Posts Tagged ‘Commitment’
Falling in Love Changes Everything – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Br. Geoffrey Tristram
I will always remember Peter. He was a member of my parish when I was a parish priest. He was about 30 years old, and a really nice person. But he was restless. He never stayed in one job for very long and had a succession of short-term girlfriends. I would often joke to him about this, but I’d also challenge him sometimes and ask why won’t you commit yourself to something or someone in life. And he would always use a phrase which I can still hear. He would say, “Oh, I’m keeping my options open.”
By the age of 30 I had already closed down lots of options in my life. I had made lifelong ordination vows as a deacon and as a priest. And many of my friends had closed down options in their own lives by making lifelong marriage vows. It seemed to me that it was okay to keep your options open perhaps in your twenties, but that “keeping your options open” for too long risked leading a life lived on the surface, without roots or depth. Making lifelong vows to another person or to God was I believed a way of finding permanence, integrity, and authenticity in one’s life. Read More
Responding to God in a Life of Joy – Br. Jonathan Maury
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Br. Jonathan Maury
“O God, you caused your blessed evangelist Saint John so eminently to receive the love of your dear Son Jesus Christ: Grant to us your servants that that we may evermore abide in that love, and accomplish your holy will. Watch over the Society of Saint John the Evangelist for good. Give your elect angels charge concerning us, and make your Holy Spirit to rule our hearts, that our lives may be holy, our prayers acceptable, our wants supplied, our words directed, and our work prospered, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The prayer just offered comes from the earliest days of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. It is presently used to conclude the Chapter Office in which we hear and reflect on our Rule of Life, chapter by chapter, day by day. It is, I think, a fitting way to begin a sermon series in which our community’s elders meditate upon their developing response to the grace and gift of commitment through profession in life vows.
Listen for a moment to the introduction of Chapter 39 from our SSJE Rule of Life (1997):
“Jesus’ offering of his life on the cross was the supreme expression of his love for the Father, made in perfect freedom through the Spirit. . . . This free self-offering is expressed anew in our lives when, abiding in Christ, we find in him the power to surrender ourselves entirely to God, by taking the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience for life. When a brother vows to abide in our community until death, the whole brotherhood rejoices in the gift of freedom that enables him to make this commitment after years of testing.”
My path of commitment to life profession in religious vows began, I believe, with God’s call to existence and being, which I share with my Brothers, each of you present and all of God’s children. We were chosen by God in Christ before we were even capable of owning and choosing the gift of being for ourselves. The religious life vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience were preceded by God’s commitment to me in Holy Baptism. Through the outward and visible sign of burial in water and the inward and spiritual enlivening of God’s creative Spirit, we have all been sacramentally incorporated into the death and resurrection of Jesus by the loving purpose of the Father. Our commitment to God’s call and our desire to respond to that gift are themselves signs of God’s commitment to us as beloved children. My present commitment was born out of my parent’s response to God’s love in faith and trust by bringing me to the font of regeneration.
Commitment to religious vows in Christ, I am certain, arises from my need of God’s love at every moment to sustain me in being. The vows provide the framework for my own life through the common baptismal commitment we all share. The vows are the means by which God is shaping me in the unique image and likeness of his love which God has created me to be. Lived openly in the face of the Church and the world, both in my faithfulness and in my failings, the vows become the creative means by which God is revealing the image of Christ in me. “When He is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is,” as Saint John’s first letter promises (3:2).
In our Rule of Life we hear that “Father Benson has taught us that the call of God in the religious life is continuous, abiding and progressive. As profession brings to an end the period of probation, so it inaugurates a lifetime of developing response.” In light of this teaching, we elders of the community have been asked to testify to the wisdom of our experience and to our ongoing response to the grace and gift of vowed life.
My personal experience has been of ongoing, unconditional welcome and acceptance, just as I was when I joined the community and even as I am now. God’s commitment to me and to our everchanging community of men, I believe, has always been there drawing me to Jesus. Even I, one given to rebellion and self-assertion, one presuming to know already exactly how I was best suited to serve and love God, was welcomed and accepted into the particular fellowship necessary for my transformation. One wounded by addiction and romantic dreams, even this man, was challenged to accept being born again, “born from above,” to surrender my life to Christ in a community of mutual commitment composed of holy and fallible men. Joined to a company of those desiring to “see the kingdom of God,” years of formation in vows, are even now bringing me to submit to a “greater, higher power” than my helpless self. I continue to experience the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience challenging me to accept the molding and shaping of God’s fierce and unfailing love – despite my many resistances.
