The transforming power of Ruth (Based on a Silent Retreat at the Benedictine Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado)

The transforming power of Ruth

A short story by SUCHEN CHRISTINE LIM

When I first set eyes on Ruth in the monastery, all I saw lying curled like a foetus on the large trestle table was a dark-haired, severely deformed skeletal woman, the size of a nine-year-old. Dressed in thick woollens, she was in a frozen state. She could neither move nor speak a word.

"My daughter, Ruth," Helen, our meditation leader, said.

That year, I'd flown to Denver, Colorado, still seething with anger and resentment. Desperate to leave my heartbreak behind me, I was determined to do a two-week silent meditation retreat in the Benedictine Monastery in Snowmass. I rented a car and drove up the Rocky Mountains to the town of Aspen, 2,400m above sea level.

It was foolhardy. I had never travelled alone. Lawrence wouldn't hear of it. Neither had I driven up any mountain before, so it didn't occur to me that in mid-March it might still be winter in the Rockies.

Halfway up the mountain, it started to snow heavily. The next morning, Aspen was like a scene straight out of a Christmas card, all covered with snow, and Helen was waiting to take me to the monastery.

"Mrs Sarah Verghese?" The stout American woman in a brown leather jacket and boots shook my hand. Her handshake was warm, and so were her grey eyes.

"Here, let me."

With a deft swing, she swung my heavy suitcase into the boot of her large four-wheel drive. I gasped, "You could've hurt your back."

She looked 60-ish, 20 years older than me, yet she had lifted my suitcase as though it was a bag of groceries. "Don't worry. I'm used to it. Shall we go?"

The monastery was in a high valley surrounded by forests and snow-covered hills. There was a dormitory, a chapel, and a few secluded cottages known as hermitages for those who wished to meditate alone. Twenty of us from all walks of life and different parts of the world were to stay in the dormitory. Not all were Catholics.

Some, I discovered later, were Methodists, Calvinists or Presbyterians. The monastery welcomed everyone, but they had to observe one simple rule - silence at all times inside the buildings.

The next morning we were awakened at 4.30 by the gentle ringing of a bell. At 5, we entered the softly lit meditation room. Helenwas already seated on her cushion. On our drive up, she'd told me she lived a few miles down in the village below. I reckoned she would have to get up earlier than 4.30 to drive up the dark mountain road to reach the monastery before 5, and in the bitter cold, too, for it had snowed all night.

We sat on cushions on the floor, and had wrapped ourselves in thick shawls and blankets. One of the walls was glass from floor to ceiling, and I could see that it was pitch black outside when Helen sounded her bell and I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again at the sound of her bell, the sky was still dark. We stood up and walked slowly round the room to stretch our legs before the next sit. A few latecomers straggled in and we sat again for another half an hour till 6. By then, a soft grey light had filtered through the glass wall, and the snow-covered bushes outside were tinged with pink. We filed silently out of the meditation room into the kitchen-cum-dining room where a shock awaited us.

Lying asleep curled on her side on the trestle table was this thin girl-woman who was all skin and bones. We ate our breakfast of freshly baked bread in an uncomfortable silence, using our eyes to ask a neighbour to pass the butter or jam. My own eyes avoided the trestle table.

The severity of the woman's deformity distressed me. I couldn't bear to look at her, and I was ashamed. Ashamed of my distress. I glanced at the others. No one looked at the trestle table. No one went near it that first morning.

That evening, some of us, unable to bear the silence any longer, went out to the garden to talk. A woman who had done the retreat before told us that Ruth was 36 years old, and she was deaf. I went back inside. I didn't want to listen any more. I didn't want to talk about this deformed adult-child. Lawrence had insisted on an abortion when we were told that the foetus inside my womb had grave genetic defects. He didn't want children, he said.

I didn't want to think about Ruth. Yet, her existence could not be denied. Every day, she was among us, curled up on the trestle table as we ate our meals and had our coffee breaks in between the meditation sessions. Every lunch hour, we watched Helen, her mother, carry her like a baby into a private room to feed and change her diaper, and our hearts were filled with pity for Helen. At such moments, I felt Lawrence and I had done the right thing.

On the third morning, I noticed Ruth's dark eyes following us as we moved about the dining room. The next day, I thought her eyes blinked at me as I walked past. It made me stop. When I looked at her, her eyes seemed to smile although not a muscle twitched on her stiff, frozen face.

The next morning, I stood at the trestle table and mouthed a silent "hello". Her eyes seemed to brighten at this, and I was pleased. On the fifth day, I bent down towards her and whispered, "Hi, I'm from Singapore."

From then on, I made it a point to stop by the trestle table like the others to say a few words to Ruth despite having been told that she was deaf.

"I saw a bird outside my window," I told her one morning, and touched her inert hand. The tactile sensation shocked me and I withdrew my hand at once. Her bony fingers were stiff and bent like a dead bird's claw. Although Ruth couldn't see my face since she couldn't turn her head, I felt I had to apologise.

"Sorry, Ruth," I muttered, "I'm not used to touching bones." And had to smile. I sounded corny. Yet, looking into Ruth's eyes, I knew she'd understood my clumsy apology.

Over the next few days I noticed others in my group relating to Ruth with growing familiarity. Like me, they held her hand, patted her and laughed silently with her as though they were in conversation. On the ninth morning while I was whispering something to Ruth, I realised with a shock that I'd stopped seeing her as an ugly twisted human wreck.

"Something has shifted inside me," I whispered to her. "I no longer want to plunge and twist a knife into my husband's heart. Cause him as much pain as he'd caused me. I'm still hurt, but I don't want revenge any more."

By then, I felt that the twisted body on the trestle table did contain a spark of intelligent compassion. Each day I'd found myself stopping a little longer at the table. I could be talking to myself, yet when I looked into Ruth's dark eyes, they seemed to reflect understanding. In fact, Ruth appeared less deformed. No longer a being to be pitied. I could no longer describe her as a skeletal adult foetus. She was a human being. Like me.

