I really like the moon. Ask some of my friends, and they'll tell you my penchant for pointing out lunar phases. A good waxing gibbous gets me jacked, man.
Brett Dennen has a cool song, a love song of course, called "Just Like the Moon." Instead of telling a girl that she's like the sun, he says, "You light up the night, just like the moon." It isn't to say that she's not awesome enough to be the sun; it's a fun, subtler way to say that someone is a source of light.
The moon has so many cool things going on. It's orbit is locked-in so that it spins in just such a way that we see the same 180ยบ of it all the time - hence the alluring and mysterious dark side (a misnomer because sometimes - specifically during new moon - the side we see is completely dark) of the moon that is unobservable from earth. The elliptical shape of its orbit causes it to mess with the earth's shape and cause the tidal effects of our waters. It orbits around the earth every 28ish days, and sometimes, a new moon will line up just right to eclipse the sun and give us the awesome spectacle of a solar eclipse.
The awe of the solar eclipse comes from the "new moon," which happens at the beginning of the lunar cycle. Since the moon is between the earth and the sun, only the side that we never see it lit up; we can only "see" the dark side. It doesn't really appear to us, especially since the new moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. But we know it's there. It's still effecting the tides. Even completely shrouded in darkness, it's still the same side of the moon we see at first quarter, full moon, and third quarter.
No matter if it's a little sliver of a waxing crescent or the just-less-than-full waning gibbous, the moon still gives us its bit of light, its tidal effect, and the awe of its place in the sky. And the completely dark moon that we can't really make out in the sky is called "new" - it's about to return to light; the visible section of the moon will grow from tiny sliver on its right corner to fully lit up. The light will return, never to go away forever.
Somehow, there's a metaphor for the presence of God in here. God is always with us; He comes to us in the Eucharist and is with us there and to the end of time through the Holy Spirit. However, not every glimpse we get of God's presence is the same.
It can be the full moon of the Eucharist, like the communion at mass or Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It can be the little crescent of a brief prayer during your day. It can the first quarter of seeing someone do a random act of kindness from afar. It's not to say that every moment you become aware of God or His love can be related to a phase of the moon, and different moments may strike you differently each time.
An even cooler way to prolong this comparison is the idea of the moon in the sky. Even if the northern and southern hemispheres see different constellations and directions in the sky, the moon appears the same to everyone in the world. If the moon is full, I'll see it in Ireland from my sunset to my sunrise just as you in the US will later today. So, too, with Christ: he comes to us in the Eucharist to give the Body of Christ to the Body of Christ, no matter when or where. Christ transcends time and space, so we who make up His Body are connected in communion with all others celebrating this awesome mystery today, yesterday or 100 years ago, and tomorrow or 100 years from now. I see the same Christ in the Eucharist, in others, in Adoration, that you see in your lives of faith.
So when I'm far away, I can look at the moon and know that my loved ones all over the world see the same moon in the sky. And when I look to Christ in the mass and throughout my life, I see the same Christ you see; I am in the same Christ as you.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Oh, going to mass...
Sometimes (a lot of times?), the issue of going to mass seems to be the greatest one facing our Church and its believers, and lapsed believers.
Personally, I love mass, and I've never really had any time in my life when I've thought about suspending my attendance. I even made a habit of going to a daily mass once or so each week while I was in college, and here as part of community life, I go to daily mass almost every morning.
The question at this point for me is "what are you doing at mass?" I've been dealing with some feelings of getting "massed out" by the how often we go to mass. It's hit in little spats, but for the most part, I'm not plagued by it. Some weekends, the three masses in an 18-hour span can be a bit much, and that's the only major time I start to feel troubled.
We are here to bring an outside perspective of joy and commitment in our ministry, and we have to, sometimes tenuously, toe the line between accepting ingrained norms, whether "right" or "wrong," and challenging or reshaping them. Sometimes my place at the mass in the context of how I am trying live my faith and ministerial call here in this community gets skewed by questionable motivations.
We have a laptop that's connected to a projector, which enables us to project the lyrics to the music for mass, and we have added the new responses for mass to the slideshows, too. For one mass each weekend, I sit in a pew with no one else, just a computer, and run the slideshow of responses for a music-less mass. In addition, we take turns running the slideshow during masses with our choirs.
The issue isn't so much running the slideshow while trying to be present to the mass and/or the music we are leading - that comes with the territory of our job, and it's something we try to do with the most grace and focus that we can. The issue is moreso that I sometimes feel like an auditor, judging the confidence and unity of the congregation's response as I sit there administering the most helpful tool there really is toward learning the responses. We have this blessing of the laptop-projector system, but it doesn't create 100% unity. Some people can't snap out of the old words while others just space or blank on the changes. The repetition of doing this job has jaded my perspective, and I have trouble leaning toward giving the benefit of the doubt after months on end.
Part of is having to come to an extra mass just to press the spacebar 30 times in a half hour and struggling with finding it useful and necessary. It's affecting my desire to consider the beautiful cornucopia of motivations, inspirations, prayers, and pieties that people bring to mass and compile into the Body of Christ. I enjoy looking around to discover a wide array of humanity in the congregation, but the struggles with the new words, the task of running a slideshow, and the habitual indifference, laziness, or short attention span of people (sometimes I forget how I am thoroughly included in these categories) toward the words of the mass and our music (which is meant to be participated in by everyone!) skew my perspective of mass.
Then, I come to daily mass, where I am immersed in a sea of crusty, grey-haired piety. I am surrounded by people who could (and maybe do?) pray rosaries in their sleep and concelebrate the mass under their breaths, a gesture toward a lost piety of praying with the priest and for the prayers he speaks to be effective in inviting Jesus into our midst.
The mass can blow by too quickly sometimes - for example, the priest amalgamates the Gospel, homily, and Prayers of the Faithful into a tight unit that spills over into the preparation of altar. However, here I can look around and be less distracted, less jaded. Aside from lectoring once a week or so, my community and I are free of responsibilities for daily mass; we just go and be.
This morning, I found myself not only looking around but also look in and through the Eucharist. As ideas for continuing my career of ministry next year swirl - two exploratory/pre-interview conversations with retreat centers, a cover letter and resume sent on to a Catholic high school, an application to a service corps started by my favorite order, and an application for full tuition for an MAPS and a stipend-supported ministry placement - I was feeling around for a sense of those opportunities and their potential in the Eucharist. I spent most of the Eucharistic Prayer with my eyes closed and head bowed, reflecting upon the nature of these opportunities in light of the Church that they all share with me and the Eucharist before me right then and there.
I was finding bits of peace and light in the embarrassment of riches that are potentially in front of me in my formation, career, and life. I enjoyed how easily I could find that all in my heart, in my prayer. However, I have been trying to keep my foot on the brakes to keep myself firmly grounded in my current situation and the five months of work and life that remain here in Ireland.
