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A symbol of pilgrimage, the scallop shell reminds us that wherever our journeys begin, we arrive at the same place: the embrace of the Holy One.
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May 17, 2012
Tags:
Ascension, Karl Rahner, Ronald Rolheiser, letting go, Spirit
On this feast of the Ascension, I offer the reflections of two Catholic's on the subject, one a theologian and the other a specialist in the fields of spirituality and systematic theology. The first is Karl Rahner, a German Jesuit whose contributions including those at Vatican II have made him one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. In the book The Great Church Year: The Best of Karl Rahner's Homilies, Sermons, and Meditations, he writes of the gift of the Spirit which is the gift of the Ascension. Though through his leaving Jesus seems to be removed from us, he is really closer to us than he could have been in the flesh: He dwells within us in the Spirit.
"We notice nothing of this, and that is why the ascension seems to be a separation. But it is a separation only for our paltry consciousness. We must will to believe in such a nearness--in the Holy Spirit.
The ascension is the universal event of salvation history that must recur in each individual, in our personal salvation history through grace. When we become poor, then we become rich. When the lights of the world grow dark, then we are bathed in light...When we think we feel only a waste and emptiness of the heart, when all the joy of celebrating appears to be only official fuss, because the real truth around us cannot yet be admitted, then we are in truth better prepared for the real feast of the Ascension than we might suppose."
Hmm...How does that work, in my life? In yours? (more…)
May 16, 2012
Tags:
Spirit, creation, indwelling, openness, quiet prayer
PHOTO: Mary van Balen
But now ask the beasts to teach you,/ the birds of the air to tell you;/Or speak to the earth to instruct you,/ and the fish of the sea to inform you./Which of these does not know/that the hand of God has done this? Job 12. 7-9 from Morning Prayer
 Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: "You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines I even discovered an altar inscribed "To an Unknown God." What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in the sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is God served by human hands because God needs anything. Rather it is God who gives everyone life and breath and everything...though indeed God is not far from any of us. For 'In him we live and move and have our being.' Acts 17.22-25, 27b-28
Jesus said to his disciples: "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth." Jn 16. 12-13a
The Athenians knew that something, some divinity existed that they could not know. As the author of Job states, even the earth and what fills it proclaims a God who gives life to all things.
Paul told the Athenians he knew who they were worshiping when they prayed at the shrine to the unknown God: It is the God revealed by Jesus, it is Jesus Christ who died and rose again. Some Athenians were put off by the thought of life after death, but others desired to hear more.
Paul had a message to proclaim. Jesus revealed the face of God to humankind. But, a difference exists between knowing God and understanding God. Sometimes we are tempted to think that we know more than we do about the Holy One. (more…)
May 14, 2012
Tags:
Violence Against Women Act, empower, feminine face of God, gender, justice, mothers, women's issues
PHOTO: Mary van Balen
The homily at Mass yesterday included a reference to the pelican and the stained glass window depicting a pelican feeding her young. I first encountered this image in an old university building housing the school of theology. Intrigued by the old ceramic tile with the image of a pelican and her young, I made a rubbing of it in my journal and later asked about it.
According to legend predating Christianity, when food was scarce and starvation threatened, the mother pelican would peck at her breast and feed her chicks on her blood, saving them though perhaps dying herself. Christians used the symbol to represent Jesus Christ, who sacrificed his life for all of us.
Often the case with legends, its origin is unknown, though it may have come from the pelican's habit of pressing its bill to its breast to more completely empty its food pouch. No matter. The image is powerful and an appropriate one to use on Mother's Day, focusing as it does on the feminine face of God. This day provided me with much to ponder from divine motherhood, the joy of my daughters, and national and international issues that face women and girls around the globe.
Blessed with three daughters who each helped me celebrate the day in their unique ways, I am often reminded that God is our Mother as well as our Father.
After a wonderful, long conversation with my middle daughter, I woke on Mother's Day to find an e-card from her in my inbox, an unusual event. She had honored me with a donation in my name to the Girl Effect, an organization that addresses issues that prevent young girls from developing in a healthy way into young women who can contribute their gifts to the world. I encourage you to look at the website and view their short video. (more…)
May 10, 2012
Tags:
Psalms, prayer, St. Athanasius, Saint John's Bible, Father Maurice Flood
(Originally published in the Catholic Times, May 13, 2012 © 2012 Mary van Balen)
“How do you manage Liturgy of the Hours?” I asked a friend who is an oblate of a Benedictine abbey.