Thinking back to those silent days in the dining room of the monastery, I believe that Ruth's daily silent presence forced me to see beyond the physical body. Daily, I saw how Helen carried her 36-year-old daughter like a baby into a private room to feed and change her diaper without fuss as though it was a normal thing to do. Helen's devotion made me see the nature of love with no strings attached. On the last day of the retreat, I plucked up courage to ask Helen about Ruth, and this is their story.

Ruth came from a family of six. Helen was a cook in the monastery before she became our meditation leader. Her father was a carpenter. When the monks first invited Helen to join the monastery's meditation leadership team, she declined because she couldn't leave Ruth at home all day. The monks told her to bring Ruth to the monastery with her.

Later, when the monks discovered that Ruth's presence had a positive effect on those who came for retreat, they made Ruth part of the meditation leadership team, and paid her a monthly stipend. The abbot of the monastery said that Ruth had lessons to teach the rest of us.

Over the years, I'd wondered what lessons we had learnt from Ruth, a human being so utterly helpless and dependent on others like a baby, yet so transformative in her influence on others.

Like a baby.

The writer is the winner of the Singapore Literature Prize and the S.E.A. Write Award.

Copyright © 2014 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.

Published on Dec 28, 2013

British TV show uncovers lost Van Dyck masterpiece (Purchased by Father Jamie MacLeod)

British TV show uncovers lost Van Dyck masterpiece

Video link - Antiques Roadshow portrait revealed to be by Anthony Van Dyck

LONDON (REUTERS) - A British television show dedicated to valuing people's usually modest antiques said on Sunday that it has uncovered a "hidden masterpiece" worth up to 400,000 pounds (S$385,000).

The painting by 17th-century Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck depicts a bearded Brussels magistrate wearing a ruff and was brought to the show by an English priest who bought it in an antiques shop for only 400 pounds.

Father Jamie MacLeod, who purchased the painting because he liked the thick gold-coloured frame, plans to sell the portrait to fund the restoration of bells at the chapel of a religious retreat he runs in Derbyshire, England.

Philip Mould, an art expert working for the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, had suspected that the painting might be an original Van Dyck, urged the cleric to have the canvas stripped back to its original paintwork and authenticated.

Christopher Brown, one of the world's leading authorities on Van Dyck and director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, was then able to verify that the painting was genuine, the programme said.

The portrait is believed to have been completed as part of Van Dyck's preparation for a larger 1634 work showing seven magistrates. That painting has since been destroyed.

Mould described the find as "a thrilling example" of the skills of direct observation that made Van Dyke such a great portrait painter.

Van Dyck was one of England's leading court painters in the 17th century, making his name with portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court.

Fiona Bruce, a presenter on the BBC show, said she had suspected the canvas was a Van Dyck when she first saw it.

"It's everyone's dream to spot a hidden masterpiece. To discover a genuine Van Dyck is incredibly exciting," she said.

The episode detailing the find is due to be broadcast in Britain on Sunday evening.

Homilies - The Christmas Story’s Best Supporting Actor

The Christmas Story’s Best Supporting Actor

December 18, 2013 | By Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D. | Reply

In the drama of the incarnation, Jesus is, of course, the star.  That’s the way it is at every birth.  All eyes are on the baby.  The co-star, though, is definitely mom.  Without her love and labor, the event could not have happened.  In this case, without mom’s faith it couldn’t have happened either.  According to Luke’s Gospel, an angel brought her stunning news.  She believed the unbelievable and said “let it be.”

But there is a best supporting actor in the drama as well.  True, Joseph was not the biological father.  But the messiah had to be of David’s royal line.  In ancient Israel, a child’s clan was determined by that of his father.  So it was Joseph who legally bound Jesus to the house of David.  It was because of Joseph that the family had to go to Bethlehem for the census, that the prophecy might be fulfilled.

God carefully selected the woman who would be the mother of his Son.  But he must have been equally careful in his selection of the foster-father.  For genes are not the only thing parents impart to their children.  Jesus, in his humanity, had to grow in wisdom, age, and grace (Luke 2:52).  Joseph must have responsible for a good deal of this growth.  It was Joseph who was Jesus’ male role model.  From Joseph Jesus learned many things, including the trade that he would practice for some twenty years.

But there are even more important things that Jesus learned from Joseph.  For Joseph was a just man, an honest man, a courageous man, a man of integrity.  His betrothed was pregnant but not by him. Imagine the shame, the hurt, and the anger that he must have experienced assuming what anyone would assume in such a situation.  His integrity would not allow him to marry an adulteress and pretend the child was his.  Neither would he expose the woman he loved to shame and punishment.  He did not procrastinate or waffle.  He made the difficult decision to divorce Mary quietly.

But then came the messenger. In Luke’s Gospel, there was an angelic Annunciation to Mary.  In the first chapter of Matthew, we learn that Joseph gets one too.  He was named after the greatest dreamer of the Old Testament.  Maybe that’s why his annunciation came in a dream.

Mary’s great claim to fame is her faith.  When told the unbelievable, she believed.

Joseph’s claim to fame is also his faith.  He too was also told the unbelievable and dared to believe.  His response of faith entailed taking action – he change his plans, received Mary into his home, and accepted responsibility for this special child.  Keep this in mind, though, that Mary needed no revelation to be sure this was a virginal conception.  All Joseph had to go by was what he received from an angel, in a dream.

Do you think he may have been tempted at some point to second guess this experience, especially when things did not go smoothly?  After all, when a plan is from God, are not doors supposed to open?  Yet when they arrived in Bethlehem, the door of the inn was slammed in their face.  If this were God’s child, wouldn’t God provide a room?  And if this were really God’s son, wouldn’t God have turned back Herod’s hit men?