A good friend of mine told me that she prays and thinks and reflects better in the environment of the mass. At times, it can feel too formal or feel boring or have music not everyone like. But the mass gives us a thorough, rich, broad, and deep opportunity to pray. The expanse of the Body of Christ provides so much of that for us, but that's not it. Even if I didn't do it as well as I could of, the Eucharist gives us room to see all at once the Body of Christ in the communities we've belonged to, the ones we celebrate with today, and the ones we will join with around the table in our futures. And there's more, between the opening and the sending forth rites and the richness of the Liturgy of the Word (sometimes, I feel like I kind of swing on a faith pendulum between being more drawn to the Word or the Eucharist, not in mutual exclusivity but in different ratios of complementarity).
The whole of the story is that there's no shortage of opportunity for frustration, criticism, distraction, and spacing out, for speaking, singing, and thinking, and for looking around, looking down, looking up, and looking within. And if you let that all happen honestly, offering yourself in good faith while trying to grow closer to God amid all the desolations and consolations, I'd say it all adds up to a helluva opportunity to be with God and grow closer to Him and build a better, stronger relationship. Sounds like pretty full prayer to me.
Personally, I love mass, and I've never really had any time in my life when I've thought about suspending my attendance. I even made a habit of going to a daily mass once or so each week while I was in college, and here as part of community life, I go to daily mass almost every morning.
The question at this point for me is "what are you doing at mass?" I've been dealing with some feelings of getting "massed out" by the how often we go to mass. It's hit in little spats, but for the most part, I'm not plagued by it. Some weekends, the three masses in an 18-hour span can be a bit much, and that's the only major time I start to feel troubled.
We are here to bring an outside perspective of joy and commitment in our ministry, and we have to, sometimes tenuously, toe the line between accepting ingrained norms, whether "right" or "wrong," and challenging or reshaping them. Sometimes my place at the mass in the context of how I am trying live my faith and ministerial call here in this community gets skewed by questionable motivations.
We have a laptop that's connected to a projector, which enables us to project the lyrics to the music for mass, and we have added the new responses for mass to the slideshows, too. For one mass each weekend, I sit in a pew with no one else, just a computer, and run the slideshow of responses for a music-less mass. In addition, we take turns running the slideshow during masses with our choirs.
The issue isn't so much running the slideshow while trying to be present to the mass and/or the music we are leading - that comes with the territory of our job, and it's something we try to do with the most grace and focus that we can. The issue is moreso that I sometimes feel like an auditor, judging the confidence and unity of the congregation's response as I sit there administering the most helpful tool there really is toward learning the responses. We have this blessing of the laptop-projector system, but it doesn't create 100% unity. Some people can't snap out of the old words while others just space or blank on the changes. The repetition of doing this job has jaded my perspective, and I have trouble leaning toward giving the benefit of the doubt after months on end.
Part of is having to come to an extra mass just to press the spacebar 30 times in a half hour and struggling with finding it useful and necessary. It's affecting my desire to consider the beautiful cornucopia of motivations, inspirations, prayers, and pieties that people bring to mass and compile into the Body of Christ. I enjoy looking around to discover a wide array of humanity in the congregation, but the struggles with the new words, the task of running a slideshow, and the habitual indifference, laziness, or short attention span of people (sometimes I forget how I am thoroughly included in these categories) toward the words of the mass and our music (which is meant to be participated in by everyone!) skew my perspective of mass.
Then, I come to daily mass, where I am immersed in a sea of crusty, grey-haired piety. I am surrounded by people who could (and maybe do?) pray rosaries in their sleep and concelebrate the mass under their breaths, a gesture toward a lost piety of praying with the priest and for the prayers he speaks to be effective in inviting Jesus into our midst.
The mass can blow by too quickly sometimes - for example, the priest amalgamates the Gospel, homily, and Prayers of the Faithful into a tight unit that spills over into the preparation of altar. However, here I can look around and be less distracted, less jaded. Aside from lectoring once a week or so, my community and I are free of responsibilities for daily mass; we just go and be.
This morning, I found myself not only looking around but also look in and through the Eucharist. As ideas for continuing my career of ministry next year swirl - two exploratory/pre-interview conversations with retreat centers, a cover letter and resume sent on to a Catholic high school, an application to a service corps started by my favorite order, and an application for full tuition for an MAPS and a stipend-supported ministry placement - I was feeling around for a sense of those opportunities and their potential in the Eucharist. I spent most of the Eucharistic Prayer with my eyes closed and head bowed, reflecting upon the nature of these opportunities in light of the Church that they all share with me and the Eucharist before me right then and there.
I was finding bits of peace and light in the embarrassment of riches that are potentially in front of me in my formation, career, and life. I enjoyed how easily I could find that all in my heart, in my prayer. However, I have been trying to keep my foot on the brakes to keep myself firmly grounded in my current situation and the five months of work and life that remain here in Ireland.
A good friend of mine told me that she prays and thinks and reflects better in the environment of the mass. At times, it can feel too formal or feel boring or have music not everyone like. But the mass gives us a thorough, rich, broad, and deep opportunity to pray. The expanse of the Body of Christ provides so much of that for us, but that's not it. Even if I didn't do it as well as I could of, the Eucharist gives us room to see all at once the Body of Christ in the communities we've belonged to, the ones we celebrate with today, and the ones we will join with around the table in our futures. And there's more, between the opening and the sending forth rites and the richness of the Liturgy of the Word (sometimes, I feel like I kind of swing on a faith pendulum between being more drawn to the Word or the Eucharist, not in mutual exclusivity but in different ratios of complementarity).
The whole of the story is that there's no shortage of opportunity for frustration, criticism, distraction, and spacing out, for speaking, singing, and thinking, and for looking around, looking down, looking up, and looking within. And if you let that all happen honestly, offering yourself in good faith while trying to grow closer to God amid all the desolations and consolations, I'd say it all adds up to a helluva opportunity to be with God and grow closer to Him and build a better, stronger relationship. Sounds like pretty full prayer to me.
Friday, January 6, 2012
His Primary Point
I came across this opinion piece posted on CNN by a comedian/personality named Dean Obeidallah - I've never heard of him either, but that's no reason to discount him. Per usual, the headline of the piece was eye-catching and sucked me and many other readers in: Santorum wants to impose "Judeo-Christian Sharia." Ok, let's see.
Since Obeidallah opted to use such an extreme and loaded term to characterize Santorum's positions, I'll go ahead and label Obiedallah as a paranoid, polemic secularist who's out to insure that religion finds no place in politics. Ok, that's done now.
Read the short article for yourself before I launch into my reactions...
