Posts Tagged ‘community’

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Prayer for the First Day of School

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I was asked by my principal to do the prayer for the first of our teacher meetings this week. She requested that it be connected to the theme for the school year, which happens to be an emphasis on the school’s mission statement. Fortunately we have a very good mission statement. In fact, the mission statement can easily be made a prayer with a slight rewording. I borrowed most of it for the third sentence in the second paragraph after the poem. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping me to write this.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man,

Help us this morning to pray like You, out of a sense of abundance, these words of your servant, St. John of the Cross, that seem so fitting for why we are here as a school community:

The flame of love
Grows as it is divided
It increases by being shared
From one, then two, then three
And darkness is transformed into glory
And the walls reflect its light
Share your flame!
Share the flame!

The Sisters of Mercy named this school after your mother to honor You. She was the first to say “yes” to sharing the Flame, to sharing You with the world.

The most important people in the world walk through our classroom doors. Help us to share the Flame, to share You, with them. Make us a deep faith community so that we may serve our students and their families with mercy and compassion.

We are in the learning business. Open us up to grace, the divine stimulus plan, so that we may create a profit for You.

It is all about You, Jesus.

We pray in Your most holy name. Amen.

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He Died for Me

Monday, April 21st, 2008

From Br. Joseph —

We have all seen pictures of the crucifixion. There is one particular picture, a bit different from most, which I want to describe. The viewpoint of the picture is from above the Cross, a little higher than His right hand and a little behind, looking downward over Jesus on the Cross, and this vast crowd of people standing around the hill staring up at Him. The angle prevents you from seeing the ground directly in front of the Cross where I presume Mary, John, and others were standing. Jesus on the Cross was the center with emphasis expanding into the crowd of people who seem to be standing in the shadow of the Cross. But there was no shadow. It was more of an illumination.

The people in the crowd represented all parts of the world from all of history. There was a caveman kneeling. There were Asians, Africans, Native Americans, Aborigines, Eskimos, and Europeans. There were people dressed in jeans and t-shirts, Victorian dress, medieval peasants, ancient Roman togas, tribal costumes, and so on. Off to one side was a nun dressed in her black habit standing next to a young woman in cutoffs and halter top giving the impression of a prostitute. Which woman was more attuned to her sexuality? In the middle to the right stood an astronaut in a space suit. The reflection in his visor was the Christmas Star over the small village of Bethlehem. There was a sense of peace in all of their expressions as they gazed at His death on the Cross, a gift meant for all people for all time.

As I meditated on this image and its meanings, my imagination took control and I stepped into the image. (My hope is that you will be able to step with me into this image too.)

There I was, in the middle of that picture, surrounded by other people looking up at Jesus on the Cross. I glanced down and noticed the dust of the desert on my shoes. I felt the pebbles and dirt shift ever so slightly as I shifted my weight to the other foot. The contrast of what I had expected and what the sky looked like shocked me. Instead of cold and gray and darkness, I saw a sky of soft powdery blue with a hint of white puffy clouds low on the horizon. The mid-afternoon sun was warm on my face. All was silent except for the gentle rustle of clothes in the cool breeze.

I looked back up to focus on Jesus on the Cross. He was dead. The drama of the Passion that lead up to this moment was complete. I knew what was going to happen later in the afternoon, and especially on Sunday morning. I understood the source of the peace I saw in the faces of the people standing next to me. I felt the peace too, but not completely. I had a haunting deep sense of guilt weighing heavy on my heart. My sin was responsible for this man being on the Cross. He chose to die because of me.

One by one, slowly at first, then more quickly, the people in the crowd started to disappear. In a few moments, I knew I would be the only one remaining. It would soon be time to face this guilt inside my heart. I would have to face it alone with Him. Instead of becoming anxious, I felt a certain measure of peace. I wondered if I should be afraid. How many times did He say not to be? As the others in the crowd disappeared, I expected the weight of my guilt to grow within me. There is anonymity in a crowd, a sharing of responsibility that falsely disseminates the guilt. No, the weight of my guilt did not change. I knew it was mine. There was no fooling myself. No fooling Him.

Then the last person disappeared. There I was, alone. Alone before the Cross with Jesus dead on it. I continued to look up at Him. The sun was still warm on my face. The gentle breeze continued to toss my hair playfully across my forehead. Should I prostrate myself on the ground before Him? I stood still. The silence of infinity enveloped me.