Then the angel shows up again in another dream: “flee to Egypt with Mary and the baby.”

Wasn’t the 70 mile walk to Bethlehem with a pregnant woman enough?  If this was God’s doing, shouldn’t there be an easier way?

Joseph may or may not have thought these things.  I would have.  The point is, Joseph believed and acted.  And when the angel came a third time and told him to make the long trek back to Nazareth, he acted again.

Joseph certainly did a lot of walking.  From Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt and back again.  Paul said we walk by faith, not by sight.  Joseph is a model of faith because he keeps walking, even in the dark.

---

Editor’s Note: Reflection on the Mass readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A) – Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalms 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24

STAYING AWAKE by Father Ron Rolheiser 

Theme: Spiritual Sleep and Alertness 

2013-12-08

In his autobiography, Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis recounts a conversation he once had with an old monk.  Kazantzakis, a young man at the time, was visiting a monastery and was very taken by a famed ascetic, Father Makarios, who lived there. But a series of visits with the old monk left him with some ambivalent feelings as well.  The monk's austere lifestyle stirred a certain religious romanticism in Kazantzakis, but it repelled him too; he wanted the romanticism, but in a more-palatable way. Here's their conversation as Kazantzakis records it:

"Yours is a hard life, Father. I too want to be saved. Is there no other way?"

"More agreeable?" asked the ascetic, smiling compassionately.

"More human, Father."

"One, only one."

"What is that?"

"Ascent. To climb a series of steps. From the full stomach to hunger, from the slaked throat to thirst, from joy to suffering. God sits at the summit of hunger, thirst, and suffering; the devil sits at the summit of the comfortable life. Choose."

"I am still young. The world is nice.  I have time to choose."

Reaching out, the old monk touched my knee and said:

"Wake up, my child. Wake up before death wakes you up."

I shuttered and said:

"I am still young."

"Death loves the young," the old man replied. "The inferno loves the young. Life is like a lighted candle, easily extinguished. Take care - wake up!"

Wake up! Wake up before death wakes you up. In a less dramatic expression that's a virtual leitmotif in the Gospels. Jesus is always telling us to wake up, to stay awake, to be vigilant, to be more alert to a deeper reality. What's meant by that? How are we asleep to depth? How are we to wake up and stay awake?

How are we asleep? All of us know how difficult it is for us to be inside the present moment, to not be asleep to the real riches inside our own lives. The distractions and worries of daily life tend to so consume us that we habitually take for granted what's most precious to us, our health, the miracle of our senses, the love and friendships that surround us, and the gift of life itself. We go through our daily lives not only with a lack of reflectiveness and lack of gratitude but with a habitual touch of resentment as well, a chronic, grey depression, Robert Moore calls it. We are very much asleep, both to God and to our own lives.

How do we wake up? Today there's a rich literature that offers us all kinds of advice on how to get into the present moment so as to be awake to the deep riches inside our own lives. While much of this literature is good, little of it is very effective. It invites us to live each day of our lives as if was our last day, but we simply can't do that. It's impossible to sustain that kind of intentionality and awareness over a long period of time. An awareness of our mortality does wake us up, as does a stroke, a heart attack, or cancer; but that heightened-awareness is easier to sustain for a short season of our lives than it is for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years. Nobody can sustain that kind of awareness all the time. None of us can live seventy or eighty years as if each day was his or her last day. Or can we?

Spiritual wisdom offers a nuanced answer here: We can and we can't!  On the one hand, the distractions, cares, and pressures of everyday life will invariably have their way with us and we will, in effect, fall asleep to what's deeper and more important inside of life. But it's for this reason that every major spiritual tradition has daily rituals designed precisely to wake us from spiritual sleep, akin an alarm clock waking us from physical sleep.

It's for this reason we need to begin each day with prayer. What happens if we don't pray on a given morning is not that we incur God's wrath, but rather that we tend to miss the morning, spending the hours until noon trapped inside a certain dullness of heart. The same can be said about praying before meals. We don't displease God by not first centering ourselves in gratitude before eating, but we miss out on the richness of what we're doing. Liturgical prayer and the Eucharist have the same intent, among their other intentions. They're meant to, regularly, call us out of a certain sleep.

None of us lives each day of our lives as if it was his or her last day. Our heartaches, headaches, distractions, and busyness invariably lull us to sleep. That's forgivable; it's what it means to be human. So we should ensure that we have regular spiritual rituals, spiritual alarm clocks, to jolt us back awake  - so that it doesn't take a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, or death to wake us up.

DYING INTO SAFE HANDS

DYING INTO SAFE HANDS by Father Ron Rolheiser

(CROSS REFERENCE WITH 2 MACCABEES 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 THESSALONIANS 2:16-3:5; LUKE 20:27-38) 

2013-11-03

It's hard to say something consoling in the face of death, even when the person who died lived a full life and died in the best of circumstances. It's especially hard when the one who's died is a young person, still in need of nurturing and care in this life, and when that young person dies in less-than-ideal circumstances.

As a priest, I have, a number of times, had to preside at the funeral of someone who died young, either as the result of illness, accident, or suicide. Such a funeral is always doubly sad. I remember one such funeral in particular: A high-school student had died in a car accident. The church was over-packed with his grieving family, friends, and classmates. His mother, still a young woman herself, was in the front pew, heavy with grief about her loss, but clearly weighed-down too with anxiety for her child.  After all, he was still just a boy, partly still in need of someone to take care of him, still needing a mother. She sensed how, dying so young, in effect, orphaned him.