In this hope, my developing response has and continues to be a growing desire to live “a life hid with Christ in God,” as apostle Paul teaches, to be “separated from the world in order to be joined to the world” as a monastic. My at times flagging desire is to respond to God in a life of joy. My desire is for a life of faithful response in the following ways:
- in continued proclamation of the Good News through the ministry of initiation as a baptismal catechist;
- by solidarity with Christ in prayer and action as one on the side of people who are deprived and oppressed;
- in serving the needs of those who desire to learn how to pray and deepen their conversion to life;
- in becoming God’s fellow-worker, acting in love and intercessory prayer for the reconciliation of all things in Christ;
- in listening with and to those who seek intimacy with God in the ministry of spiritual companionship and guidance;
- in readiness to repent whenever I fall into sin through confession and prayer of reparation and amendment of life, fleeing the demons of selfishness, pride and arrogance;
- in offering and sharing worship in word and sacrament in the company of Christ’s friends drawn into our circle;
- in humbly accepting the God-given freedom by which doubt and questioning do not separate us from Christ or one another, but rather yield to faith and hope of things not seen;
- in dedication to cooperation with the Spirit and growth in the face of the challenges of aging and diminishment.
All of this only possible with God as my helper.
How shall I, how shall each of us baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, be made ready to respond today and every day to God’s call? We will surely come to know, as we need to know, though our commitment to one another and to God’s future forever losing ourselves in the wonder, love, and praise of Christ Jesus. Amen.
Risking All – Br. James Koester
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Profession of Jack Crowley SSJE in Life Vows
When you told me the other day Jack, that you wanted to use the same gospel reading for today’s profession, as you had for your initial profession three years ago, I thought, well that makes my life easy, I’ll just use the same sermon! After all I reasoned, some here today weren’t here in 2021, and so won’t have heard that sermon. Others will have forgotten it by now. For those few who do remember it, I could simply express shock at the very idea I would repeat myself. But as you know, life isn’t that simple. While I don’t disagree with anything I said back then, today is a different occasion. You and I are in different places. Different things resonate with me. And for the last year or so, as I have thought about this moment, and prayed for you, one word has been constantly present and that has changed how I am thinking about today. The word which resonates with me today is risk.
Having lived with us now for six years, you’ll be familiar with that word, both as we use it in the Rule, and live it day by day. It’s a word that appears in one form or another, 11 times in the Rule, most notably in the chapter on life profession. There we say, [the] life profession of a brother inspires us with awe as well as joy; we wonder at the risk of such an irrevocable choice … Only by depending on God for the grace of perseverance, fixing ourselves by faith in God’s unwavering commitment to us, can we risk taking vows which bind us forever.[1]
What you are doing today is a huge risk. You know it. We know it. Those who are here supporting you know it. And our Rule very clear, this life, and your free choice to cast in your lot with this community, for life, is a risky choice. It is perhaps the riskiest thing you have ever done, and I say this to you Jack, a man I know who is not afraid to take risks.
In that way, you are not unlike the disciples we heard about in this morning’s gospel, one that so obviously means an enormous amount to you.
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.[2]
We’re not here talking about a group of buddies piling into a motorboat, with a case of beer, and some fishing poles, out for a lark, more interested in the beer and having a good time, than in the fish. We’re talking about seasoned, weathered, fishermen, who knew the risks and challenges of earning a living, fishing the waters of the Sea of Galilee, a lake notorious for sudden storms. I am sure nothing was more terrifying and riskier for them than being caught out, at night, in a storm, on the Sea of Galilee. And the disciples would have known that. It had happened before.
As Matthew tells it, when [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’[3]
The combination of the weather, the design of the flat bottom, shallow draft boats used at the time, making them easy to drag up on shore, but unstable on the water, with the weight of over 100 feet of fishing nets dragging through the water, and the need for some men to be in the water maneuvering the nets, meant that fishing was a dangerous, risky occupation. Like any band of fishermen who make a living by fishing, the disciples would have known any number of their friends who had drowned, after being tangled in the nets, fallen overboard, or when their boats had capsized in a storm. Fishing was, and is, a risky occupation. You could, and many did, lose their life. And the disciples knew this.
