Third Sunday of Lent

A BOLD GESTURE

Today, in John’s Gospel account (Jn 2:13-25) we move from a wedding celebration held in Cana to a riot-like scenario in the temple of Jerusalem.  What a shock and sight that must have been!  Jesus is seen displaying anger by upending tables, shooing animals using a whip, causing money to fly all over the place.  What is this outburst all about?  Psalm 69 sheds light on the situation by  describing Jesus’ bold gesture in these words: “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me.” It wouldn’t be until much later that the disciples of Jesus would remember these words and connect them to the Psalmist’s meaning.  The message is clear and urgent! 

“Stop making my Father’s house a house of merchandise.” (John 2:16). 

What is most intriguing about Jesus cleansing the temple is the ongoing structural injustice within the Temple itself.  A justified system had become one in which the leaders used laws to marginalize the poor.  Jesus wanted nothing of this kind of business!  With his time getting shorter, there lay his deep sense of urgency to address injustices such as greed and power. Hence, the display of anger on Jesus’ part is seen as a bold gesture to shake up things and to wake up the financial and spiritual temple leaders from corruption.    

Although the leaders display upset over Jesus’ overt use of authority, they had not yet comprehended the symbolism of the Temple which is God’s dwelling place.  God not only dwelt within the temple but also within the people and today, within us!  Yes, Jesus came in the flesh to be within us and among us.

This week, we might consider Jesus’ bold gesture and ask ourselves some challenging questions as we prepare for the Easter Resurrection. What bold gestures are needed in our time?  Where do I/we need to stand boldly and be a voice for the voiceless?  What does not belong in God’s temple and needs transformation?   

-Sister Linda Parent, csj

Dancing in the Wilderness

Dancing and wilderness seem to be opposite realities, but in this time of necessary social distancing which in itself is a paradoxical term, we need to discover once again that the human spirit is capable of continuing the Dance of life.

For Christians throughout the world, the Season of Lent has just begun and is a reminder of the journey into the wilderness to which all Christians are called.

Because of the Coronavirus, ALL of us, Christian or not have been drawn into a wilderness unprecedented in our lives. This can be a gift or a curse.

As a gift, it is providing an opportunity for us to go deeper and to take a “long loving look at the real” that is ours now.  The “real” is a mixture of suffering, death, loss of freedoms once enjoyed, and on the other hand, a time for reading into the meaning of our lives, to discovering our passion for life, and how we are called to live that life to the full.

The invitation to the dance of life involves a long look at aging which involves considering:

• entitlement: how deeply can we let go of it?

• entitlement to work?

• entitlement to status?

• to being productive?

• to body control?

• to the movement of limbs?

• to eating quietly and cleanly?

• to controlling anger

• to understanding my own responses

• to drive a car

• to walk long distances

• to memory?

We know in our own lived experience that we are dealing with these realities and we also know that by living in the moment we can celebrate who and how we are.  All we need to do is to choose to do just that.  The Dance in the wilderness need not be a dance of doom but one of delight if we but choose the steps.  It may be writing poetry, or journaling, or meaningful reading. It is the invitation to go into the wilderness in a way that we never have done before individually or as a society.... very mindfully. 

The wilderness on the political scene we have witnessed in the last 4 years in the U.S.  Silence was consent to all that was done or NOT done and as a result, core values of decency, honesty, respect, and truthfulness were thrown aside. Where has all the goodness gone?

We witness blatant racism, white supremacy in many countries, including Canada in its relationship with Indigenous peoples and in some cases with refugees.

We must face the massive climate change which threatens to bring the human species to extinction.

The list could go on and on, but in fact, we ARE in the wilderness and we need to talk about it. We need to dance a new step of openness, togetherness.

The Coronavirus and the variants are now facing the whole world.  It is interesting how it is now on the front burner of government agendas.  The time of silence or denial is over in a world crisis.  We are in this together.

So, let’s begin a NEW Dance of LIFE together.