Obeidallah suggests Santorum's desire that legislated laws be in accordance with natural law - "a higher law" or "God's law" in Santorum's words - is on par with Sharia Law. He calls it "Judeo-Christian Sharia."
This is outlandish and wild, but I get it. The basic concept is the same for Santorum as for Islamic leaders: leaders of a country explicitly cite their religion in order to justify the laws they make. Straight forward enough. The problem comes when you realize that Obeidallah never affirms or advocates religion at all.
He goes after the specific ramifications of how Santorum's positions can be justified by his Christian faith and spells out the aftermath: rape victims have to carry the child to term; gay marriages would be annulled; no funding for birth control; outlawing pornography. I'm not saying I agree with all of these potential actions that a President Santorum would take (for example, I wish rape victims could be supported and helped in a way that would encourage and embolden them to have the child but it shouldn't ever be legally required). However, I give Santorum a lot of credit for asserting his faith and admitting outwardly that his positions on issues are informed by his faith.
The trouble comes when you realize not all of America is Christian. Even if a good majority of it is Christian, not everyone is. You can't legislate an official religion; you can't shove a form of belief down Americans' throats. Furthermore, it's dangerous to claim that you have a conclusive understanding of "God's law" and use that to produce layers of legislation.
However, to an extent, this country has a centuries-old tradition of a civil religion - a vaguely Christian, sort-of Deist God who benevolently protects the country and is invoked by its leaders, without tension, in times of trouble and joy alike. I couldn't articulate the specific correlating religion to that God, but surely, there is some kind of consensus Christian values and sensibilities that are inherent within it that Americans would affirm.
There are disagreements on specifics of beliefs and positions on social issues between religions, between denominations, and even within a specific denomination (yay Catholicism!). But there is a solid overlap in the middle of all these venn-diagram-circles. Again, I lack the grounding to specify what all is in there, but I'd venture to guess that most Americans - secularist, spirituals, atheists, and non-Christians - can get behind a lot of what's there in the middle.
My major beef with Obeidallah comes not with his connecting Santorum to Sharia Law and not even with his disgust toward the policy ramifications of Santorum's positions. My beef is that Obeidallah is hostile toward any influence of religion on political activity, and that's a horrible shame.
Goodness doesn't come from the thin air; it comes from our Creator God who made us in His image and gave us gifts and talents with the hope that we'd freely use them to share Love in our world and grow closer to each other and to Him.
To those who would demonize religion in such a way: criticize a candidate if you think the specifics of the way his religion influences his policy are alienating to American people, but don't fault a candidate for having faith and a religion. Fault yourself for attacking religion's influence on public and social life. Fault yourself for thinking that reason can stand alone and find ways to justify laws without faith or the Truth of God. Fault yourself for becoming too much of the world and demonizing the joy and light that others gain from faith in God and the community around them that joins together to celebrate and support one another.
My hope is that Obeidallah is actually a religious man and is just keeping his faith private. If so, if that's his principle, then good for him for sticking to his guns. But in a personal opinion piece complete with your thumbnail picture and biography, can you not even let your religion in then?
Since Obeidallah opted to use such an extreme and loaded term to characterize Santorum's positions, I'll go ahead and label Obiedallah as a paranoid, polemic secularist who's out to insure that religion finds no place in politics. Ok, that's done now.
Read the short article for yourself before I launch into my reactions...
Obeidallah suggests Santorum's desire that legislated laws be in accordance with natural law - "a higher law" or "God's law" in Santorum's words - is on par with Sharia Law. He calls it "Judeo-Christian Sharia."
This is outlandish and wild, but I get it. The basic concept is the same for Santorum as for Islamic leaders: leaders of a country explicitly cite their religion in order to justify the laws they make. Straight forward enough. The problem comes when you realize that Obeidallah never affirms or advocates religion at all.
He goes after the specific ramifications of how Santorum's positions can be justified by his Christian faith and spells out the aftermath: rape victims have to carry the child to term; gay marriages would be annulled; no funding for birth control; outlawing pornography. I'm not saying I agree with all of these potential actions that a President Santorum would take (for example, I wish rape victims could be supported and helped in a way that would encourage and embolden them to have the child but it shouldn't ever be legally required). However, I give Santorum a lot of credit for asserting his faith and admitting outwardly that his positions on issues are informed by his faith.
The trouble comes when you realize not all of America is Christian. Even if a good majority of it is Christian, not everyone is. You can't legislate an official religion; you can't shove a form of belief down Americans' throats. Furthermore, it's dangerous to claim that you have a conclusive understanding of "God's law" and use that to produce layers of legislation.
However, to an extent, this country has a centuries-old tradition of a civil religion - a vaguely Christian, sort-of Deist God who benevolently protects the country and is invoked by its leaders, without tension, in times of trouble and joy alike. I couldn't articulate the specific correlating religion to that God, but surely, there is some kind of consensus Christian values and sensibilities that are inherent within it that Americans would affirm.
There are disagreements on specifics of beliefs and positions on social issues between religions, between denominations, and even within a specific denomination (yay Catholicism!). But there is a solid overlap in the middle of all these venn-diagram-circles. Again, I lack the grounding to specify what all is in there, but I'd venture to guess that most Americans - secularist, spirituals, atheists, and non-Christians - can get behind a lot of what's there in the middle.
My major beef with Obeidallah comes not with his connecting Santorum to Sharia Law and not even with his disgust toward the policy ramifications of Santorum's positions. My beef is that Obeidallah is hostile toward any influence of religion on political activity, and that's a horrible shame.
Goodness doesn't come from the thin air; it comes from our Creator God who made us in His image and gave us gifts and talents with the hope that we'd freely use them to share Love in our world and grow closer to each other and to Him.
To those who would demonize religion in such a way: criticize a candidate if you think the specifics of the way his religion influences his policy are alienating to American people, but don't fault a candidate for having faith and a religion. Fault yourself for attacking religion's influence on public and social life. Fault yourself for thinking that reason can stand alone and find ways to justify laws without faith or the Truth of God. Fault yourself for becoming too much of the world and demonizing the joy and light that others gain from faith in God and the community around them that joins together to celebrate and support one another.
My hope is that Obeidallah is actually a religious man and is just keeping his faith private. If so, if that's his principle, then good for him for sticking to his guns. But in a personal opinion piece complete with your thumbnail picture and biography, can you not even let your religion in then?
Monday, December 12, 2011
JtB
In Advent, we hear a lot from Isaiah and John the Baptist. Isaiah has big time prophecy about the coming of the messiah, and John is the prophet who directly precedes the messiah. So their testimony is pretty relevant.
Shocking as it may be, I'm not super learned on Old Testament matters, so I'm going New Testament on this one. Let's talk Jay Tee Bee.
John was not the Light, but He came to testify to the Light.