I bowed my head slightly as if gazing into my heart, searching for the heavy brick of guilt hidden in a corner. There it was. I looked back up at Jesus and said in my mind, “I’m sorry. So sorry.” That is all I could say. No excuses. No tears. “I am sorry for my sin. Please forgive me.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered reading something about Jesus asking St. Jerome in a vision why he had not given Him everything. Jerome replied, “Lord, I have devoted my life to your service. I have given you all my works, all my love, all my praise, everything.” Jesus replied, “No, you have not given me your sins.”

In an inward gesture of reaching my hands upward, I said in my mind, “Lord, take my heart. Take all of it. All my love, all my joys, all my sorrow, all my sins, all my guilt. It is all yours.”

As I dropped my head again, I softly whispered, “I am Yours.”

A moment later, I looked up at the Cross again, gazing deeply into His face. The crown of thorns still pierced His lifeless flesh. The trickles and streams of blood were dried and crusted in His hair and across His face. The cuts were still open and the bruises were blue and black and swollen.

On one side of the threshold lies pain, sorrow, loss, guilt, and death. By letting go—surrendering—one steps into the threshold of transformation, through the Paschal Mystery of the Cross, and emerges into healing, joy, victory, freedom, and life.

I looked one more time up at His face on the Cross. It seemed almost like He was smiling. The heavy brick of guilt was gone from my heart. He had died for me, and I was glad to receive His gift, a gratitude that only comes from grace.

The Way stood in front of me now.

“I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

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The Coin of Faith

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

From Br. Joseph —

There are two sides to faith, just as there are two sides to a coin.

One side of the “coin of faith” looks externally, that is, it looks outside of our selves to others for examples and models of living faith. They are witnesses, and it is in accepting their experiences, their testimony, that helps us to believe. (Note: witness, with-ness)

If we look beyond those who have an immediate influence on us, we can see other people have influenced them, and still others have influenced those people, and so. In a very few steps, we begin to see a whole network of witnesses, a web of belief. Follow this web of belief, this chain of testimony, back to its origin, and we find the Apostles, the First Witnesses to Jesus. (Note: testimony, Old Testament, New Testament)

The other side of the coin of faith looks internally, that is, it looks within to our own personal experiences of God. These experiences help us to say internally within our hearts, “I believe.”

In other words, each of us who believe, those who have opened our selves to the possibility of God, can identify certain moments in our lives where we have experienced something that is not of ourselves, something bigger, something more. A few of us may have had specific, big life-changing moments. Or more likely, most of us have had several small moments, almost insignificant in their first appearance, but still very powerful, transformative, and energizing.

It is part of human nature to have preferences, and so we naturally tend to depend on or rub one side of our coin of faith more than the other. That is okay, but over-dependence on one particular side is not healthy faith. It does not make us a whole person, both inside and out. There must be some sort of balance because there will be times when doubt challenges to knock our faith down.

Doubt is not always a bad thing. It makes us stronger and helps weed out the unnecessary stuff that we cling to, much like separating the chaff from the wheat. It makes faith honest. Scripture calls this purification, smelting down the gold till it is pure. And it is the interdependence of the two sides of faith, between the internal and external, that keeps both sides of faith honest, real, and balanced.

At the beginning of our journey, we were given a coin of faith. We chose to accept or reject this gift. If we accepted, then it is our task to carry this coin in our hearts, rubbing it in times of need, times of doubt, in bad times and good. Times of struggle or sorrow polish it to a high luster and remind us that God is with us (Emmanuel). Times of joy allow us to bask in gratitude and the glow of Jesus in its shine, and radiate that to others around us, to make God present in the world, to be witness (with-ness).

And at the end of our journey, we will have to hand our coin of faith back to God. We will not need it in our Father’s home. Faith is needed only for the journey. Besides, the coin of faith was never really ours to begin with. It really belongs to His Son. Jesus paid our way. He gives the coin of faith its value.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

P.S. If your coin of faith has been lost, do not worry. Jesus promised all things are found again if they want to be.

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Beyond Pearls

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

If I just do my thing and you do yours,
We stand in danger of losing each other and ourselves
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations;
But I am in this world to confirm you
As a unique human being,
And to be confirmed by you.

We are fully ourselves only in relations to each other;
The “I” detached from a “Thou” disintegrates.
I do not find you by Chance;
I find you by an active life of reaching out.

Rather than passively letting things happen to me,
I can act intentionally to make them happen.

I must begin with myself, true;
But I must not end with myself;
The truth begins with two.