“I don’t get to it everyday. I do it when I can. Often, I just read through the Psalter.”
That conversation came to mind when I was discouraged by my inability to fit more of the Hours into my daily life. So, I pulled a Psalter from shelves in my study. A gift from a Trappist friend, the old book had been rebound in the monastery with a plain burnt sienna fabric and blue end papers. Father Maurice’s name is written across the top with pencil in his beautiful calligraphic scrip along with a small cross and the year: 1965.
The Grail translation, new at the time, like the translation of psalms found in the Jerusalem Bible, is made from the Hebrew. As I held the book and read from the yellowed pages, I imagined Fr. Maurice sitting in the chapel at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, chanting these ancient hymns day after day, year after year. I thought, too of my friends at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, and the time I spent with them praying the psalms throughout the day.
Sometimes, reading the more violent ones, I have wondered why they remain in liturgical collections. I have heard others voice that concern and remember a story shared by a monk at St. John’s. At one time, they were considering the collection of psalms used in their prayer. Someone suggested removing the more violent ones. Why pray war songs, songs that include dashing children against the rocks or slaughtering one’s enemies?
A monk of great stature in the community objected. Violence is part of Old Testament history. Indeed they are part of our history. “Remove those,” he said, “ and the Psalter just collapses.”
Our world today is not so different from the ancient Hebrew one. Using drones to kill our enemies makes their deaths and those civilians who lose their lives, euphemistically called “collateral damage,” invisible but no less gruesome. (more…)
May 7, 2012
Tags:
supermoon, being with, convivium, women
Supermoon, May 5, 2012
I wish I had a photo of the campfire, of someone holding up jumbo marshmallows flaming on the end of a stick looking like a torch, or another women eating the gooey treats like a drumstick. Or a photo of a woman sitting by the pond casting and catching fish into the night. Or of the supermoon edging the dark rain clouds with silver and then emerging glorious and bright.
On Saturday I attended the first quarterly potluck at the new Bittersweet Discoveries B&B, a new venture by a friend who, after years of thinking and praying about what to do with her lovely property, decided to jump in and see what happens.
I drove down after a long day at work but was in plenty of time to enjoy food and conversation. I reconnected with an old friend and made some new ones. On each table my friend had papers and pencils. The papers told a bit about her hopes for the B&B and a list of possible retreat or workshop topics that would be of interest to those attending. The offerings ranged from drawing, journaling, centering prayer, nature studies to how to catch and fillet fish. (I think I know who would teach that one after watching her enjoy angling for much of the evening. )
Whatever choices are made and gatherings offered, the central goal of Bittersweet Discoveries is to offer a safe place of nurture and healing for woman, wounded by relationships, family, or just difficult encounters with life. A good idea. A needed ministry. (more…)
May 2, 2012
Tags:
Leadership Council of Women Religious, John Henry Newman, sensus fidelium, Vatican
When I first heard of the Vatican’s recent “crackdown” on the Leadership Council of Women Religious I was angry but not particularly surprised. Brought to us by the same men who brought us the sexual abuse scandal and who still are unable to accept their culpability in it or deal with it responsibly, this document takes the women religious to task for daring to publicly disagree with some Catholic Church teachings and encouraging dialogue. The sisters spend too much time working with the marginalized and being involved in work for social justice. They spend too little time speaking out against abortion, same sex marriage, and other issues of human sexuality.
As if that were not enough, according to the Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, some of the sisters have the audacity to suggest that their dissent from some RCC teaching is prophetic. Impossible, the document says. True prophecy “…is a grace which accompanies the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and ministries within the Church, regulated and verified by the Church’s faith and teaching office.”
Might that have been a surprise to prophets of old? To Jesus himself? It seems to me that many utterances of biblical prophets were not in accord with the thought of existing religious officials. (more…)
April 12, 2012
Tags:
creation, praise, Psalm 148, Jack-in-the-Pulpit
PHOTO: Mary van Balen
One day last week and friend and I were walking through a small woods near my home.
"Maybe we'll see a Jack-in-the- Pulpit," he said.
I had seen them only once before. They are an early spring flower, and one needs to be out at the right time to spot them. As we walked we saw plenty of Mayapples, spreading their leaves and covering large patches of ground, like a crowd of umbrellas on a rainy day. We saw cut-leaved toothwort and whorls of spotted leaves that, while beautiful themselves, probably will sprout a flower in weeks to come. Then we saw it: the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Pushing up out of brown leaf cover, the mostly green plant stood straight, the leaf-hood, or spathe, curled protectively over the spadix, a slender spike that hides tiny flowers at its base. I remembered a small church in England I had attended while living with a friend outside London. The pulpit was attached to one of the columns, and had a baffle around and above the preacher, directing the sound of his voice out to the congregation. The sermon was bad enough to send me out early in search of some quiet place to pray which I found on the banks of the Thames.