There we have it.
Well, let's backtrack.
Jesus Christ was and is God. The Son is a person of the Trinity. Jesus is God-become-man, the Word-made-flesh. Jesus' ministry and preaching is distinctive because it is literally the words and actions of God. He is unmediated, direct revelation. Jesus Christ was and is God.
John, on the other hand, was not and is not God; he is a prophet, a human preaching and acting humanly on his faith. His contemporary, Mary, is a beautiful model of human service to us as well (fun fact: did you know Mary is the only person assuredly present in all three eras [The Law and the Prophets, The Life, Ministry, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, and The Church] of salvation history?). She is an example in her contemplation, her motherhood, and her 'yes' to God's will, but her immaculate conception is an element of special grace that distinguishes her a bit. It doesn't make her less human; it shows us how someone can integrate one's own faith and heart with God's grace to realize the peace of freely aligning one's will with God. But John is yet another of the many amazing models we have in our tradition of faith.
A wise man once concluded, "On a basic level, John the Baptist was a faithful follower of Christ, ultimately martyred after being jailed. So, as someone who almost certainly died in faith in Christ, he is someone Christians should hold as a saint, 'part of the one holy catholic church comprised of Old Testament and New Testament believers alike.' John’s life and mission were righteous and fulfilled the prophecies of the messiah’s forerunner. John’s answering this call to prepare the way for Christ and faithfully serving God through his preaching and baptisms are evidence of John’s goodness and his obedience to God’s will. His service to God prompts Jesus to call him 'the greatest among men.'"
Hey, I had to quote my thesis.
The greater point with John is that he wasn't Christ, and he knew that. No matter what people wanted him to be, no matter how many people badgered him, he insisted he was just preparing a way for his Lord.
John had disciples following his lead. He had throngs of people coming to listen to his message. He had people piling in to receive baptism. However, he remained committed to the reality that what he was pointing toward was greater and bigger than him.
It's a beautiful reality that John baptized people into what would become our Church because baptism into Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is an initiation that commits a person and his/her life to the reality that they are part of someone and something bigger than themself. Just as John kept humble in anticipation of Jesus the Lord and Savior who was to bring salvation to humanity, we too must embrace the call to service and ministry in the name of He who gave us life.
Christ is God, so His example is perfect. Jesus' words and actions show us perfect mercy, compassion, and love. Idealism is helpful to us because the effort to try to be perfect calls us to constant self-reflection and improvement toward the perfect love of God. However, we ultimately cannot be Christ. We are not Gods but rather God's - mediators of the grace of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In this reality, where we are conduits for the grace of Christ through our faith and our relationships, John gives us a model: John was not Christ but persistently pointed the way to Christ and cleared a way for Him in the world and in hearts.
We must strive to be like Christ. Though we are imperfect and cannot be Christ, we can be vigilant in prayer to grow into being fuller mediators of God's love and grace. Additionally, though, we can completely be John the Baptist's. This is not an idealistic pursuit that cannot be fully attained; it is a realistic and realizable goal for our journeys of faith. We can always be pointing to Christ in our words and actions, and we can make a way for Christ in the world.
_______
Added @ 5:10pm, a post-script - from the conclusions of my thesis' section on John:
"... [There is] great responsibility placed in the hands of everyone invited to Christ’s Kingdom: John’s imperfections amid his righteousness were excused in part due to ignorance; the citizens of Christ’s Kingdom have the fullness of God and His revelation in the prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in Christ and the New Testament, Christ’s Church, and its Tradition. In the Old Testament, earthly promises were the focus as the fullness of the Kingdom was yet to come. Now that Christ has come, “that man from the time of John the Baptist is assured of a speedy entrance into such an everlasting and blessed Kingdom, [and] it is no longer necessary for those promises of earthly well-being to be brought forward.' Given the fullness of God in the Incarnate Word that is Christ, Christians can access the fullness of God and taste the Kingdom through Christ. The unique actions of God with His Chosen People in the Old Testament are historically past—God’s love and care has been newly offered through humanity’s redeemer. It is up to the faith of God’s renewed people to embrace the fullness offered in Christ and grow to realize and experience His Kingdom."
Shocking as it may be, I'm not super learned on Old Testament matters, so I'm going New Testament on this one. Let's talk Jay Tee Bee.
John was not the Light, but He came to testify to the Light.
There we have it.
Well, let's backtrack.
Jesus Christ was and is God. The Son is a person of the Trinity. Jesus is God-become-man, the Word-made-flesh. Jesus' ministry and preaching is distinctive because it is literally the words and actions of God. He is unmediated, direct revelation. Jesus Christ was and is God.
John, on the other hand, was not and is not God; he is a prophet, a human preaching and acting humanly on his faith. His contemporary, Mary, is a beautiful model of human service to us as well (fun fact: did you know Mary is the only person assuredly present in all three eras [The Law and the Prophets, The Life, Ministry, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, and The Church] of salvation history?). She is an example in her contemplation, her motherhood, and her 'yes' to God's will, but her immaculate conception is an element of special grace that distinguishes her a bit. It doesn't make her less human; it shows us how someone can integrate one's own faith and heart with God's grace to realize the peace of freely aligning one's will with God. But John is yet another of the many amazing models we have in our tradition of faith.
A wise man once concluded, "On a basic level, John the Baptist was a faithful follower of Christ, ultimately martyred after being jailed. So, as someone who almost certainly died in faith in Christ, he is someone Christians should hold as a saint, 'part of the one holy catholic church comprised of Old Testament and New Testament believers alike.' John’s life and mission were righteous and fulfilled the prophecies of the messiah’s forerunner. John’s answering this call to prepare the way for Christ and faithfully serving God through his preaching and baptisms are evidence of John’s goodness and his obedience to God’s will. His service to God prompts Jesus to call him 'the greatest among men.'"
Hey, I had to quote my thesis.
The greater point with John is that he wasn't Christ, and he knew that. No matter what people wanted him to be, no matter how many people badgered him, he insisted he was just preparing a way for his Lord.
John had disciples following his lead. He had throngs of people coming to listen to his message. He had people piling in to receive baptism. However, he remained committed to the reality that what he was pointing toward was greater and bigger than him.
It's a beautiful reality that John baptized people into what would become our Church because baptism into Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is an initiation that commits a person and his/her life to the reality that they are part of someone and something bigger than themself. Just as John kept humble in anticipation of Jesus the Lord and Savior who was to bring salvation to humanity, we too must embrace the call to service and ministry in the name of He who gave us life.
Christ is God, so His example is perfect. Jesus' words and actions show us perfect mercy, compassion, and love. Idealism is helpful to us because the effort to try to be perfect calls us to constant self-reflection and improvement toward the perfect love of God. However, we ultimately cannot be Christ. We are not Gods but rather God's - mediators of the grace of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In this reality, where we are conduits for the grace of Christ through our faith and our relationships, John gives us a model: John was not Christ but persistently pointed the way to Christ and cleared a way for Him in the world and in hearts.