Curiously Jack, that is exactly what Jesus is asking of you today.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.[4]
The disciples in the boat that night knew something about risking their lives. They probably also knew more than they wanted about losing their lives. No doubt they had lost friends in these very waters. They had certainly lost a friend not many days before on that hill outside Jerusalem. Now it seemed they had even lost the ability to make a living doing what they thought they knew how to do, fish, for that night, they caught nothing.[5] But those were the risks they took when they first became fishermen. That was the risk they took when they first answered the call of the stranger to follow.
As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.[6]
Responding to the call of God is a response to an invitation to risk all for Christ, who risked and gave all for us.[7]
To be a follower of Jesus is to live a life full of risk. Like him we must be willing to take the risk of speaking with those deemed unworthy, touching those considered untouchable, breaking bread with those who are despised by others, breaching the walls of respectability. As followers of Jesus, we must take the risk of encountering life where it is lived, and not where we are comfortable.
And that Jack, is what will happen as a life professed member of this community. You will take the risk of living life where it is lived, which will often be outside your comfort zone. Through the vow of poverty, you will discover the readiness of others to confide in us their own experiences of suffering, grief and loss. By opening ourselves to the pain and weakness in the lives of our brothers and sisters…they will find in our company a holy place of acceptance and understanding where they can wait for God to bring strength out of weakness and resurrection from death.[8] In the vow of celibacy you will learn to embrace[your] sexuality as a divine gift, and draw upon it as a source of energy and creativity, [and thus] bring hope and encouragement to many who meet [you].[9] By the vow of obedience you will lean to be resilient and prompt in responding to the Lord in the here and now.[10] Your example will be a sign [to] the Church of what it means to be a living branch of the true vine.[11]
In all this you will risk leaning to die, and in so dying, find life.
Week by week we are to accept every experience that requires us to let go as an opportunity for Christ to bring us through death into life. Hardships, renunciations, losses, bereavements, frustrations and risks are all ways in which death is at work in advance preparing us for the self-surrender of bodily death. Through them we practice the final letting go of dying, so that it will be less strange and terrifying to us.[12]
That night long ago Jack, those disciples risked their lives as they got into the boat. But by doing so they were able to see again the stranger on the shore, and knew this time, that it was the Lord.[13] Today Jack you are risking your life by getting into the boat of this community. My prayer for you is that in the days and months and years ahead, you too will see, not a stranger on the shore, but the Lord calling to you, Come, and have breakfast,[14] and in joining him there by that fire, sharing a simple meal of bread and wine find the abundant life he promises to all who follow him.[15]
[1] SSJE, Rule of Life, Life Profession, chapter 39, page 79
[2] John 21: 1 – 3
[3] Matthew 8: 23 – 25
[4] Matthew 16: 25
[5] John 21: 3
[6] Matthew 4: 18 – 22
[7] See Rule, The Spirit of Poverty, chapter 6, page 13
[8] Ibid, Engaging with Poverty, chapter 8, page 17
[9] Ibid, The Witness of Celibacy, chapter 11, page 22
[10] Ibid, The Spirit of Obedience, chapter 12, page 25
[11] Ibid, Obedience in Practice, chapter13, page 27
[12] Ibid, Holy Death, chapter 48, page 97
[13] John 21: 7
[14] John 21: 12
[15] John 10:10
And We Are Glad Indeed – Br. James Koester
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Initial Profession of Lain Wilson SSJE
Ruth 1: 16 – 18
Psalm 126
1 Peter 1: 3 – 9
John 20: 11- 18
I think it’s safe to say Lain, you are the only person I have ever heard describe themselves as a palimpsest. Now I must confess I have only ever used this word two or three times in my entire life, and the first time I did, was while reading aloud in the refectory. After the meal someone very kindly, but definitively, corrected my pronunciation. It’s not a word used very often in casual conversation. I’ve never heard it spoken at the dinner table, so when you spoke of yourself as a palimpsest at the end of our community retreat, my ears perked up, and I took note of what you were saying.
Now lest any of you are getting yourself into a flutter, worried that Lain has a bad case of pimples, or that he has an unspeakable medical condition, I’ll enlighten you. A palimpsest is a technical, scholarly term describing a piece of parchment or tablet that has been used on more than one occasion, the surface having been scraped bare between each use, in the same way we would use an eraser. The thing is, just as we can sometimes see what has been erased from a page, scholars are often able to determine what lies under the surface writing, and discover a whole new document, hidden in plain sight below the surface text.