There aren't many words that are helpful in a situation like this, but the few that we have say what needs to be said - even if on that day, when death is still so raw, they don't yet bring much emotional consolation. What's to be said in face of a death like this?  Simply that this young boy is now in more-loving, more-tender, gentler, and safer hands than ours, that there's a mother on the other side to receive him and give him the nurturing he still needs, just as there was one on this side when he was born. No one is born, except into a mother's arms. That's an image we need to keep before us in order to more healthily imagine death.

What, more precisely, is the image? Few images are as primal, and as tender, as that of a mother holding and cradling her new born baby.  Indeed the words of the most-renowned Christmas carol of all time, Silent Night, were inspired by precisely this image. Joseph Mohr, a young priest in Germany, had gone out to a cottage in the woods on the afternoon of Christmas Eve to baptize a new born baby. As he left the cottage, the baby was asleep in its mother's lap.  He was so taken with that image, with the depth and peace it incarnated, that, immediately upon returning to his rectory, he penned the famous lines of Silent Night. His choir director, Franz Gruber, put some guitar chords to those words and froze them in our minds forever. The ultimate archetypal image of peace, safety, and security is that of a new born sleeping in its mother's arms. Moreover, when a baby is born, it's not just the mother who's eager to hold and cradle it. Most everyone else is too.

Perhaps no image then is as apt, as powerful, as consoling, and as accurate in terms of picturing what happens to us when we die and awake to eternal life as is the image of a mother holding and cradling her new born child.  When we die, we die into the arms of God and surely we're received with as much love, gentleness, and tenderness as we were received in the arms of our mothers at birth. Moreover, surely we are even safer there than we were when we were born here on earth. I suspect too that more than a few of the saints will be hovering around, wanting their chance to cuddle the new baby. And so it's okay if we die before we're ready, still in need of nurturing, still needing someone to help take care of us, still needing a mother. We're in safe, nurturing, gentle hands.

That can be deeply consoling because death renders every one of us an orphan and, daily, there are people dying young, unexpectedly, less-than-fully-ready, still in need of care themselves. All of us die, still needing a mother. But we have the assurance of our faith that we will be born into safer and more nurturing hands than our own.

However, consoling as that may be, it doesn't take away the sting of losing a loved one to death.  Nothing takes that away because nothing is meant to. Death is meant to indelibly scar our hearts because love is meant to wound us in that way.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it: "Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love. ... It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn't fill it, but on the contrary, God keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.  ... The dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves."

Our Friend, Death

OUR FRIEND, DEATH

NOVEMBER 8, 2013 

BY PATTI MAGUIRE ARMSTRONG   (Cross reference with 2 MACCABEES 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38) 

As the saying goes: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”  But taxes you can avoid and evade; death–not so.  Therefore, the only logical response to death is to embrace it…or at least accept it.  After all, it’s not like we have a choice.

While traveling back from dropping off a son for college in Oregon a while ago, we attended Mass in Missoula, Montana at St. Francis Xavier Church.  During the prayers of intercession, one prayer caught my attention: “For all who have died, for all who are going to die and for all who are afraid to die.”

That last one–all who are afraid to die–stood out for me.  “Isn’t that just about everyone?” I thought.  Yet, many years ago, I realized there was only one thing to do about death—to make a friend of it and think of it often.

Life through Death

At first glance, thinking of death seems morbid.  Death hardly seems like a cheerful thought for the day.  But I contend that it is just that—or at least it can be a holy way to get through the day. And with holiness comes peace and ultimately joy. The opposite would be to try to deny death. That would be a depressing and hopelessly futile endeavor.  Death is coming for us all so the sooner we make peace with it the sooner we can get on with living.

In the book Amazing Grace for Surivors (Ascension Press) there is a story titled “The Gift of Cancer.”  In it, Richard J. Cusack, Sr. says that God gave him the greatest possible gift. “It was cancer and the fear of dying,” said Cusack. “Through that gift He woke me up and showed me what life is all about and how wonderful it can be when you begin your journey closer to Him.”

Cusack recovered, but during the time he believed he was at death’s doorstep, he prioritized his life very differently than it had been previously and he also began a ministry. “One Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. he was sitting in a perpetual adoration chapel, thanking God for all the extra time he had been given. ‘Before I arrive at my final judgment, is there something I can do for you here on earth?’ he asked God. ‘What would be pleasing to you? He suddenly had an inspiration about making a beautiful holy card with a monstrance on the front and the words, ‘Do you really love me? Then come to me. Visit me before the Blessed Sacrament.’” His first printing of 100 cards quickly ran out and requests for more poured in. Since that time, Cusack has distributed tens of thousands of these cards.  It was death that was the inspiration for such living.

Several years ago, I was speaking with Elizabeth “Beth” Matthews, a favorite author of mine who contributed stories to the “Amazing Grace” book series.  She was in the middle of yet another move, dealing with all the usual hassles and then some.  Beth related to me a phone conversation she had with a relative. “In another hundred years we’ll all be dead and none of this will matter,” she had said.

Her relative was taken aback and said, “Oh Beth, don’t say that.”

But Beth responded:  “Why not? It’s true.”

I understand that such a thought is actually not depressing, but freeing. Death puts everything in perspective.  Instead of fretting over some irritation, it reminds us that indeed, soon our life on earth and life’s inconveniences will be nothing to us.  It reminded me of something my mother used to say to me when I was a girl, whenever I was upset over some trivial thing:  “Will it matter in a hundred years from now?”

What if death was on your “to-do” list today?

I once read of a monk that was working in the garden when he was asked what he would do if he had one hour left to live.  The monk calmly stated that he would not do anything differently, he would continue working in the garden.  Many are surprised at such a response since most of us would immediately drop to our knees and pray. But for this monk, he strove to live every moment for God. Thus, he was always ready.

We all know people who spend inordinate amounts of time at work and have many possessions, but don’t go to Mass. If they knew they would come face to face with the Almighty that afternoon, would they change their schedule for the day? Or parents who run their kids all over town for activities, but don’t bother to take them to church on Sunday.  If they suddenly learned their child was going to die very soon, would the priorities change?