We must strive to be like Christ. Though we are imperfect and cannot be Christ, we can be vigilant in prayer to grow into being fuller mediators of God's love and grace. Additionally, though, we can completely be John the Baptist's. This is not an idealistic pursuit that cannot be fully attained; it is a realistic and realizable goal for our journeys of faith. We can always be pointing to Christ in our words and actions, and we can make a way for Christ in the world.
_______
Added @ 5:10pm, a post-script - from the conclusions of my thesis' section on John:
"... [There is] great responsibility placed in the hands of everyone invited to Christ’s Kingdom: John’s imperfections amid his righteousness were excused in part due to ignorance; the citizens of Christ’s Kingdom have the fullness of God and His revelation in the prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in Christ and the New Testament, Christ’s Church, and its Tradition. In the Old Testament, earthly promises were the focus as the fullness of the Kingdom was yet to come. Now that Christ has come, “that man from the time of John the Baptist is assured of a speedy entrance into such an everlasting and blessed Kingdom, [and] it is no longer necessary for those promises of earthly well-being to be brought forward.' Given the fullness of God in the Incarnate Word that is Christ, Christians can access the fullness of God and taste the Kingdom through Christ. The unique actions of God with His Chosen People in the Old Testament are historically past—God’s love and care has been newly offered through humanity’s redeemer. It is up to the faith of God’s renewed people to embrace the fullness offered in Christ and grow to realize and experience His Kingdom."
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Don't Knock It 'til You Try It
So here we are: Advent 2011. The dreaded new translation of the mass is upon us in full force, with all of its (con)substantial changes and roof homecomings.
We who have gone seeking have heard so much from many angles, decrying the archaicness of the text, the misguided efforts of the Church dedicating attention to something that isn't that important, and how we don't even know what these new words mean. There's plenty of truth to a lot of these opinions.
Some of the wordings aren't as smooth as we might like; restoring the balance of Latin and Hebrew poetic structure and faithfully translating a no-longer-spoken-conversationally language is not going to sound conversational. The Church does have bigger problems, from the lingering shadows of the abuse scandals to the tensions between clerical and lay ministry/leadership. Some of these wordings are confusing- consubstantial? God of Hosts? under my roof?
My question is, "so what?" At the end of the day, it's all part of an effort to be more faithful to the liturgical tradition of our Church, which stands on the two legs of Scripture and Tradition. It's a way for English speakers to say words that more closely follow the Latin that is the basis for every language's translation of the mass, so that from east to west - er, I mean, from the setting of the sun to its rising - we all have as similar a mass as our universal church can have across borders and language barriers. One of my favorite practical effects of our transition: smaller language groups that lack the resources in terms of Latin scholars and studies translate their mass from English to their own language rather than directly from Latin. So by giving them a more faithful English translation as a starting point, we are coming closer to their celebrations of the mass as well.
Something to not lose in all this: the priests, part of the hierarchy so often criticized and derided, the hierarchy that approved this change, have even more than us to learn and review. Their parts have changed more than ours, and new things have been added to the giant Roman Missal that guides them through their celebrations of our masses. Don't overlook the beauty of some of their new words.
My two favorites:
1. As the priest lays his hands over the gifts to call the Spirit over them, he prays, "Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall." What a beautiful image to use! It is a mystery of our faith that Jesus becomes present in the bread and wine as His Body and Blood through the Eucharist, and part of the prayers that effect this is this calling of the Spirit. How can we explain this loving action of our God? What if we just invoke the image of dew in the morning? When we awake, the grass and lawns of our neighborhoods are damp with the gentle, benign moisture of the morning, water that hasn't come from rain or storms that we can see and hear or from hoses or watering cans when we tend to our lawns; it is water that appears through a fairly easily explained process but nonetheless invokes some childlike awe and wonder for the simple splendor of it. So give this new imagery a shot - the Holy Spirit coming over the gifts to prepare them for Christ like the morning dewfall!?
2. After the gifts have been presented and the altar has been prepared, the priest invites us to begin the prayers over the Eucharist with him. This change to the invitation is so subtle that you might miss it, but when you catch, it will change your 'tude. "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable..." That's right. No longer is our participation in the sacrifice of the Eucharist only implied or understood; it is explicitly invoked in prayer. Our sacrifice - our self-offering of our sins, our penitence, our prayers, our gratitude - is invited specifically to the altar. The reality that we are united in our baptism in Christ as we gather as His Body to celebrate the Eucharist invites us to share all of those things of our self with each other in the Eucharist. Then, we, like the bread that is His Body, Jesus and His people, are broken, shared, and sent forth. It begins with this invitation from the priest. So listen and let your heart be drawn in anew as you're specifically invited to the reality of the Eucharist that has been there all along but not spoken so specifically to us until now.
I could go on and on about pros and cons of the new words. The major point is that no one should really be too opinionated either way. People should talk with one another to share their feelings in community, but the point is for us to continue to deepen our spiritual commitments and live our faith. The mass - the Word and the Eucharist - is the basis and rhythm for doing this. So let's engage it prayerfully, but remember the end we all are working toward is relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God. And hey - give it a shot and spend a few Sundays and daily masses with it before you get to fired up either way. Don't knock it 'til you try it.
We who have gone seeking have heard so much from many angles, decrying the archaicness of the text, the misguided efforts of the Church dedicating attention to something that isn't that important, and how we don't even know what these new words mean. There's plenty of truth to a lot of these opinions.
Some of the wordings aren't as smooth as we might like; restoring the balance of Latin and Hebrew poetic structure and faithfully translating a no-longer-spoken-conversationally language is not going to sound conversational. The Church does have bigger problems, from the lingering shadows of the abuse scandals to the tensions between clerical and lay ministry/leadership. Some of these wordings are confusing- consubstantial? God of Hosts? under my roof?
My question is, "so what?" At the end of the day, it's all part of an effort to be more faithful to the liturgical tradition of our Church, which stands on the two legs of Scripture and Tradition. It's a way for English speakers to say words that more closely follow the Latin that is the basis for every language's translation of the mass, so that from east to west - er, I mean, from the setting of the sun to its rising - we all have as similar a mass as our universal church can have across borders and language barriers. One of my favorite practical effects of our transition: smaller language groups that lack the resources in terms of Latin scholars and studies translate their mass from English to their own language rather than directly from Latin. So by giving them a more faithful English translation as a starting point, we are coming closer to their celebrations of the mass as well.
