had the chance to acknowledge that, as disciples go, we are only beginners, we can drop any pretence of creating our own salvation.

January 2010
Conversion of St. Paul: CM Foundation

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us always!

It’s 2,010!

What do we feel – as a small group of middle-aged missioners – as we walk into a new decade?

“Soon, and very soon…” so begins the spiritual hymn, putting in a few words how central to our lives of faith is the experience of hope, of anticipation of the Lord’s "putting right" all of creation.  Better known as our Christian faith, this one dream is a "keeper." 

Yes, surely we have all had our own dreams.  As years roll by some of them sort of just dissipate -- perhaps they weren’t all that worth pining for after all -- while others are fulfilled and soon forgotten, and still others we gradually outgrow.  But this big dream is ours to nurture and share; it stays with us, never fully realized yet central to how we live.  Despite that it is beyond our personal, human control it seems always to be the backdrop to our lives, like it or not.  Eventually we "faithful" dreamers find ourselves walking the thin line between cynical disillusion (hollowed out with nothing left to do but to blame -- someone!) and hard-won maturity (unreasonably hopeful, generous and compassionate).
So, which is it, then, as we enter a new decade after ten years which many would just as soon forget? Do we see grace at work, not despite us but in and through us? Or do we shudder at the prospect of losing more battles with poverty that seems only to deepen and broaden, or in the face of the hardening battle-lines in our societies or even in our faith communities? Or is it a bit of both?

It seems to me that we CM misioners might dread facing our shadows less if we were able to appreciate just how dark our own foundations were. One could even say that the best of us always has been born out of that darkness.

The Church? At first Jesus’ resurrection touched only a handful– they attracted a few more, and they many others – but those early followers of Jesus’ “Way” were soon routed out of their synagogues, hounded and persecuted as if a pestilence on God-fearing, Mosaic-law abiding society. Saul was one zealous leader of the clean-up crew until he was struck down. The “incident” that transformed Saul of Tarsus into Paul – the church’s most famous evangelizer; it also made the church truly outward-looking, missionary, cross-cultural, and universal.

The "little company?"  One view of 16th and 17th century European society, especially France, favored by a least a few historians, is that it was a world so desperately poor (especially in the country) and so divided and torn by conflict as to be corporately “soul-less.” Most certainly this was a dark time! Yet it was also the “right time” for Vincent de Paul, his associates, lay collaborators – all relying on grace and Providence – to usher in an era of hope, light, compassion and organization.

As you and I head toward San Antonio to gather with our confreres from the West and the Midwest, there to begin to face real challenges of a larger area and limited human resources, I pray that we bring with us the kind of expectant, perceptive faith that our Christian ancestors and our father, Vincent put to good use. For that, after all, there is no better time than now!

Gaudete Sunday 2009

The Word of God today offers both promises and admonitions (at least in Paul’s letter to the Philippians) to “don’t worry, be happy!”  Such advice might feel naïve or even out of touch to some today whose moods are more likely governed by global crisis-headlines and the Dow Jones average. God's Word will often take us deeper and to places we'd rather not go.  Curiously, after 2,000 years of proclamation, it’s clear that few really grasp and welcome the Gospel truth today; it’s more likely to be misunderstood – and even misused. Indeed, people who own little more than their faith in God and the hope it brings to their lives seem to be the ones who “get it.” At least they seem always to be the first to hear and respond in faith. No surprise, since, in our scriptures, their ancestors are God’s spokespersons as well as their intended audiences. Prophets accustomed to neither welcome nor appreciation until they “passed on” could honestly shout out things like “Behold, God is my salvation; I will be confident and not fear!”  Little, insignificant people like the pregnant teenager, Mary, in jubilant conversation with Elizabeth – her pregnant elder (well-overage!) cousin – could state with prescient joy and authority, “I rejoice in God my savior, because He has shown me such favor, his lowly serving girl – now all generations will called me blessed because the Mighty One has done so much in me…” Why is it that God – at least this God described in Advent -- seems to prefer working from the edges?

Once having had a bit of experience outside our comfort zone and attempted to preach to, serve, work with, suffer with … people who actually do live on the edge, we CM missioners will often say at some time or other that “it’s the poor who have evangelized me.” There’s more to this (uncomfortable?) little learning than some one-time-only insight, if we are willing to pay attention and hang in there. As we believers learn to face our shadows and live with endless varieties of “personal” suffering (shame, frustration, unfairness, misunderstanding, persecution…) that come our way, we may be blessed with an expanded soul to (you guessed it!) bear gladly even more, including the sufferings of others. Advent and Christmastide scriptures reveal that mystery for anyone who cares to really listen, to notice, to see. Soon, the manger bound infant, wrapped in rags, invites us into “his” chosen world. It may seem and feel desperate and dark, until we – once identified with that Christchild – find ourselves transformed into light.