Actually had the experience of thinking one of my sons had died.  When my husband Mark and I came upon our 14-year-old son, he was blue and not breathing.  It turned out that he had a seizure and his breathing had been cut off.  We were at a lake at a family reunion and it was the middle of the night.  Our older son heard him struggling to breathe before he lost consciousness. Mark ran next door for help where his brother, a doctor, was staying. During those tense moments, Mark and I prayed separately. My oldest son and I prayed together and another son did CPR, which he had learned at boy scouts.  Mark and I later learned that we prayed with the same thought in mind–that perhaps our son was already gone and it was too late.  While we pleaded with God for to save our beloved son, we also acknowledged our acceptance of God’s will.  Or course it was an emotional situation.  My body shook with shock as I thought with horror that I had not even gotten to say good-bye.

Our son recovered within minutes and never again had another seizure.  But our family was left with the experience of death.  I told the kids we had been blessed for two reasons.  One, our son and brother was still with us and two, we experienced first-hand what it is like to have death come without warning.

I am not in any way trying to lessen the shock and grief one feels over the death of a loved one.  I know it is not a one-time feeling, but something that is grieved over and over again.  But for Mark and me, the fact that we are in touch with eternity and try to live or it, our first reaction to any death is acceptance—even along with the shock and grief.  It is what keeps us grounded and helps us to share the same priorities: God first, everything else second and nothing in the way.

The Divine Jeweler

A few years ago, I heard on the news that former Beatle, George Harrison, had died.  For some reason, on this particular occasion, I was immediately struck by the thought that now he was no different than a cleaning woman.  His soul lay bare while his fame and fortune remained in this world.  The only things he could take with him were the same things we all take with us—the love and service to God and others.

On earth, true value is often clouded by the glitz of the world, but death, like a divine jeweler, appraises life’s true valuables.  I need the help of death to do this for me.  For instance, I could be dropped into any department store onto any aisle (save the tool section) and find things I want to buy.  Linens and towels?  Suddenly mine seem so faded and thin. Furniture? Everywhere I look is something I like.  One thing that helps to douse my materialistic inclinations it so remind myself that life is passing and nothing that I want to buy is of lasting value.

Someone much wiser than I once likened earthly life to a ship:  It is the vessel, not the destination. The only reason we fear death is because we try to make the ship into the destination.  That would be like driving across country in a car and then not wanting to get out once we arrived at our desired location.

Don’t think that I am above fearing death or that I’m looking forward to losing my loved ones.  I simply have come to terms with the fact that God has promised us eternal life and that it will be better than anything we experience on earth. There’s only one way to get there—through death. And we all have to go sometime.

A favorite prayer of mine which keeps me grounded in this reality is “A Workman’s Prayer to St. Joseph”.   Appealing to St. Joseph for a right disposition in our work, it asks for help: “…having always death before my eyes and the account which I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted…”

When the inspiration struck for this article, I envisioned that the topic would incite some to imagine me at my computer dressed in black with a humorless expression on my face. Some might wonder what sort of mother I must be to keep death on my thoughts.  But instead, it is life that we strive for in our home. The idea is just not to confine ourselves to life on earth but 

THE SINGLE LIFE by Ron Rolheiser

THE SINGLE LIFE

2013-10-27

The universe works in pairs. From the atoms to the human species, generativity is predicated on union with another. Happiness, it would seem, is also predicated on that.

So where does that leave singles and celibates? How can they be normal, generative, and happy?

For many people living single and celibate, life can seem unfair. Everything, it seems, is set up for couples, while they are single. And that isn't the only problem. A further problem is that, too often, neither our churches nor our society give singles and celibates the symbolic-tools to understand their state in a life-giving way.

Consequently, single persons often feel like they're looking in at life from the outside, that they're abnormal, that they're missing something essential within life. Moreover, unlike married persons and vowed religious, few single persons feel that they have positively chosen their state of life. They feel it rather as an unfortunate conscription. Few single persons feel easeful and accepting of their lot. Instead they regard it as something temporary, something still to be overcome. Rarely does a single person, especially a younger person, see himself or herself growing old and dying single - and happy. Invariably the feeling is: This has to change. I didn't choose this! I can't see myself like this for the rest of my life!

There are real dangers in feeling like this. First, there's the danger of never fully and joyfully picking up one's life and seeing it as worthwhile, of never positively accepting what one is, of never accepting the spirit that fits the life that one is actually living. As well, there's the danger of panicking and marrying simply because marriage is seen as a panacea with no real possibility of happiness outside of it.

Partially those fears are well-founded. Being single and celibate does bring with it a real loss. Denial is not a friend here. Pious wishing or platonic spiritualities that deny the power of sexuality don't placate our emotions or erase the fact that God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. The universe works in pairs and to be single is to be different, more different than we dare admit. Thomas Merton, reflecting on his own celibate state, once put it this way: "The refusal of woman is fault in my chastity. ... And all my compensations are a desperate and useless expedient to cover this irreparable loss which I have not fully accepted. ... I can learn to accept it in the spirit and in love and it will no longer be 'irreparable.' The cross repairs and transforms it. The tragic chastity which suddenly realizes itself to be mere loss, and the fear that death has won - that one is sterile, useless, hateful. I do not say this is my lot, but in my vow I can see this as an ever-present possibility." Celibacy and the single life bring with them real dangers for immaturity and unhappiness.

But, paradoxically, admitting this truth is the first step in beginning to live positively beyond those dangers. Sexuality is a dimension of our self-awareness. We awake to consciousness and feel ourselves, at every level, as cut off, sexed, lonely monads separated and aching for unity. Celibacy is indeed a fault in our humanity.