Something to not lose in all this: the priests, part of the hierarchy so often criticized and derided, the hierarchy that approved this change, have even more than us to learn and review. Their parts have changed more than ours, and new things have been added to the giant Roman Missal that guides them through their celebrations of our masses. Don't overlook the beauty of some of their new words.
My two favorites:
1. As the priest lays his hands over the gifts to call the Spirit over them, he prays, "Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall." What a beautiful image to use! It is a mystery of our faith that Jesus becomes present in the bread and wine as His Body and Blood through the Eucharist, and part of the prayers that effect this is this calling of the Spirit. How can we explain this loving action of our God? What if we just invoke the image of dew in the morning? When we awake, the grass and lawns of our neighborhoods are damp with the gentle, benign moisture of the morning, water that hasn't come from rain or storms that we can see and hear or from hoses or watering cans when we tend to our lawns; it is water that appears through a fairly easily explained process but nonetheless invokes some childlike awe and wonder for the simple splendor of it. So give this new imagery a shot - the Holy Spirit coming over the gifts to prepare them for Christ like the morning dewfall!?
2. After the gifts have been presented and the altar has been prepared, the priest invites us to begin the prayers over the Eucharist with him. This change to the invitation is so subtle that you might miss it, but when you catch, it will change your 'tude. "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable..." That's right. No longer is our participation in the sacrifice of the Eucharist only implied or understood; it is explicitly invoked in prayer. Our sacrifice - our self-offering of our sins, our penitence, our prayers, our gratitude - is invited specifically to the altar. The reality that we are united in our baptism in Christ as we gather as His Body to celebrate the Eucharist invites us to share all of those things of our self with each other in the Eucharist. Then, we, like the bread that is His Body, Jesus and His people, are broken, shared, and sent forth. It begins with this invitation from the priest. So listen and let your heart be drawn in anew as you're specifically invited to the reality of the Eucharist that has been there all along but not spoken so specifically to us until now.
I could go on and on about pros and cons of the new words. The major point is that no one should really be too opinionated either way. People should talk with one another to share their feelings in community, but the point is for us to continue to deepen our spiritual commitments and live our faith. The mass - the Word and the Eucharist - is the basis and rhythm for doing this. So let's engage it prayerfully, but remember the end we all are working toward is relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God. And hey - give it a shot and spend a few Sundays and daily masses with it before you get to fired up either way. Don't knock it 'til you try it.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Bread and Word
Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that one does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.
-Deuteronomy 8:2-3I first came across this bit of Scriptural gold during senior year of high school. After school one day, I was in the chorus room having a grand old time with my fellow improv-ers during our weekly practice. Across the way, in the band room, my choir's director was practicing some stuff for our all-school Easter mass later in the week. My friend Lisa was cantoring, and the Gospel Acclamation that they were using had a verse that went up pretty high for the solo. Lisa had the range no problem, but singing a high-F for the acclamatory verse was coming off pretty hot. So Marcie and Lisa called me over to try it out. Moral of the story: don't send a soprano to do a tenor's job. We practiced it a few times, and I was all set to acclaim the Gospel at mass: "One does not live on bread alone! But on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God!'
Today, Molly and I had the chance to utilize this beautiful bit of Scripture. We are planning a mass for our fifth-graders at the primary school we're working in. The mass is for the Body and Blood of Christ, so we chose readings in that vein. (Also, the kids make suggestions for the Prayers of the Faithful and Offertory around this intention of the mass.) The Gospel we settled on was "I Am the Bread of Life" from John. In order to give our cantor something extra for her simple ministry of leading the Alleluia, we wanted to include a Gospel Acclamation verse in her little script. This verse is the one I settled on: "One does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."
But the real reason why this verse reentered my prayer mindset is because of a book I've recently taken to simply called, "A Prayer Book for Eucharistic Adoration." While Katherine and I were in Galway, we spent time looking around the cathedral, praying there and going to mass. We also spent time in the bookshop, and I settled on this nice little prayer aid. Katherine offered to get it for me - a truly grace-filled gift. And it is even by a Notre Dame guy and published by Loyola Chicago Press. Needless to say, it was a good call.
The reason for choosing this book off the many shelves was to restart weekly visits to the Blessed Sacrament. I've gone for three weeks now and prayed with the help of the series of seven visits to the Blessed Sacrament. I was really struck last week by the First Reading in the middle of Day Two's prayers. It was the reading I included at the top of the post from Deuteronomy 8:2-3. The power of that verse I had belted in my head-voice four-and-a-half-years ago echoed anew in the quiet of that chapel. I spent the moments of silent reflection on the way this Old Testament wisdom prefigures the beauty of the Eucharist.
The theme of manna continued through the prayer - the following responsory was "God rained down manna for their food and gave them bread from heaven." The Second Reading for that day's prayer came from St. Ambrose of Milan and talked about the words of Christ. Here's the second half of it:
Perhaps you say, "The bread I have here is ordinary bread." Yes, before the sacramental words are uttered this bread is nothing but bread. But at the consecration the bread becomes the Body of Christ. Let us reason this out. How can something that is bread be the Body of Christ? Well, by what words is the consecration effected, and whose words are they? The words of the Lord Jesus. All that is said before are the words of the priest: praise is offered to God, the prayer is offered up, petitions are made for the people, kings, for all others. But when the moment comes for bringing the most holy sacrament into being, the priest does not use his own words any longer: he uses the words of Christ. Therefore, it is Christ's word that brings the sacrament into being.So here comes a whole 'nother layer of meaning for our truth from Deuteronomy. One does not live on bread alone; one also needs the Word of God. This begins as a nice way to understand how the Word in the readings and Gospel works together with the Eucharist to nourish us in the mass. St. Ambrose takes it steps further.
We can't live by just eating bread. We need the nourishment of God's Word. How do we get it? Ambrose would surely affirm the Scriptures and the Liturgy of the Word as beautiful media for nourishment. But his words for us here deepen the reflection. We receive bread that is not bread alone; we become able to live on more than bread because that bread is the Word. The bread takes on a different meaning because its inner elements are changed so it becomes the Body of Christ, and this happens because, after a series of prayer that is just the humble "words of the priest [or the Church]," the priest speaks Jesus' words. He prays the words of the Word Made Flesh. The words of the Word make our bread become the Body, the Word Made Flesh.
Christ's words - the Word's words - are what bring the Body of Christ to us. It is by being baptized into the Word, into Christ's death and resurrection, that we become members of the Body of Christ. It is by Christ's words, said by a priest, that Christ comes to be with us in the Eucharist. We do not live by bread alone but by bread that is the Word that comes from the mouth of God -- this is the very essence of what this Old Testament passage to be essential to our beings. It's a gentle irony that we can receive the nourishment that will lead us to eternal life in receiving bread, but it's by the very direction of this passage that this becomes possible.