— Walter Tubbs

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A Part of Something

Monday, October 1st, 2007

From Br. Joseph —

The modern mind always tends to reduce the greater to the lesser rather than seeing the lesser as reflecting the greater. (Peter Kreeft)

There is a grove of aspen trees that cover nearly 200 acres in south-central Utah. This grove, named “Pando”, was once considered the largest living organism in the world. Above ground, each tree looks like an isolated, individual entity, but underground, there is a vast network of roots that interconnects all of the 47,000+ individual trees. It just so happens that aspens, although they generate seeds, prefer to reproduce almost entirely vegetatively, with suckers sprouting from the existing root systems. What looks to us as a bunch of separate, individual, free-standing trees is in fact one gigantic organism. What we see appears to be only part of the story, only one small view point of reality.

The same thing goes for us humans too. We are not only connected in our common humanity, but we are connected on a much deeper, spiritual, essential level. Our very being, our existence, is connected. I cannot affect you without you affecting me as you cannot affect me without affecting yourself.

Ultimately, this connection is in and through and of God. Scripture uses several metaphors for this fact, most notably when Christ calls Himself the Vine and we his branches, or as St. Paul calls us, members (parts) of the Body of Christ. If we take it a step further beyond the horizon of life, those that have died are *still* alive and active branches on the Vine too. In fact, they are more alive than we are here on earth because they are closer to the very Source of Life.

This point of view of our existence being connected runs contrary to much of our experience in a postmodern, industrialized society. But this line from the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us:

The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. (CCC #34)

We all are a part of something, and in something, which is much larger than ourselves.

To many moderns, love is something that is only a part of us rather than something of which we are a part. (Peter Kreeft)

We are not part of something, but some One.

Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…

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A Comment on Church

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

I wonder if ism’s are not so much a form for labeling or categorizing things but rather a way to separate us from each other and reality. While confirming the authorship of a quote for Signposts, I came across a comment about Roman Catholicism’s exclusivism. When I was a non-believer, I had assumed that Protestants were the more open and accepting group. Now that am a believer, and inside the Catholic Church, I find that it is reversed. Catholics tend to be more open and accepting. (Note the words “tend to be”.) Catholicism is like a giant umbrella. It covers a very wide range of diverse people, cultures, ideas, histories, etc. There is even room for diverse opinions on theology (within limits of course). The very orthodox sit, kneel, stand, and pray next to the unorthodox and the conservative communes with the liberal in the same pew.

I am suspicious of claims of Catholicism’s exclusivism. Why are there so many Protestant denominations? Two groups within a congregation have an issue on a point of doctrine. They can’t agree, and so they split. You cannot belong to “their” group unless you agree with them. Thousands of Protestant denominations, one Catholic church, who is being exclusive?

Those outside of the Church could claim that I am blinded by the propaganda from Rome. (I am not sorry to say that Rome had nothing to do with my conversion.) The walls of the Church to them are a narrow and confining prison for thinking. On the contrary, the Church is a wide, open space, much more like a large, open playground. There is space to run and explore, play and work, all within a safe environment. The walls of the Church are not to keep people in, but to keep out the whimsical fads of the current culture. (Just look at Dispensationalism for one example.) Unfortunately those outside the Church walls only see walls, and they are blinded by them.

The Church is not a building. It is not doctrine or dogma. It is people. It is the people not only of this present time, but all people throughout history since (and a very strong case can be made for those before) Good Friday. The Church spans time and history into eternity because the Church is the Body of Christ.

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The Body of Christ

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

The term Body of Christ means three things: 1) the actual physical body of Jesus; 2) the Church (with a capital “C”) because we as individual persons are church, parts of the Body, branches on the Vine; and 3) the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament. (Note: Some believers have issues with the third one. There is a plausible explanation below.)

God seeks us. He wants to have an I-You relationship (or I-Thou if you wish to be more formal). That means person-to-person, subject-to-subject, not subject-to-object. Objects are used and manipulated. Persons are in relation with each other, to communicate, to commune, to love, to be together. God will not—cannot—ever be an object. Unfortunately we often treat Him as an object for our own benefit and desires. We try to cajole and manipulate God into doing things for us like we cajole and manipulate other people. We do not seek relationship, union, community. We use. We manipulate. We are selfish. If we do not even treat other people as persons most of the time, how can we treat God as a person?

Some have described the humiliation that God must have endured to lower Himself to become a mere creature—to be born, to live, and to die as a human. Ah! The mystery of the Incarnation. But there is even more humility hidden within this one act. God not only risked becoming human, He also risked becoming an object. In becoming human, He not only bridged the gap between humanity and God to bring home His lost children, but He also showed us how to be fully human. Also in becoming human, God risked the objectification of His person, of becoming an object that could be manipulated and used, idolized or discarded. By risking to become an object to us, God is another bridge for us to rise above the slavery of subject-object, the I-It way of seeing life, to the freedom of the subject-subject relationship, the I-You of union and community.