The Jack-in-the-Pulpit was preaching much more effectively, crying out, as does Psalm 148, for all creation to praise the Creator. (more…)
April 10, 2012
Tags:
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Presence, community, evolution, science, faith
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin May 1, 1881-April 10, 1955
 This morning, the beginning of a day off work, I walked into my office, lit two candles while singing the old hymn, "Come Holy Ghost," and sat facing the small collection of sacramentals surrounding the Bible. Having long neglected the practice of Lectio Divina and quiet prayer, I came again to, if nothing else, rest in the presence of God. The plaque above the bookcase reminded me that on the days I do not do this God is no less present to me. (Called or not called, God is present.)
I take comfort in that, not only for myself, but for all humanity, for all creation. Holy Presence animates all and in some way draws all to Unity. I believe that, though I confess ignorance of its workings.
Praying morning prayer, I discovered that today is the fifty-seventh anniversary of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's death in New York city, 1955. An priest and theologian, he was also a renowned scientist in the fields of paleontology and geology. In the late sixties, I began to read his collection of essay's and prayers, "Hymn of the Universe." Joining his faith and science, Teilhard wrote about evolution in its latter stages as a conscious choice, a choice of community and love, a choice that will lead all creation to union with the Love. (more…)
April 5, 2012
Tags:
Triduum, servant, suffering, unconditional love
PHOTO: Mary van Balen
(Originally published in the Catholic Times, April 5, 2012 © 2012 Mary van Balen)
“Are you going to make some this year?” my sister asked as she looked at hot cross buns sitting off to the right in the restaurant’s generous display of pastries and muffins. She was referring to my annual baking of dozens of the Easter treats and giving them away to family, friends, and neighbors. I didn’t bake any last year. We were beginning to clean out our parents’ home, readying it for sale. I didn’t have the heart.
“I hope so,” I replied, not able to make the commitment. Dad died in September. A contract on the house is pending and I am keeping my first Lent in a new flat. I do hope so. Baking and sharing hot cross buns is as good for my spirit as I hope receiving them is for others. Besides, the world is hungry for more than bread, and the small raisin-filled rolls sealed with a white icing cross dripping over their shiny domes carry more than sweetness and calories. They are packed with promise and the baker’s humble efforts to participate in the Easter Mystery. To be bread.
In her book, “Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis,” Lauren Winner tells of a similar experience. After coming home from church on Sunday afternoons, she baked muffins and loaves of bread, and wanting to feed others as she had been fed at Mass, she left them on doorsteps around town.
It is a priest’s heart. It is God’s heart. It is the heart of Jesus living in each one of us that sees hunger and wants to feed it. That sees need and wants to meet it. That sees suffering and wants to stop it. (more…)
April 4, 2012
Tags:
repentance, sexual abuse, justice
"Sorrow" by Auguste Rodin 1881-1882
Reading reports of the trial of Monsignor Lynn, the first Roman Catholic church official to be tried in the US in the sexual abuse scandal, I remembered a column I wrote two years ago that dealt with the issue of hierarchy culpability and the need for accountability and repentance. During that Holy Week news of widespread abuse in Europe and Ireland was making headlines. The column was never printed. I knew it would not be, yet I had to write it; I had to put into words the betrayal and frustration I, along with many other Catholics, felt.
Two years later, the news again is of complicity and cover up, but this time, an official of the Church is on trial. I say it is about time. The monsignor's defense claims that he passed the information on to the now deceased Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese. No matter. The cardinal is now beyond the reach of civil law, and the defense is the same "passing the buck" that we have heard for over a decade. (more…)
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UniversalisProvides readings for Liturgy of the Hours and Mass of the day. Includes information on feast days.
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The Martin de Porres Center A wonderful venue for retreats, art exhibits, small groups, programs. Link to scheduled events
Celebrate!Pastoral magazine for those involved in liturgy planning and celebration
The Soft EarthWebsite of Joan Lederman and her pottery studio in Woods Hole, MA. Joan uses sediment from the ocean floor (from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) as glazes to finish her beautiful variety of unique pieces.
The Private Eye Educational site; hands-on investigation using jeweler's loupe and questions
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