We cannot live by bread alone. We need each word that comes from God. So, we come together to receive bread. But we receive the bread that comes from the Word, from the mouth of God. We say our Amen to the bread that is broken and shared in remembrance of the One who saved us, using His words - the words of God - to make the bread, at once, both bread and the Word that comes forth from God. I could dance around this until the end of time, and I think I just might.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Un Buen Camino
Oh, dear friends, what follows is going to be a futile attempt to concisely try to sum up some of the profound value of the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago. (Originally, I had typed here that I'd attempt brevity and conciseness, but that has gone by the wayside as I've written.)
First, the nuts and bolts of it...
Molly, Colin, Kurt, and I walked 112km across four full days and 2 hours of a fifth morning.
We began in Sarria, arriving via train from Madrid.
Day 1, we walked 22km to Portomarรญn.
Day 2, we walked 23.5km to Palas de Rei.
Day 3, we walked 29km to Arzรบa.
Day 4, we walked 32km to Monte de Gozo.
Day 5, we walked 4.5km to el Catedral de Santiago de Compostela.
There, on All Saints Day, we attended pilgrims' mass and received our compostela certificates, certifying our journey on foot with our declared motivation being religious pilgrimage. Check out pictures here. (Additionally, my friend Colin's travel blog has AWESOME pictures and additional insights to the mindset of a Camino pilgrim.)
Community
Overall, walking the Way added a new depth to my understanding of community, not just due to the conversation we had toward the end of our trek in which my companions thoroughly challenged me on my attitudes toward reconciling my personal opinions with the life of the community and its greater well-being and mission.
There is a sanctity to embarking on such a journey together, knowing that your teamwork, cooperation, and support is needed not just to help one another make it 112km on foot but to fuel each other's spirits, both mentally/emotionally and faith/prayer-wise. We couldn't just be talking and laughing and smiling - though that was important - we had to be sharing prayer and intentions and reflective thoughts to help each other have the pilgrimage we all desired.
Also, more practically, we were a family for five days. And it became that way because we weren't just choosing restaurants or ordering of menus. We did that for a day at the end in Santiago, but each night of our walk, we hit up a supermercado or fruteria, shopped the aisles, and hit the cocina at our albergue to make family dinner. Cooking together in quaint kitchens, sitting at a table with a hodge-podge of dishes, and cleaning it all up together really sews the days up and brings you together in a way quite befitting of the pilgrimage we forged.
And an extra note, sharing the path with dozens of other pilgrims of various motivations and from different parts of the world (we met some from at least USA, Spain, France, and Japan) surrounds you in this gentle bond of community with strangers, where you always at least have the universal greeting of <<¡Buen Camino!>> to share with each other. And that brings you closer together more than you might think, which brings me to my next point.
The Body of Christ
There is a beautiful enfleshing of the mystery of the mystical Body of Christ on this pilgrimage. You get wonderful glimpses of it in the hospitality that pervades the walk (with the exception of the awkward bocadillo shop, "No Camino," whose owner/counter-lady was brisk and cold). The baseline, the constant, of the walk is the seemingly simple exchanges of <<¡Buen Camino!>> between pilgrims, but it grows from there. You begin to want to say hello to each person you see, whether a shepherd moving his animals up the street, a woman hanging clothes or picking fruit in her yard, or people on their porches and doorsteps in the villages. You find the confidence to engage people in shops and albergues in their native language, embracing a humble approach and finding at least hospitality if not a deeper welcome and embrace from someone receiving you in their country and language. And most importantly, your fellow pilgrims become your friends, sometimes through conversation but often through an unspoken bond that I can only trace back to the mysticality of Christ as our companion.
So we had the chance to talk to a few people, largely through the boldness of my companions. We got the stories of a French man who was resuming his trek to make it from Lyon that had been cut short year last year and two gals from Seattle taking time away from work and business. But alongside them, we interweaved our journey with a batch of older Asian men and women who soldiered their way down the roads, a young couple holding hands ahead of us, and a Polish girl who we met 30 days into her journey and saw collapse into a pile of joy in the cathedral plaza. A bond formed among all of us, above, below, or beyond our motivations or intentions. We all were aiming for the mass, the cathedral, the communal experience waiting in northwest Spain. And on All Saint Day, we made it. We prayed at the kneeler by James' final resting place, and we hugged his statue, the one over the altar that shows him as a pilgrim, as one of the many gunning for this summit of joy. And just to cement all of that, as I walked past the queue of people moving through the stairway to the statue and down toward the tombs, I made eye contact with the guy and gal who had made it hand-in-hand, and having never spoken more then a buen camino to them, we exchanged a wave and a smile.
Pilgrimage
And running over and under it all is this vast sea of grace called pilgrimage. These are the people, the faces that enflesh what went on, and it's this idea of pilgrimage, of making a trip or vacation into a spiritual journey that is physicalized, that deepens the meaning of the whole encounter. These people walking the Way with us made up part of the journey symbolism that made the pilgrimage real to our eyes.
Starting with the first morning, we walked through morning/sunrise fog that shrouded the path ahead and limited our visibility - well isn't that face-value symbolism if I ever saw it. We would come out of the fog little by little as the day went on, but it would return in the morning. Added to the fog, we were walking a path without a map or compass or any clue of what the road should look like; we were at the mercy of milestones (well, kilometer stones) every 0.5km or so and yellow arrows that might seem suspect if we didn't know to trust them. However, at each spot were there were different directions to go, a yellow arrow appeared on the side of a house, the ground, a wall, or a stone. Each time we followed, and each time the arrows pointed us to Santiago. We had to trust the arrows as well as the pilgrims we could see in front of us that we were on the right path.
The whole thing was just saturated with beautiful discernment metaphors made concrete by the action of physically undertaking the walk. The whole thing reiterated to us repeatedly to trust. Amid the fog, the lack of a map, the ignorance about the way we'd reach Santiago, and the length of the walk (especially given I'd never hiked more than a few miles before), trust in the whole equation of the pilgrimage - from directions to food to lodging - is what sustains you. Trust in your companions, the fellow pilgrims, the hosts at the albergues, and the God that brought us the whole way enabled the journey to be a way of peace.
And now, after returning, the processing continues. I haven't quite made it to wrapping my head around it, but I know the peace endures and upholds me when I realize how the pilgrimage goes on, especially while abroad here trying to serve our Church in Ireland. I yet lack a lot of the perspective as to how the depth of contextualizing life in terms of pilgrimage will illuminate things. However, a quote from a past pilgrim included at the end of the leaflet in the pilgrims' office in Santiago de Compostela begins to shed light on this for us:
"Now that I arrived to the end, I realize that these last weeks have been just a stage in the long Way of life towards God. It is here that I can really say to St. James: 'Show me the Lord,' and then recommence my Way."