However, to be celibate and single doesn't necessarily mean that one is asexual or sterile. Today the impression is often given that no happiness exists outside of sexual union. That's superficial and untrue. Sexuality is the drive in us towards connection, community, family, friendship, affection, love, creativity, delight, and generativity. We are happy and whole when these things are in our lives, not on the basis of whether or not we sleep alone. The single celibate life offers its own opportunities for achieving these. God never closes one door without opening countless others. For instance, when our culture recognizes that it's easier to find a lover than a friend, it recognizes too that human sexuality and generativity are more than biological.

There are other ways of being healthily sexual, of getting pregnant and impregnating, of being mother or father, of sexual enjoying intimacy. Sexuality, love, generativity, family, enjoyment, and delight have multiple modalities.

Early on in my ministry, I once served as a spiritual director to a young man who was discerning between marriage and priesthood. His greatest hesitation in moving towards priesthood was one particular fear: "I've always been afraid of being a priest because celibacy will mean dying alone. My father died when I was 15, but he died in my mother's arms. I've always resisted celibacy because I want to die like my father died - in a woman's arms. But, meditating on Christ's life one day, it struck me that Jesus died alone, loved, but in nobody's arms. He was alone, but powerfully linked to everyone in a different way. It struck me that this too could be a good way to die!"

It can be, but only if first, as Merton says, the cross repairs and transforms us.

SAINT OR SINNER?

By Ron Rolheiser 

2013-10-13

What are we ultimately, saints or sinners? What's deepest inside us, goodness or selfishness? Or, are we dualists with two innate principles inside us, one good and one evil, in a perpetual dual with each other?

Certainly, at the level of experience, we feel a conflict. There's a saint inside us who wants to mirror the greatness of life, even as there is someone else inside us that wants to walk a seedier path. I like the honesty of Henri Nouwen when he describes this conflict in his own life: "I want to be great saint," he once confessed, "but I don't want to miss out on all the sensations that sinners experience." It's because of this bi-polar tension inside us that we find it so hard to make clear moral choices. We want the right things, but we also want many of the wrong things. Every choice is a renunciation and so the struggle between saint and sinner inside us often manifests itself precisely in our inability to make hard choices.

But we don't feel this tension only in our struggle to make clear moral decisions; we feel it daily in our spontaneous reaction to situations that affect us adversely. Simply put, we are forever bouncing back and forth between being petty and being big-hearted, spiteful and forgiving, whenever we are negatively impacted by others.

For instance, we all have had this kind of experience: We are at work and in a good emotional state, thinking peaceful and patient thoughts, nursing warm feelings, wishing harm to no one, when a co-worker comes in and, without good reason, slights or insults us in some way.  In one instant, our whole inner world reverses: A door slams shut and we begin to feel cold and spiteful, thinking anything but warm thoughts, seemingly becoming different persons: moving from being big-hearted to being spiteful, from being saints to entertaining murderous feelings.

Which is our true person? What are we really, saints with big hearts or petty, spiteful persons? Seemingly, we are both, saints and sinners, since goodness and selfishness both flow through us.

Interestingly, we don't always react in the same way. Sometimes in the face of a slight, insult, or even positive attack and injustice, we react with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Why? What changes the chemistry? Why do we sometimes meet pettiness with a big-heart and, other times, meet it in kind, with spite?

Ultimately, don't know the reason; that's part of the mystery of human freedom. Certain factors obviously play in; for example, if we are in a good inner-space when we are ignored, slighted, or unfairly treated, we are more prone to react with patience and understanding, with a big heart. Conversely, if we are tired, pressured, and feeling unloved and unappreciated, we are more likely to react negatively, and return spite for spite.

But, be that as it may, ultimately there's deeper reality at work in all of this, beyond our emotional well being on a given day. How we react to a situation, with grace or spite, for the most part depends upon something else. The Church Fathers had a concept and name for this. They believed that each of us has two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, and how we react to any situation depends largely upon which soul we are thinking with and acting out of at that moment. Thus, if I meet an insult or an injury with my big soul, I am more likely to meet it with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Conversely, if I meet an insult or a hurt while operating out of my petty soul, I am more likely to respond in kind, with pettiness, coldness, and spite.  And, for the Church Fathers, both of these souls are inside us and both are real; we're both big-hearted and petty, saint and sinner. The challenge is to operate more out of our big soul than our petty one.

But we must be careful to not understand this dualistically. In affirming that we have two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, the Church Fathers are not teaching a variation of an old dualism, namely, that there are inside us two innate principles, one good and one evil, perpetually fighting for control of our hearts and souls. That kind of struggle in fact does go on inside us, but not between two separate principles.

The saint and sinner inside us are not separate entities. Rather the saint in us, the big soul, is not only our true self, it's our only self. The sinner in us, the petty soul, is not a separate person or separate moral force doing perpetual battle with the saint, it's simply the wounded part of the saint, that part of the saint that's been cursed and never properly blessed.

And our wounded self shouldn't to be demonized and cursed again. Rather it needs to be befriended and blessed - and then it will cease being petty and spiteful in the face of adversity.

Clarity - A Catholic Outreach agency in Singapore

It is really good to know that Catholics in Singapore are doing more than just defending the faith or attending Mass on Sundays. This new initiative to administer to the emotional needs of Singaporeans regardless of their religious affiliation is one aspect of the New Evangelism Plan. It is indeed money well spend when it is used to benefit society's 'downtrodden'.

Link to Charity article at Asiaone.com

Embittered Moralizing - An Occupational Hazard for Good, Faithful Persons

2013-08-11
In a masterful book on grace, Piet Fransen suggests that we can test how well we understand grace by gauging our reaction to this story:

Imagine a man who during his whole life is entirely careless about God and morality. He's selfish, ignores the commandments, ignores all things religious, and is basically consumed with pursuing his own pleasure - wine, sex, and song. Then, just hours before his death, he repents of his irresponsibility, makes a sincere confession, receives the sacraments of the church, and dies inside that conversion.