From the academic and scholarly, we can shift to the human. What I heard Lain, was the expression of your own awareness of the multiplicity and diversity of the various layers and aspects of your person which makes you, you. You are Lain, because of all the different layers and aspects that make up your personality. Many of those aspects are complimentary. Some no doubt are contradictory. Several are obvious to the observer. Some only you will know. Others will be hidden, hidden to you, but observable to us; some hidden to us, but known by you, and some hidden to you, and to us alike.
Whether hidden or known, from you or to you, from us or to us, all these layers are part of the wonderful mix that makes you the person who stands before us today, offering your life to God through the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience as a professed member of this community. As the psalmist says, I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.[1] While this is true for all of us, it has particular relevance today for you Lain, because in making your profession of vows, you are acknowledging the wonderful gift that God has given you in your life, that is full of a multiplicity of layers and a diversity of aspects like, well, like a palimpsest.
I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise to you, it certainly won’t to those who love and know you what some of those layers are. For those who don’t know, before Lain came to the community he was a Byzantinist, whose specialty was lead seals of Byzantine military officials from the Seventh through the Twelfth Centuries. There is one layer: scholar. Some will know that Lain was an avid rower, relaxes by running marathons, cycling long distances, and is in the process of walking the Appalachian Trail. There is another layer: athlete. Those who have listened to Lain over the last few years, will know that he is a gifted preacher, so we add another layer to our palimpsest: communicator. To these I can add loyal friend, devoted son, brother and caring companion.
Now Lain’s head is going to be swollen enough by the end of the day, after all this attention, so I’ll stop here. But you get the point. Lain, in fact all of us, are wonderfully and marvelously made mysteries of which we only know a part, until the day we fully know ourselves as we are fully known.[2] All of us are made up of a diversity of layers and aspects. All of us are parchments, which over time new texts are added, as old ones scraped away.
This scraping, those sometimes painful, is necessary, making space, making room, making the possibility of something new to be written on the parchment of our lives. We see that today as the One who says ‘See, I am making all things new,’ [3] is at work adding new layers to the already rich variety of layers and diversity of aspects that make up Lain.
So, what is the text that God is writing on your life today?
You have already told us.
The story of God being written on your life with this profession is a story of joy. It is a story of hope. It is a story of trust. It is a story of abiding. With fresh ink, overlaying what is already there, God is writing something new.
The parchment of your life Lain is a text filled with joy. Yes, it is a joy for us as a community who rejoice when a new brother is ready to make the vows of poverty celibacy and obedience.[4] More importantly, it is a story of joy for God who has shouldered like a sheaf of grain and carried home into God’s Sacred heart, to abide there in thankfulness and joy. There in God’s holy heart, your mouth is filled with laughter and … tongue with shouts of joy.[5] Psalm 126 is bursting with joy and gladness as God’s people are restored, not simply to their homes, but to their land of promise, fulfillment, and hope. You have found in this community Lain, your land of promise in the heart of God and you are glad indeed.[6] So Lain on the parchment of your life, allow God with new and fresh ink to write joy over all that has been before.
As the parchment of your life Lain is a story of joy, it is also a story of hope. The word hope has become much debased in our culture of wishful thinking. We hope for all manner of things: a sunny day; to win the lottery; to recover from an illness. Hope has become kind thoughts and wishful thinking, much like the thoughts and prayers of so many politicians. But there is nothing kind or wishful about Christian hope. For the followers of Jesus, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.[7] By your profession of the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience Lain, you are staking your life on things that you cannot see but know with certainty to be true. With Peter, by this act of self-offering, you are boldly proclaiming, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given [me] a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [me], who [is] being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.[8] What you are doing today Lain is not wishful thinking for a happy future, but a bold proclamation about something you cannot see, or perhaps even express in words, but know to be true. Today you are staking your life in the hope that through your faith in Jesus, you are even now receiving the salvation of your soul.[9] For some Lain, that is wishful thinking. For you, it is the gift of hope being written upon the parchment of your life.
As you make these vows today, and allow God to write a new story upon the parchment of your life, you do so for only three years in order to give time for the community and [you] to make certain that God is calling [you] to the life of our Society. You do so with the aim towards a life commitment.[10] This aim towards a life commitment is a sign of your desire to abide, not simply in this place, among these men, but in the place God has called, and we believe, is calling you to abide.