-Sister Kathleen Lichti, csj

Transfiguration Continued

The second Sunday of Lent provides us with this well-known Transfiguration Gospel.

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them to a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white such as no one on earth could bleach them.” (Mark 9)

Rocky Mountains, Jasper

Mountains, in our Scriptures, are usually considered holy places where suddenly the Sacred seems to embrace us and God is revealed in a special way. I love mountains! I’ve marveled at them since I was a small child and we were all piled into our car and driven to visit my Grandfather Baker. We had to travel through the Rocky Mountains in Jasper to get there, and always, at first sight, it would literally take my breath away. With my nose pressed to the back seat window, I would gaze at each one with wonder and awe. Years later, when I was stationed in Burns Lake, BC. I had the incredible opportunity to ride in a helicopter to the top of a mountain, and we were allowed to get out and gaze at the spectacular sight surrounding us. We were at the top—everything else was below us. It seemed I could not only touch the sky but, “put out my hand and touch the face of God”, as so famously expressed in J.B. Magee’s poem, High Flight.

In an article entitled “Whole Earth Transfiguration”, put out by the Deep Green Church, the authors suggest that in this day of new realities, perhaps there is a new mountain view—another place of sacredness— one that is much, much higher than the mountains we know, or of which Peter, James, and John could never have dreamed.

Astronaut photograph AS17-148-22727 courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

They describe a view of the Earth, a picture taken in 1972. This picture is unique because it is the only time the camera ever caught the sun directly behind the Moon-Lander and so it spectacularly illuminates the Earth, giving us a view never before seen by humanity. It was transfigured! Maybe today, our mountaintop is space. What would God want to reveal to us today with this Transfiguration of the Earth? https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1133/the-blue-marble-from-apollo-17 (NASA.gov)

This article then acknowledges the work of Elizabeth Johnson CSJ in providing three practices that might be helpful as we come to grips with our new perspective:

1) “Practices of worship and reverence (in order to understand the sacredness of all things)

2) Practices of holiness and right living (in order to live a sacred life)

3) Practices of justice and right relationships (in order to enable sacredness for others.)”

Our proposed Directional Statement “Moving with Love”, is probably quite significant as we touch our long-held charism of “The Congregation of the Great Love of God”. Perhaps the 1972 photo of our illuminated, transfigured earth is showing us just how inclusive and diverse that would be.

-Sister Irene Baker, csj

First Sunday of Lent

““Your paths, O God, are love and faithfulness” (Ps. 25)”

The first Sunday of Lent is an invitation to examine one’s path. In Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus driven into the desert by the Spirit after his baptism in the Jordan. He was immersed in the waters of cleansing and healing. Did he need cleansing and healing? No, but we might, and Jesus is always leaving an example if we choose to see it.

Jesus journeyed into the desert wilderness for forty days. We have been journeying in a COVID wilderness for much longer than forty days. We feel like we’re surrounded by wild beasts and angry politicians and sometimes feel tempted to impatience with disgruntled citizens. However, we have also been accompanied by angels in the form of committed and kind health-care workers, brave front-line men and women who daily cater to our needs and the needs of society.

When Jesus returned from his desert experience, he invited Galileans and all of us into the spirit of repentance as he announced the Good News of the Kin-dom. To repent, I need to enter into deeper reflection and discernment to recognize the incongruity of my ways and the ways of society. Sometimes I hear challenges posed by the media that stir up dissension and unrest, that spatter others with doubt and worry. Can I use these forty days to consider the invitation to believe and live and spread the Good News?  Can I renew the covenant of faith by recognizing the presence of angels in my midst, and by working to dispel the harm of critical and negative voices? Might I see the sign of a renewed covenant in the beauty of creation, in the wholeness of humanity, in the lower numbers of infections from the pandemic, and in the new life promised by the unfolding vaccination program? May I live in renewed hope and trust?