There is no love or mutual respect in I-It. This is control, judgment, labeling, which leads to pride. (The Biblical term is slavery.) Only in I-You is there love and mutual respect, and the paradox of union and liberation.

So, in the term Body of Christ, I can recognize the person of Jesus in His actual body. I can recognize the person in other people (when I open my heart). Can I recognize the person in the Eucharist? Do I see the Eucharist as an object, some “thing” to be used for consumption? How do I see this little thin waffer of bread as the Bread of Life, as the person of Jesus, as God? How can I rise above the I-It-ness of this object and recognize the I-You-ness of Jesus?

No wonder so many of Jesus’ followers left Him as described near the end of John 6. No wonder some believers still have issues with the Eucharist today. It is hard enough to believe God came in the Incarnation as a mere creature, but it is even harder to believe God is in what appears to be an object. And neither, man or object, can be made an idol.

When I attempt to contemplate the I-You-ness of the Eucharist, I enter into silence. I am speechless, thoughtless. My thoughts and words fade as the objects they are, gently blown away in the sweet breathe of the Holy Spirit. Part of my mind wants to hold onto those thoughts, but mind only deals in objects. You are above that. And I am in silence.

As the sounds and thoughts return, I see kenosis connecting all three connotations of the Body of Christ. You gave Your life for me. I am called to give my life to others. I see the pattern of the Trinity in this. And in the Eucharist, You once again give yourself to me. You are the gift given to me so that I may give to others. You are the energy for me in this giving like the Holy Spirit is often described as the personification of the love between the Father and the Son. I am to risk being object too for others to manipulate and use, to idolize or discard, in the hopes of raising them above the I-It-ness of this world to the I-You-ness of your Reality.

My Lord and my God, Jesus Christ, purify my heart so that I may see You, so that I may see You in others, and that others may see You in me. Help me to see You in the Body of Christ, within your Church, within your Eucharist. Lead me into proper relationship with all people and all things.

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Gossip

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

Gossip is a community killer. It is a cancer. It separates, isolates, and destroys a person. It literally kills something inside, not only for the victim, but those who spread the gossip. In the victim, it kills self-esteem and spreads to other things. In the gossiper, it kills compassion and love, and then spreads to elsewhere. It blackens everyone’s hearts.

It was gossip about God by the snake in the garden that lead Adam and Eve to separation from God and from each other. It literally lead to death for them and for us. Gossip is one of the most subtle and insidious form of pride.

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The Breath of Faith

Sunday, May 27th, 2007

Breath is as essential attribute of one’s person, whose existence we may only infer through other media: the sight of our chest rising and falling, the sound of air rushing into our sinuses, the disturbance of the atmosphere near our skin. We mentally connect this evidence-of-breath into a coherent whole, and then label it “my breath”. Yet what distinguishes “my breath” from mere air and, further, what distinguishes this breath from my person? (source)

During Communion, I often find myself just watching everyone receive the Blessed Sacrament. I know I should be singing, for singing as Saint Augustine said is twice prayer, and we all are supposed to be in communion during this time. But I cannot help myself. Maybe that is the problem. I don’t know.

Anyhow, I cannot help but watch individuals in the act of receiving the Body of Christ. I dare not judge or label them. I do not know their stories. I do not know their prayers. I do not know their hopes. All I see is their simple and most profound act of faith—receiving, touching, and communing with their God, with my God, with our God.

It is like watching their faith breathe. All I can do is watch and be in awe. Sometimes I just a take it all in. Sometimes I say a simple prayer for each of them, like heal them, or bring them into a deeper relationship with You. I tend to smile with the parents guiding or carrying little children. My heart smiles for the crippled or lame for I know Jesus will make them new and whole. I am amazed at the older folks with worn out bodies and vigorous faith.

Communion with the Eucharist is the Body of Christ breathing. It fills me with awe and gratitude and love.

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The Six O’Clock News

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

Inspired to react to a Frederick Franck quote, I wrote this.

While watching the six o’clock news, I am forced to face the poverty of my spirit. I am powerless. I am impotent. I am not in control. There is nothing I can do to effect a change.

But I do feel compelled to do something. And though practically none of my experience reinforces my behavior, I choose to pray for those people in the stories told on the six o’clock news. I pray for the repose of the souls who have died, healing for the injuried, mercy and conversion of the murderers and criminals, and God’s blessings upon all, especially for the survivors, family members, and their friends.

I am not a lone individual sitting in my living room watching the six o’clock news, isolated from the people in those stories. I am connected to them. We are one. Maybe I am not suppose to change anything. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I do know that I am changed by hearing their stories.

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