Blog
In Jesus, God reveals to us that God is not different from humanity. Jesus’ most common and almost exclusive self-name is “The Human One” or “Son of Humanity.” Jesus’ reality, his cross, is to say a free “yes” to what his humanity daily asks of him. It seems we have been worshipping Jesus’ journey instead of “doing” his journey…. we are spiritual beings on a journey toward becoming fully human.
-Richard Rohr
Wesley Tingey/Unsplash
RESURRECTION
I never suspected resurrection
To be so painful
To leave me weeping
With joy to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb
With regret – not because I've lost you
But because I've lost you in how I had you –
In understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh
Not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.
I want to cling, despite your protest
Cling to your body
Cling to your, and my, clingable humanity
Cling to what we had, our past.
But I know that … if I cling
You cannot ascend and
I will be left clinging to your former self ...
unable to receive your present spirit.
For some reason, we needed all the time legally given to a parent to name our daughter, or perhaps as I think back, the name chose her. She was Kristina, our little spark of the divine child on this earth. She died at the age of 15 on Easter Sunday such that if we mark linear and not spiritual time, we experience the anniversary of her death twice each year. A dear spiritual companion hoped that one day we would no longer associate Easter Sunday with her death but with resurrection. And a dear friend sent me Rolheiser’s poem some time later.
But thirty-three years later, I know that a coin’s two sides co-exist in symbiotic relationship. The seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter – are all contained within each other as well, held in a continuous flow of life and death. Even our thoughts and beliefs would not exist without the teacher who led us to them. Surely, we would not know the Resurrection if Christ had not experienced the Crucifixion. The continuing miracle of Kristina’s life and death as One is our family’s ongoing, sacred lesson in the unity of All.
Christ has died. Christ has risen.
-Susan Hendrick, csj Associate
How dare we call this Good Friday! And yet we do. Why?
It is difficult to imagine the sadness and overwhelming grief of walking with a loved one through pain, suffering and death unless you have been there. Today as we walk with Jesus to Calvary, we may have some inkling of what the disciples were going through. This year, at this holiest of seasons, we have far too many clear pictures of innocent victims in so many nations around the world. Balancing our days by being lovingly aware and yet not crippled with grief is a challenge. Can we be brave enough to stand at the foot of their crosses in prayer and appropriate action with all these victims; or with one?
“because we know the end of the story”
Despite the agony of Jesus, His followers and now those who suffer in the name of “religion” find triumph in Jesus’ final message. We must not meet evil with evil but with love, compassion, and courage. Accept gratefully the graces of this season and move purposefully forward because we know the end of the story. I trust in Jesus’ message of hope.
-Maureen Condon, CSJ Associate
Image: Alicia Quan/Unsplash
Jesus, the Christ, was a faithful Jew and so it is no surprise that he gathered together his disciples to celebrate the Passover as had been done for generations.
With careful preparation he gathered them and for the most part He followed the long adhered to rituals of telling the story of the Passover, discussing the story, drinking wine, eating matzah, partaking of symbolic foods, and reclining in celebration of freedom. What a surprise it must have been for all gathered when He raised the bread & wine saying THIS IS MY BODY & blood which was to be offered up within the next few hours. Then he asked them to do likewise in His memory. Do this to Remember Me.
How do you handle change ?
We become so used to doing things in a particular way that when that changes we become uncomfortable, cautious, even suspicious. We’ve always done it this way ! How wonderful it is to see Jesus leading the way by calling us to creatively interpreting our faith and greater fidelity. There is more than one way BE Faithful.
-Maureen Condon, CSJ Associate
“What the world needs now, is Love Sweet Love”, some of us may remember this song of Burt Barcharach and Hal David that came out in 1965. As the song says, “It’s the only thing there’s just too little of... No, not just for some, but for everyone...”
Yes, this world needs so much love as we come to a turning point where love is being replaced with hatred, bullying, xenophobia, violence against anyone who is “different” than the white male Caucasian. Women are belittled, Indigenous peoples in countries world-wide are looked upon as being subhuman or inhuman, hence are treated as if they have no value. People who are homosexual or transgender are not even considered to be human. What is the criteria for dismissing a human being? Too many politicians exhibit an unconscious or perhaps even conscious assumption that some people in this world are not human...and this is in supposedly educated nations. Shame on us if we remain silent, for therein is our consent.
Enter, “Cabrini” the movie about a young Italian woman who dared the powers of Church and state to say “no” to the dream of a better world for all.
Not only does the movie take the “religiosity” out of religion, but inserts an interesting dynamic between: women and the men who hold power, Italian immigrants and U.S. citizens, a tribal worldview and an inclusive one, the rich and privileged of New York City, and the poor in the slums.
Frances Cabrini, born in 1850, had only a few years to live because of a compromised lung condition she acquired when she almost drowned as a child. She founded her own Religious order because she was rejected by established orders due to her ill health. The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, under Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, felt called to the far east to minister to the poor and forgotten. The movie “CABRINI”, graphically depicts how 6 women were able to effect major change in the hearts of the citizens of New York City after having been commissioned by Pope Leo XIII.
Upon arriving in New York the women experienced firsthand, the plight of the Five Points Slum district in which Italian immigrants lived isolated from the rest of the citizens of NY City (“Rats have it better”, described their condition)
The Institute of The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established seven homes and a free school and nursery in its first five years. Its good works brought Cabrini to the attention of Giovanni Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, and of Pope Leo XIII.[2]
In 1889, at the suggestion of Pope Leo XIII, the Sisters came to New York, and opened convents in the Archdioceses of Chicago, Denver, Newark, Seattle, and Los Angeles and the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Scranton.[3] In 1892 they established Columbus Hospital in New York City,[4] which later became Cabrini Medical Center and operated until 2008.
Perhaps the compassionate viewer is able to appreciate these times in which the movie was produced and the actual tenor of the day in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s. We saw in the portrayal of Mother Cabrini a woman spurred on by intense love for the orphans and abandoned of her society. We also saw how anger fuelled her passion to embrace those who had no love. Anger and love provided the energy Mother Cabrini needed to accomplish all she did.
-Sister Kathleen Lichti, csj
Image: Felix Mooneeram/Unsplash