First, the nuts and bolts of it...
Molly, Colin, Kurt, and I walked 112km across four full days and 2 hours of a fifth morning.
We began in Sarria, arriving via train from Madrid.
Day 1, we walked 22km to Portomarรญn.
Day 2, we walked 23.5km to Palas de Rei.
Day 3, we walked 29km to Arzรบa.
Day 4, we walked 32km to Monte de Gozo.
Day 5, we walked 4.5km to el Catedral de Santiago de Compostela.
There, on All Saints Day, we attended pilgrims' mass and received our compostela certificates, certifying our journey on foot with our declared motivation being religious pilgrimage. Check out pictures here. (Additionally, my friend Colin's travel blog has AWESOME pictures and additional insights to the mindset of a Camino pilgrim.)
Community
Overall, walking the Way added a new depth to my understanding of community, not just due to the conversation we had toward the end of our trek in which my companions thoroughly challenged me on my attitudes toward reconciling my personal opinions with the life of the community and its greater well-being and mission.
There is a sanctity to embarking on such a journey together, knowing that your teamwork, cooperation, and support is needed not just to help one another make it 112km on foot but to fuel each other's spirits, both mentally/emotionally and faith/prayer-wise. We couldn't just be talking and laughing and smiling - though that was important - we had to be sharing prayer and intentions and reflective thoughts to help each other have the pilgrimage we all desired.
Also, more practically, we were a family for five days. And it became that way because we weren't just choosing restaurants or ordering of menus. We did that for a day at the end in Santiago, but each night of our walk, we hit up a supermercado or fruteria, shopped the aisles, and hit the cocina at our albergue to make family dinner. Cooking together in quaint kitchens, sitting at a table with a hodge-podge of dishes, and cleaning it all up together really sews the days up and brings you together in a way quite befitting of the pilgrimage we forged.
And an extra note, sharing the path with dozens of other pilgrims of various motivations and from different parts of the world (we met some from at least USA, Spain, France, and Japan) surrounds you in this gentle bond of community with strangers, where you always at least have the universal greeting of <<¡Buen Camino!>> to share with each other. And that brings you closer together more than you might think, which brings me to my next point.
The Body of Christ
There is a beautiful enfleshing of the mystery of the mystical Body of Christ on this pilgrimage. You get wonderful glimpses of it in the hospitality that pervades the walk (with the exception of the awkward bocadillo shop, "No Camino," whose owner/counter-lady was brisk and cold). The baseline, the constant, of the walk is the seemingly simple exchanges of <<¡Buen Camino!>> between pilgrims, but it grows from there. You begin to want to say hello to each person you see, whether a shepherd moving his animals up the street, a woman hanging clothes or picking fruit in her yard, or people on their porches and doorsteps in the villages. You find the confidence to engage people in shops and albergues in their native language, embracing a humble approach and finding at least hospitality if not a deeper welcome and embrace from someone receiving you in their country and language. And most importantly, your fellow pilgrims become your friends, sometimes through conversation but often through an unspoken bond that I can only trace back to the mysticality of Christ as our companion.
So we had the chance to talk to a few people, largely through the boldness of my companions. We got the stories of a French man who was resuming his trek to make it from Lyon that had been cut short year last year and two gals from Seattle taking time away from work and business. But alongside them, we interweaved our journey with a batch of older Asian men and women who soldiered their way down the roads, a young couple holding hands ahead of us, and a Polish girl who we met 30 days into her journey and saw collapse into a pile of joy in the cathedral plaza. A bond formed among all of us, above, below, or beyond our motivations or intentions. We all were aiming for the mass, the cathedral, the communal experience waiting in northwest Spain. And on All Saint Day, we made it. We prayed at the kneeler by James' final resting place, and we hugged his statue, the one over the altar that shows him as a pilgrim, as one of the many gunning for this summit of joy. And just to cement all of that, as I walked past the queue of people moving through the stairway to the statue and down toward the tombs, I made eye contact with the guy and gal who had made it hand-in-hand, and having never spoken more then a buen camino to them, we exchanged a wave and a smile.
Pilgrimage
And running over and under it all is this vast sea of grace called pilgrimage. These are the people, the faces that enflesh what went on, and it's this idea of pilgrimage, of making a trip or vacation into a spiritual journey that is physicalized, that deepens the meaning of the whole encounter. These people walking the Way with us made up part of the journey symbolism that made the pilgrimage real to our eyes.
Starting with the first morning, we walked through morning/sunrise fog that shrouded the path ahead and limited our visibility - well isn't that face-value symbolism if I ever saw it. We would come out of the fog little by little as the day went on, but it would return in the morning. Added to the fog, we were walking a path without a map or compass or any clue of what the road should look like; we were at the mercy of milestones (well, kilometer stones) every 0.5km or so and yellow arrows that might seem suspect if we didn't know to trust them. However, at each spot were there were different directions to go, a yellow arrow appeared on the side of a house, the ground, a wall, or a stone. Each time we followed, and each time the arrows pointed us to Santiago. We had to trust the arrows as well as the pilgrims we could see in front of us that we were on the right path.
The whole thing was just saturated with beautiful discernment metaphors made concrete by the action of physically undertaking the walk. The whole thing reiterated to us repeatedly to trust. Amid the fog, the lack of a map, the ignorance about the way we'd reach Santiago, and the length of the walk (especially given I'd never hiked more than a few miles before), trust in the whole equation of the pilgrimage - from directions to food to lodging - is what sustains you. Trust in your companions, the fellow pilgrims, the hosts at the albergues, and the God that brought us the whole way enabled the journey to be a way of peace.
And now, after returning, the processing continues. I haven't quite made it to wrapping my head around it, but I know the peace endures and upholds me when I realize how the pilgrimage goes on, especially while abroad here trying to serve our Church in Ireland. I yet lack a lot of the perspective as to how the depth of contextualizing life in terms of pilgrimage will illuminate things. However, a quote from a past pilgrim included at the end of the leaflet in the pilgrims' office in Santiago de Compostela begins to shed light on this for us:
"Now that I arrived to the end, I realize that these last weeks have been just a stage in the long Way of life towards God. It is here that I can really say to St. James: 'Show me the Lord,' and then recommence my Way."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Featured Post
Having a Lucy
by Dan Masterton Every year, a group of my best friends all get together over a vacation. Inevitably, on the last night that we’re all toge...
-
by Dan Masterton Picking up my periodic thread on The Simpsons ( click back here to read my series intro and first post ), today I'm ...
-
5 years ago, I interviewed with members of the campus ministry department at a Catholic university. I had been accepted for graduate school,...
-
by Dan Masterton Over the ten years of our relationship, my wife has had cause to poke fun at me for plenty of reasons. Chief among them ma...