What's our spontaneous reaction to that story? Isn't it wonderful that he received the grace of conversion before he died? Or, more likely: The lucky beggar! He got away with it! He got to have all that pleasure and still gets to go to heaven!

If we felt the latter emotion, even for a moment, we have never deeply understood the concept of grace. Rather, like the older brother of the prodigal son, we are still seeing life away from God's house as fuller than life inside God's house, are still doing the right things mostly out of bitter duty, and are secretly envying the amoral. But, if this is true, we must be gentle with ourselves. This is an occupational hazard for good, faithful persons.

Jesus, himself, expresses this in the parable of the vineyard workers. This parable was addressed to Peter in answer to a question. Peter, on behalf of the other disciples, had just asked Jesus what reward they were going to receive for their fidelity to him. Jesus answers by telling him the story of very rich and generous landowner who goes out one morning and hires workers to work in his vineyard. He hires some early in the morning, promises them a good wage, keeps hiring others as the day progresses, each new group having to work fewer hours than the group before them, and ends the day by hiring a group of workers just one hour before work is to end. Then he tells his foreman to pay everyone a full day's wage. But this leaves the workers who toiled the whole day somewhat bitter. "This isn't fair!" they protest. "We worked the whole day and bore the heat of the sun and this last group worked just one hour. It's unfair that we all receive the same wage!" The generous landowner, obviously representing God, is gentle in his response: "Friend, didn't you agree to this wage? And isn't a good wage? Are you envious and angry because I'm generous?"

Remember to whom those words are being addressed: Jesus is addressing Peter ... and, in effect, through this parable, is addressing all good people who are morally and religiously bearing the heat of the day. And Jesus is assuring us that we will be rewarded richly for doing this. But, as the parable makes clear, there's a catch: Simply put, we will be rewarded with heaven and it will be wonderful; but, and this is the catch, we can have everything and enjoy nothing because we are watching what everyone else is getting!

I sometimes try to highlight this point rather graphically when I give retreats to priests and religious. I have them consider this scenario: Imagine you live out your life in fidelity to the your vow of celibacy, metaphorically and otherwise bearing the heat of the day and, when you get to heaven, the first person you meet there is Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy. In shock you protest to God: "How did he get in here? It's not fair, given the life he lived and the life that I was asked to live!" And God, the over-generous landowner, gently replies: "Friend, didn't you agree to a life of celibacy, and isn't heaven a wonderful place? Are you envious and angry because I'm generous?" And, how different this reaction to that of a true saint who, upon meeting someone like this in heaven, would, like the father of the prodigal son, rush over in joy, embrace the person, and say: "I'm overwhelmed with joy that you made it!"

Thomas Halik, a Czech writer, suggests that one of the reasons why so many people in the world reject the churches is that they see us as "embittered moralizers", older brothers of the prodigal son, doing our religious and moral duties, but bitterly, and criticizing those who don't live like us out of hidden envy. Nietzsche made a similar accusation more than a hundred years ago.

Sadly, there's more than a little truth in that accusation. Too often, we are embittered moralizers, secretly envying the amoral and criticizing our world out of bitterness. But that's an occupational hazard for the good and the faithful. Peter and first apostles struggled with it. Why should we be immune?

We needn't be immune, but we do need to be honest in admitting that, despite our real goodness and fidelity, this indicates that we are still far from being full saints.

Source: RON ROLHEISER, OMI Speaker, Columnist and Author, http://www.ronrolheiser.com/ 

Struggling for our Father's Blessing

RON ROLHEISER, OMI Speaker, Columnist and Author
2013-06-16
When I was in elementary school, we were made to memorize a number of poems by William Blake. We didn't understand them, but they had a wonderful jingle to them, were easy to commit to memory, and remain branded inside me to this day.

One of those was a piece entitled, Infant Sorrow:

My mother groaned! my father wept.

Into this dangerous world I leapt:

Helpless, naked, piping loud:

Life a fiend hid in a cloud.



Struggling in my father's hands,

Striving against my swaddling bands,

Bound and weary I thought it best

To sulk upon my mother's breast.


Whole books on anthropology, psychology, and spirituality could be written on this poem: our struggle for our father's blessing, our ambivalence in separating from our mothers, the constriction this creates in our hearts, our inevitable slide into depression as adults, and the impact this has on our spiritual lives. Blake captures a lot in very few words, hidden inside some simple rhymes; but, as already confessed; I didn't have a clue about any of this when I memorized this poem as a child.

The poem came back to me several years ago, after preaching a homily in a church. The Gospel for that Sunday was the story of Jesus' baptism. The text runs like this: Jesus goes to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. John immerses him in the water, as Jesus re-emerges, his head breaks the water (an image of birth), the heavens open, and the Father's voice is heard to say: "This is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!"

The point I made in my homily was pretty straightforward: I simply told the congregation that, when we were baptized, the Father spoke the same words over each of us: "This is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!" Those should have been safe words; they weren't. Immediately after the service a young man affronted me, agitated and upset about my homily. He shared that he was out of prison on bail, awaiting sentencing. He had come to Mass that Sunday to try to ready himself to face what awaited him, but the service had the opposite effect. It had increased his anger and agitation, particularly so my homily. Here's how he expressed his frustration: "I hated your homily because it wasn't true! Nobody has ever been pleased by what I have done - least of all my own father!"

It's no accident that this young man was going to prison; he had not been blessed by his own father. Like the narrator in the Blake poem, he was "struggling" in his father's hands. His own father, unlike God, the Father, had never blessed him, that is, either his father had never been present enough to him and truly interested in him or he had been unable to take delight in his son's person and energy so as to give him the assurance that he was neither a threat nor a disappointment to his father. In essence, this son had never been a major source of joy to his father, and that is a real absence that wounds.