By abiding, and not simply living in this place, and among these men, you follow the example of Ruth, who, not simply out of devotion and loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi, declared these famous words: ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’[11] Like Ruth, Lain, in your promise to abide you are declaring you hope and trust, not in this community, but in God who has called you here. Ruth’s declaration of hope and trust resounds through the ages, and echoes off these walls as you say, before the whole company of heaven…I…give myself to Almighty God. What a declaration of trust, what a sign of hope, what a conviction in things unseen. On the parchment of your life, God is adding a new text, full not only of joy and hope, but of confident trust that in this place of abiding you will hear the Risen Lord speaking your name. And that of course is what this all points toward.
To abide in a life where God is adding new layers of joy and hope and trust, to the multiplicity and diversity of layers that already exist on the parchment of your life, is a thing full of wonder and awe. It is in that place Lain, the place of wonder and awe, that you will see the Lord Jesus in all his risen glory. That is what God is promising you today, a vision of Christ’s risen glory so that as you abide in this place, filled with the gifts of joy, hope and trust, you will be able to say, I have seen the Lord![12]
Making a commitment, any commitment, but especially this commitment, is a thing full of wonder, especially now. That you are doing so, fills us with awe. That you are desiring to abide here, in the heart of God, brimming with joy, filled with hope, and trusting in the goodness and mercy of the Risen Lord, is truly a sign that God is doing great things for us, and we are glad indeed.[13]
1] Psalm 139: 13
[2] See 1 Corinthians 13: 12
[3] Revelation 21: 4
[4] Op cit., Initial Profession, chapter 38, page 76
[5] Psalm 126: 2
[6] Ibid., v4b
[7] Hebrews 11:1
[8] 1 Peter 1: 3 – 5
[9] I Peter 1: 9
[10] SSJE, Rule, Initial Profession, page 76
[11] Ruth 1: 16 – 17
[12] John 20: 18
[13] Psalm 126: 4b
Fallible Giants: Peter and Paul – Br. David Vryhof
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Br. David Vryhof
Ezekiel 34:11-16
II Timothy 4:1-9
John 21:15-19
We stand today in the presence of two of the giants of our faith: the Apostles Peter and Paul. No one has had a more profound influence on the Christian faith and on the Church than these two men. Both of them have their own feast – Peter on January 18 for his confession of Jesus as the Messiah and Paul on January 25 for his conversion – but they are commemorated together on this day, June 29, because of the Church’s tradition that they both died as martyrs in Rome during the persecution under Nero in the year 64. Today we observe them as martyrs for the faith.
They are very different figures: Peter was a simple man, not highly educated and possibly illiterate, a fisherman from Galilee. Paul was an extremely well-educated, cosmopolitan Jew who was also a Roman citizen. He was from a notable family line and had received an excellent education. The two men didn’t always agree. Peter was the chief ambassador to Jewish believers, while Paul focused his efforts on winning Gentiles to the faith. Peter was centered in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, while Paul’s missions extended throughout Asia Minor and even to Rome. One of their most heated conflicts was around the question of whether Gentile believers ought to comply with Jewish law. Yet, their commitment to Christ and to the proclamation of the Gospel enabled them to overcome their differences. Both were zealous to the end. The tradition holds that Peter was crucified, upside-down, and that Paul, because he was a Roman citizen, was beheaded rather than crucified. Read More
Everything You Do Matters – Br. Lain Wilson
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Feast of Saint James of Jerusalem
When was the last time you wore a uniform?
I remember all the uniforms I’ve worn over the years, whether for sports or school or choir. They each signaled commitment, belonging, and interest, and equipped me for performance. I also remember something my parents told me: that when I wore a uniform, I wasn’t only representing myself—I was representing the group I belonged to. I took on the reputation of the group when I put on the uniform—and, just as importantly, my behavior contributed back to that reputation. Whose you are matters, and everything you do while wearing the uniform also matters.
