Reflections

Fat Tuesday

What is in a name? Mardi Gras (or in English, “Fat Tuesday”) has evolved in New Orleans far from the Christian roots of the French-speaking Acadians.  Expelled from New Brunswick by the British government, many Acadians settled in Louisiana where they maintained practices such as observing Mardi Gras. 

On the Tuesday preceding Lent fat was used up in preparing rich foods that would be prohibited during the forty-day penitential season beginning with Ash Wednesday on the following day. Lent is the forty-day period preceding Easter Sunday; it represents the forty-day fast of Jesus in the desert prior to beginning his public ministry and is observed by many Christian denominations.

Traditional practices include fasting, abstinence from meat, almsgiving, and sacrificing such pleasures as going to movies or consuming alcoholic beverages. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras has become a not-so-Christian event characterized by extravagant parades and celebrations. Mardi Gras is also known as Shrove Tuesday, the day on which Christians would confess and be “shriven” or released from the guilt of sins of the preceding year prior to the forty days of penitence and atonement.

In a recent conversation with friends, stories of family practices on the day preceding Lent were exchanged. A pancake supper in my family meant that my mother stood at the stove cooking and serving pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup. My seven siblings and I would press forks through the cooked dough in search of the tokens that supposedly predicted our future: A button indicated permanent bachelorhood; a dime foretold future wealth, and a ring signified marriage.  Another person described her ravenous brothers requiring their mother to toil endlessly producing the delicacies, which she despised, quickly enough to keep up with their demands and fill their hollow legs. A woman originally from England served her version of pancakes (thin crepes topped with lemon juice and icing sugar) to Canadians who snubbed them as inferior. A person from an Italian family had to develop the art of making thin crepes with a meat filling. Another member of the group informed us that she attends a pancake supper fundraiser at a church.

Do you have ways in which you mark the annual event of Mardi Gras, Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday?

-Sister Pat McKeon, csj

CHILBLAINS on my SOUL

Two years into this pandemic, surely all of us have those moments when all is not well with our soul. Due to a Covid outbreak, I once again find myself cloistered in a room. Though on this frosty Friday outdoors it feels like -20°C, it is cozy in my room and yet there are chilblains on my soul. Chilblains, you may ask. On your soul, you may ask. Yes, there is a chill in my soul.

My room faces the steep incline of a hill, so I do not have ‘a room with a view.’  What I do have on this bitterly cold morning, are dainty frost flowers on my windowpane. Do you notice the perfectly shaped heart in the bottom right-hand quarter? That icy heart caused me to pause and ponder. I asked myself whether the icy finger of the pandemic has painted chilblains on my heart and soul.

This pondering brought to mind Henri Nouwen’s reminder that, “Each day holds a surprise [or more!!!]. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us...whether it comes to us as sorrow, or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts”. This first day of being newly cloistered, certainly came as a surprise, laden with sorrow. I really should have seen it coming. The most recent Omicron ‘mantra’ warned us that it is not a matter of ‘if’ we will have an outbreak but ‘when’ we will have an outbreak.

Obviously, I did not listen nor really prepare myself for this déjà vu experience of once again being cloistered in a hermitage. When seen through the rear-view mirror of experience, hindsight provides insight into what we missed. So, now I am cloistered once again. If, according to Thomas Merton, “Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence a grace,” how, despite covid fatigue, do we embrace each moment of this strange Covid existence as a graced moment? Much has been written about the pandemic offering us time to take stock, to evaluate our lifestyles, to make healthier choices for our planet.

Can I view this time of isolation as gift, as a time to appeal to the better angels of my nature? Here and now, cloistered in my hermitage, can I choose wisely to use this opportunity to offer my chilblained soul hospitality, a nurturing space conducive for change to take place within me? If I do, might these turn out to be graced moments, opening up a window to my soul to peer inside with new eyes? Might I discover what St. Bernard of Clairvaux calls, “the real behind the real”? In the stillness of my hermitage, my soul might give voice to the real reason, why all is not well with my soul. I have a sense it may whisper that by my attitude to this elusive viral enemy I am putting myself in the way of grace. Have I given this pandemic, this moronic Omicron, the power to inflict chilblains on my soul? As you and I stumble forward in this pandemic, what ongoing change of attitude will assure that we will eventually embrace the newly evolving normal with grace and confidence? Yes, these have been soul-destroying times. Undoubtedly, we all need to confront the challenges we face. However, let us also remember the joys of life and the hope that can fill our lives and that we can bring to others, even while nestled in isolation.