Hunger for our father's blessing is perhaps the deepest hunger in our world today. That's an adage inside certain spirituality and anthropological circles today and the evidence for its truth is found in the body language in a room whenever the phrase is spoken aloud to a group, especially to a group of men.

And what happens when we aren't sufficiently blessed by our own fathers? Mostly the effects are under the surface and not attributed to our fathers, unless we reach a certain level of conscious realization of how we are wounded. The absence of the father's blessing is mostly felt inchoately, a thirst, a constriction of the heart, an absence of delight, and a sense of never quite measuring-up. This often finds expression in anger, distrust of authority, and in a low-grade depression that often drives persons into various combinations of acedia, obsession for achievement, and sex as a panacea. It can also have a very negative impact on people religiously. There's an axiom in Freudian thought that suggests that most anger directed at institutionalized religion is anger directed at your own father or the father-figures in your life. That helps explain why so many people who have had little or no meaningful relationship to organized religion are angry at religion and the churches.

What's the solution? How do we get this constriction off our hearts, if we haven't been sufficiently blessed by our own fathers?

Christian spirituality teaches us that we receive by giving. We attain things by giving them away, as the famous Prayer of St. Francis puts it. We cannot make ourselves happy, but we can help make others happy. Thus, we cannot force anyone to bless us - but we can bless others. Wholeness and happiness lie there. Simply put, when we act like God, we get to feel like God ... and God never suffers from anger and low-grade depression.

The Advocate (The Holy Spirit) John 14:23-29

The Advocate (The Holy Spirit) John 14:23-29

The 3 promises from John 14:23-29

The 1^st Promise
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. This is a Gospel of beautiful promises.

The first promise is God’s love and in dwelling in those who love and obey Jesus.[u1] 

Jesus makes clear again that true love for Him is shown by deeds: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word.” Jesus’ word that we must keep is His command that we love one another as He has loved us. The reward is practically a taste of heaven on earth, because Jesus promises to one who loves Him and keeps His words that “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” [u2] The Father and the Son, and their Spirit will live in us if we obey the command of Jesus and live in mutual love! Indeed, there is nothing closer to heaven on earth than the experience of living in love together in obedience to Jesus’ command of love.[u3] 

The 2^nd Promise

Next, Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, whom the Father will send in Jesus’ name. The Advocate will teach the disciples everything that the Lord Jesus has told them. He will make them understand what Jesus has not been able to make them understand.[u4] 

The 3^rd Promise

The last promise is peace, a peace that is not simply the absence of trouble but the inner harmony that comes from having a right relationship with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who live in us. This peace we can have even in the face of suffering and death.[u5] 

Trust in the promises of Jesus and you will have peace!

Q1. Do you see Jesus as your boss or as a friend?

If you see Jesus as your boss which is an idea that many of us feel more comfortable with, we fail to understand that he wants us to relate to him as a friend. There is a limit to what a boss can demand from you. There is no such limit when it comes to friendship and intimacy.  

When Jesus speaks in today’s gospel of “those who love me” he is referring to his followers. For Jesus “those who love me” is another way of saying “my disciples” or “those who believe in me” or simply “Christians.” The relationship between the Christian and Christ is essentially a love relationship. That is why Jesus said in John 15:15 “I do not call you servants any longer … I call you friends.”

Q2. What do people who love each other what to do most?

One thing we know about love is that lovers want to be with each other.

Q3. How do we love Jesus who is not physically with us?

This is what today’s gospel is all about. In the gospel Jesus prepares his disciples, those who love him, for his departure from this world and shows them how they can keep love and intimacy alive even in his physical absence.

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23).

If you love Jesus, (1) Keep his word. Follow his teachings. (2) This will activate God’s special love for you, and (3) Jesus and his Father will come and live permanently with you. In this way the vacuum left by the physical absence of Jesus will be filled spiritually by the divine presence which is as real or even more real than the physical presence. Our part in this whole process is to focus on keeping the word of Christ.

But how do we be sure we know the implication and meaning of the word of Christ in the ever changing and ever more complex realities of modern life? How can we be sure what Jesus would do and how he would act in the present concrete situations of our daily lives? Again Jesus foresaw this difficulty and provided for it. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

If that is so, what do we make of the situation in the world today where a thousand Christians all “filled with the Holy Spirit” come up with a thousand different answers to the same question? Does the Holy Spirit contradict Himself? Here it is important to note that the “you” to whom these promises are made is plural, meaning, primarily, the community of believers, the church. Of course the Holy Spirit is with us individually, but the Holy Spirit is given primarily to the church and, through the church, to us as individuals when we become members of the church.

Q4. What does the you in The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26) refer to?

Here it is important to note that the “you” to whom these promises are made is plural, meaning, primarily, the community of believers, the church. Of course the Holy Spirit is with us individually, but the Holy Spirit is given primarily to the church and, through the church, to us as individuals when we become members of the church.

Q5. How does the Holy Spirit work in the Church?

This is what we see in the 1^st reading where disagreements among Christians are resolved through dialogue and community discernment and not through each one consulting the Holy Spirit privately. In the end they come out with a resolution which begins “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” (Acts 15:28). The word of Christ continues to live and resound in the word of the Holy Spirit speaking through the church. The days between the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost are special days of prayer for all Christians as they were for the first disciples of Jesus. This year let us pray especially for the gift of church unity, so that together we all can discern what the Spirit is saying to the church in the modern world and so bear united witness to the life-giving word of Christ.

---

 [u1]THE FIRST PROMISE

 [u2]A taste of heaven on Earth.

 [u3]What heaven on earth looks like.

 [u4]What we have not understood, the Holy Spirit will make clear to us in good time.

 [u5]A peace felt even in the face of suffering and death.