I have these two themes, belonging and action, on my mind today, the feast of Saint James of Jerusalem. The early Church recognized him, as we do, as a brother of Jesus, as attested in our Gospel lesson. But he wasn’t just a relative. Other biblical texts, including our readings from Acts and 1 Corinthians, show that James was one of the leaders of the Christian community in Jerusalem. Nonbiblical sources, meanwhile, signal that James was not only one of but the leader of the Jerusalem Church, a figure of towering importance for a community that faced fundamental questions of identity and mission. In particular, James was the leader of the group that argued for continued observance of at least some Jewish laws by followers of Jesus, in contrast to leaders like Paul who advocated for the development of a Christian community free of requirements of the law. Read More
Promises, Promises – Br. David Vryhof
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Br. David Vryhof
I’m impressed this morning by the whole-hearted response of the Israelites to the Law that God gave them through Moses:
“Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice: ‘All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.’“ (v. 3)
And just a few verses later:
“Then [Moses] took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.'” (v.7)
Total buy-in! A whole-hearted offering of themselves to God. An enthusiastic embrace of the Law and all its demands. A willingness to seek and to do God’s will above all else. It’s very impressive. Read More
The Emergence of Courage – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
Saints Agnes and Cecilia of Rome, Martyrs
In the calendar of the church we remember today two early Christian martyrs: Saint Cecilia and Saint Agnes. Saint Cecilia, as a young woman, was married. She converted to Christianity members of her own household; however in the face of the demand from the Roman government to offer sacrifice to pagan idols, a demand she refused, Cecilia was martyred year 280. Saint Agnes, a 12-year old child, was brought to a civil magistrate, before whom she refused to renounce her Christian faith, and she, too, was martyred, this in year 304. Saint Ambrose of Milan wrote about Agnes that “all were astounded that she should come forward as a witness to God when she was still too young to be her own mistress.” The various accounts of Cecilia and Agnes’ martyrdom are appalling, which show something of the impact of the life and death these two young women made upon their contemporaries and succeeding generations.
The word “courage” comes to mind in remembering martyrs such as Cecilia and Agnes. Our word courage comes from the Latin word for heart, cor, then the Old French, corage. Courage emanates from the heart, the heart symbolizing the essence of a person. We hear Jesus say, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”[i] But courage is not something to work on. Becoming courageous is not a spiritual calisthenic. Courage comes as a byproduct, a characteristic or an action which is quite invisible to the person themselves. I have never once heard someone described as having done something courageous who sees this about themselves. Courage is in the eye of the beholder, not in the awareness of the actor. Read More
The One Thing Necessary – Br. Keith Nelson
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In the world of spiritual care, there is an oft-quoted adage. It seems especially common in the world of hospital chaplaincy:
“Don’t just do something. Stand there.”
I first heard it from the novelist John Green, whose experience as a hospital chaplain shaped his authorial approach to empathy. During my own months as a chaplain intern last Fall, this deceptively simple reminder kept me centered in the demands of my role. While I in fact did, and said, and asked many things, it was ultimately just standing or sitting there in loving availability that God would use to open a healing space in a patient’s experience.
Allowing ourselves to be loved by God, as Jesus did, also requires some degree of just sitting there, as Mary of Bethany did in Jesus’ presence. But consenting to this transformation at the core of our being is anything but passive: it is our single greatest challenge. To the world, that process looks like nothing. But to Jesus, it is the one thing necessary.
In Luke, we encounter two women who respond in love to the presence of Jesus in their home. The fact that they are women is crucial to Luke’s exploration of genuine presence. Read More
Called to Commitment – Br. Keith Nelson
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Isaiah 26:1-6; Psalm 118:19-24; Matthew 7:31-27
In Hebrew scripture, the authors of the Jewish Wisdom books frequently contrast two Ways – the way of good and the way of evil, or the way of meaning and the way of vanity. A consistent theme ascribed to the way of holiness, integrity, and truth is its weight. This way has substance – it is heavy, solid, and stable. Those who follow this way have roots, as in Psalm 1: “They are like trees, planted by streams of water, with leaves that do not wither.” By contrast, the way of evil or vanity is light, ephemeral and insubstantial. Those who follow it become like chaff which the wind blows away, like dew or clouds that evaporate, like grass which withers in the sun, or like the web of a spider brushed casually aside.
Jesus’ parable of the two house-builders, which concludes the sermon on the mount in Matthew, participates in this tradition of the Two Ways with its stark opposites: the wise man and the foolish man, the immovable house built on rock and the flimsy house built on shifting sand. This is is a sobering reminder that authentic discipleship demands the concentrated weight of commitment expressed in actions. Accepting wise and prudent commitments is a practice that gives our life with God substance. Read More