“You listen with only one purpose: to help the person empty their hearts”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

The well-known Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh died recently. Among his many qualities, he was known for being an extraordinarily good listener. He believed that deep listening helps relieve the suffering of another person for, “You listen with only one purpose: to help the person empty their hearts.”  I believe, we also need to listen deeply to the whispers of our own soul so as to empty our heart. There may well be chilblains on my soul. Maybe, on yours, too. But let us trust in God, who created and lives in our soul. God is not ‘out there.’ “God is in all, through all, and with all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). With God’s help healing can occur so we can joyfully acclaim, “It is well with my soul.” Even during this pandemic.

-Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps

A Home for Peoples' Souls: A Service of Retreat

“A Home for Peoples’ Souls: A Service of Retreat”: Words for a New Day

Have you ever experienced hearing a phrase that seemed to claim you in a special way, has stayed with you over years and that continues to inform and guide your thoughts and actions today? I first heard “my” phrase during novitiate (the time of early formation for new sisters in religious communities) some 18 years ago. When being introduced to the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph in France, where our Congregation was founded, we were told that just prior to and during the French Revolution (1780s) the Sisters became a “home for people’s souls – a service of retreat”. These words somehow lit a spark in me, and I’ve since pondered deeply their possible relevance for today.

The French Revolution took place within a context not unlike our own. Many people lived in deep poverty, disease was rife, there was societal violence and corruption in both church and state. Many lived in fear. Inequalities in society were marked. People were dejected, sick and hope was waning. Above all, people needed a place to feel valued, loved, cared about and safe, a place of momentary respite, a small glimpse of beauty, a moment of promise for a new day. And so, today as we face similar struggles, I think those same yearnings are present in the world and in our local communities, yearnings that Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, calls a “holy longing”, especially a longing for meaning and belonging in a time of uncertainty and chaos.

“people needed a place to feel valued, loved, cared about and safe, a place of momentary respite, a small glimpse of beauty, a moment of promise for a new day”

As I reflect on these times in which we are living, the words that I heard and loved so long ago seem to have taken on a fresh urgency and relevance: Be, “a home for peoples’ souls, a service of retreat”. By this I don’t mean some superficial, pious interaction or a running away from reality but a being there for one another, being a listening, loving presence, recognizing the needs and vulnerabilities we all have at some time and receiving them with grace. We can all make a difference, however simple, in our own and other’s lives through encountering one another in respect, compassion and care with a deep understanding and non-judgmental approach to the stresses, suffering and anxieties of this time, our time.

In the words of some beautiful prayers of intercession that I encountered this morning: May we be:
home for the broken-hearted;
peace for the war-torn;
hope for the powerless;
wine for those who thirst for justice;
a voice for the oppressed, and
a comfort for the sorrowing.

In these ways may we become for a new day “a home for peoples’ souls, a service of retreat” - witnesses to a oneness of being and fundamental human experience, the reality of belonging, a hidden joy, and an unfolding hope.

-Sister Mary Rowell, csj

image: unsplash/Luís Feliciano

An Encounter on a Winter Walk

Early Sunday morning I embarked on London’s Thames Valley Trail amid brilliant sunshine, gleaming snow and –12 C weather.  As I walked along the River Thames, a thirtyish man walked from his small tent at the river edge up to the trail. He asked if I was one of the women who had left some Tim Horton’s donuts for him. I had not.  He introduced himself (I will call him “John”) and we shook hands; his enclosed in thin gloves and mine in bulky fleece-lined hide mitts. Asked about being cold with his thin jacket and flimsy tent, he stated that he was warm enough.  He then spoke about a sixty-one-year-old friend. The man’s bicycle had been stolen. A month earlier, the man had suffered an injury caused by a tree falling on his ankle - the same ankle that had been fused following a previous injury. The friend had crawled a fair distance through the scrabble along the river edge to John’s tent and John arranged for an ambulance to transport his buddy to the hospital. John had not been able to locate his pal and was concerned. He wondered if his friend would be able to walk again. When I told John that I would pray for him he asked if I went to church on Sunday. He was on his way to meet a pal at a nearby church.  He described a church in east London that had become so crowded that a second site was opened across the city.  John asked if I knew anyone who might need help for tasks such as clearing snow from their sidewalk.  He liked to help older people. I had no suggestions and we amicably continued along our respective paths.

This weekend a convoy of trucks and a multitude of supporters in Ottawa are angrily protesting mandatory vaccines, obligatory masks, vaccine passports, and other covid restrictions.   I reflected on my chance encounter with a man who was living in a tent in -12 C weather.  He expressed no anger, blame, or frustration about living in a tent, covid restrictions, or food insecurity.   Rather, he was cheerful, grateful for an anonymous gift of donuts, concerned about others, and confidently lived his faith in God.  I wondered if John would have felt welcomed and at home in my church. And I thought that if Jesus should make an appearance in our city whether he would feel more welcome and comfortable in John’s church than in mine.

-Sister Pat McKeon, csj