-Sister Helen Russell, csj

A Reflection for Ash Wednesday

“ENOUGH ALREADY!”
For those of us steeped in the traditions of Lent, beginning each year on Ash Wednesday, and historically associated with acts of “giving up” we may this year, want to cry, “enough already”! The past year has been, for all peoples, a time of struggle, fear, and loss. We have seen the tragic loss of thousands upon thousands of lives. Some of us will have experienced such loss personally. We have not even been able to accompany loved ones in illness and dying or to participate in the healing rituals of grieving. Many have lost homes, hard-earned businesses, jobs, and dreams and we have lost much of the close intimacy of our relationships because of necessary social isolation. “So please don’t ask me to give up chocolate too!” and that is true. This year has been a year of great sacrifice for so many and although sacrifice or “giving up”, if done for the right reasons and offered to God, is an act of love it is by no means the heart of the meaning of Lent.

“An invitation to deepen our relationship with God”

Rather, Lent is the season of relationship. The traditional practices of Lent - prayer, fasting, and almsgiving hold meaning and relevance if and only if understood as an invitation to us to deepen our relationship with God and to be in right relationship with ourselves, with one another, and with all of creation. This integrated understanding of relationship is what is meant by the term “integral ecology”. All is connected. In this season, and perhaps especially in the troubled context and fragmented world in which we find ourselves, this Lent offers us a fresh opportunity to heal broken relationships, to deepen our love and care, and widen our horizons of connection. It is more than a simple “giving up”. The ancient Lenten practices are first and foremost a call to a deeper relationship and they are more than relevant for this new day.

So, how might we more fully “live Lent” this year? Many, who attend church on Ash Wednesday and receive the mark of the ashes on their foreheads may recall much debate some years ago because of a growing discomfort with the words used during the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return”. Somehow, these words smacked of guilt and a lack of appropriate self-esteem. We replaced them with “repent and believe in the Gospel” – for many a more comfortable and positive phrase. But perhaps a return to the original words speaks a truth we need to hear again as we seek to heal and to deepen relationships this Lent. For, as both science and faith now remind us, we are indeed a part of creation, “dust of dust” and created as such by God with love. To begin to heal our relationships we must first understand just how glorious this is. Our whole being is affirmed in this belonging in and with creation and in recognizing such reality, we can allow Lent to invite us into becoming ever more deeply who God created us to be: in relationship, defined by relationship, sustained in a relationship of love.  

So what of the traditions and practicalities? In these difficult days, what is more healing than to go out into nature or if unable to do so to observe it from a window, in a plant, or flower in your home? Let this beauty embrace you, listen to it, see the reflection of God in it and give thanks, perhaps resolve one small way you can respond to the call to care for God’s earth. As Pope Francis says in his 2021 Lenten message, “Lent is precisely a season of hope when we turn back to God who patiently continues to care for his creation which we have so often mistreated.” From such a contemplative perspective, be led this Lent to the deepening of prayer, being present to the Divine Presence making time to deepen relationship with God whose love is unfailing even in the dark and stormy days of life. From this immersion in creation and in prayer allow yourself to know that you are loved and intrinsically connected to all others. Be gentle with yourself, an act often much harder than ascetic practices! Be gentle with others.

But what of Lenten fasting? Perhaps there are ways of fasting that are especially meaningful today. Not simply fasting from something I like or motivated by a slimmer figure but fasting from something for the good of the Earth, have some meatless days, or fast from indiscriminate energy use, for example. For the love and care of others, perhaps fast from judgments, gossip, or harsh words and instead call someone who is isolated and alone, affirm someone, reach out to mend a broken relationship, finds ways even during isolation to let someone know he or she is in your thoughts, your heart and your prayers. Then Lenten almsgiving follows and becomes more than giving money, although gifts of some kind may help those who are struggling financially just now, it can also be the gift of your patience at home, imagining ways to touch the lives of others, to gift your time, widen the reach of your generosity.

As we begin Lent this year go deeper, reach out, pray and give thanks. On Ash Wednesday make it a day of prayer, reflection, and commitment anew for hope in your heart and in the world.  Indeed, this is “enough already”!

-Sister Mary Rowell, csj