After the apex, when it was deemed safe to come out, we rushed to the tombs to see if there was any life left. The shelves at the grocery store started to fill up again, and those who had thoughtlessly hoarded goods that others needed just as much stood at the entrances and begged forgiveness.

So too, those who had disregarded ordinances for social distancing began their sentences. They worked twelve-hour shifts in hot, crowded factories in parts of the world where the virus was exploding, sewing masks and gloves and gowns for all those who, while serving the sick, would become sick themselves because the numbers of sick were too great, because they were infected by those who wouldn’t step away from the beach or the bars when it mattered the most.

We counted our dead, and finally cried for our elderly neighbors, our grandparents, our friends, ourselves. We checked in with our jobs, those that still answered the phone and had the lights on. We checked in with our stock portfolios and our bank accounts. Okay, that might take a while.

Finally, our hearts heavy, we went to our churches. And behold, the ground outside that was cold and hard in mid-Lent was bursting with flowers! Inside, the purples were gone, and glorious Easter whites and golds filled every corner of the sanctuary. And the lilies! That sweet Easter fragrance soaked into our dry bones, and we began to revive. And we heard the voice of the Lord say, “My people, I am going to open your graves and have you rise from them.”

And the trumpets began to blast, and the Alleluias burst forth. And the voice of the turtledove was heard in the land.

What are you most looking forward to when the church doors finally open again?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Matthew 26: 14-27:66

What an odd Palm/Passion Sunday. There will be no elegant processions through the neighborhood, no communal reading of the Passion. But we are experiencing parts of his passion right now.

Do you miss your family? The meal with loved ones is the cornerstone of our connections. Jesus didn’t eat alone before his arrest. He ate a meal of memory, the Passover meal, with the Twelve. It was his will that every time we eat that Bread and drink that Cup, we remember him.

Do you feel deep sorrow for the actions of your life that have wounded others deeply? Imagine Peter, after his betrayal of Jesus, going out and weeping bitterly.

Are you isolated and lonely? Think of Jesus, chained in Caiaphas’ dungeon the night before his death.

Do you feel intimidated by bureaucracy right now? Imagine Jesus standing before Pilate, who had the power to release him, or to crucify him.

Do you feel shame over any bullying you took part in when you were young? Imagine the shame of those chief priests, scribes and elders who mocked the Crucified One and mocked God, saying He trusted in God. Let God deliver him.

Are you worried about your investments and retirement funds? The soldiers entertained themselves at the foot of the Cross, playing a gambling game with his garment, his sole possession.

Finally, do you love someone who is fighting fever and shortness of breath? Jesus is with them, intimately. Crucifixion is really death by asphyxiation.

The Passion of Jesus holds every suffering of this world. God did not abandon Jesus, but allowed him to be with us in every way. Crowd the cross. It holds all the comfort you need.

What part of the Passion of Jesus resonates the most with you today?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on John 11: 1-45

I suspect that most of you are reading this here on The Story and You website because your parish bulletin was unavailable this week. Welcome! I pray that you are each safe from this scary virus, and that the controls put in place have in fact flattened the curve of infection. May our fast from the Eucharist make us stronger, kinder people, and may we be especially mindful of those most in need of our strength.

It’s been so inspiring to go on to our Next Door Neighbor site and see the hundreds of generous young people offering help to any neighbors who need child care, grocery pick-up, snow shoveling, or just a well-visit at the door. Barbra Streisand is so right. We people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.

Jesus needed people. He needed his disciples. He certainly needed his Mother, and Joseph. And among his friends, it seems that he needed Martha, Mary, and Lazarus most of all. The gospels tell of two significant meals at their house in Bethany. Jesus and his disciples spent a lot of time in that town (including the week before his death). Most compelling of all, though, is that after the death of Lazarus, his sisters sent word to Jesus, saying the one you love has died. And two verses later we learn that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And, of course, when he wept at the tomb, the onlookers said see how much he loved him.

It warms my heart to imagine Jesus losing control and sobbing at the tomb of Lazarus. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. His weeping for his friend is the surest way for us to know that he is ours.

How are you watching out for loved ones during this challenging time?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on John 9: 1-41

It’s only in recent times that we have documented cases of adults who have lived their entire lives without sight, and then, through surgery, are able to register “optical phenomena.” Unlike the man born blind in today’s gospel, though, they don’t register what they’re seeing right away. They know there is some kind of invasion of their retinas, but it takes patience and therapy for their brains to learn the codes of color, shape and form. It takes time to learn how to see.

One of the commentaries on this gospel suggests the reader should watch the beautiful 1999 movie, At First Sight, based on the true story of a sighted architect who fell in love with a man who lost his sight as a toddler, then, through her encouragement, had surgery in New York and, to the thrill of everyone who knew him, regained his sight.

The movie is filled with touching insights into the challenges he faced in learning to read his girlfriend’s facial expressions once he could see her. We get the majority of our data about our loved ones from a lifetime of looking at them in sickness and in health, in sadness and in utter joy. At first he couldn’t get enough information from her face to know what she was feeling, so he had to close his eyes so he could see her better.

We have to really feel sorry for all those blind people in today’s gospel. You know, the ones who had sight from birth, and still couldn’t see Jesus.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

What are you seeing about yourself this Lent that is improving your vision?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on John 4: 5-42

It’s all about water, really. The Hebrews who followed Moses out into the desert thirsted for it, and badgered Moses for it for forty years. That’s some powerful thirst. Twelve hundred years later, another thirst—to be deeply known by another—was met as Jesus conversed with the Woman at the Well. That’s what compelled her to race away, leaving her water jar behind, to tell everyone she could find about this stranger who told her everything she ever did. As St. Paul writes, “Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (I Cor. 13: 12).

That’s what Jesus gave that unnamed woman. As John Kavanaugh, SJ has written, “He was the Unknown who would know her most deeply.” She had some detours in her life, but her encounter with Jesus transformed her from that isolated woman at the well into the Spirit-filled apostle who fell in love with Love.

And don’t miss this. The Jewish community hearing this story would have nodded their heads and chuckled. Here comes the betrothal, they would say. They’re right. Isaac’s future wife Rebecca meets his marriage broker Eleazar at a well. Jacob meets his future wife Rachel at a well. Moses rescues future wife Zipporah from harassing shepherds at a well. And Jesus betrothes himself to all isolated, lonely, thirsty people when he meets the Samaritan woman at the well.

As Mother Teresa famously noted, the “I thirst” Jesus whispered from the cross must be understood in its true and eternal context: I thirst for you. He thirsts for us still.

You are beloved. You are deeply desired by Jesus. Drink that in.

Whom will you tell about the love of Jesus this week?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Genesis 12: 1-4

Wouldn’t that be the greatest thing, to be promised by God that you and all your descendants would be a blessing? Think of your own family, maybe the one you were born into or the one you’ve created. How has your family blessed your city, or your schools, or the parishes to which they’ve belonged?

I love the idea of doing a DNA search on family blessing. What remote cousin of yours stepped in when someone in his grade school was being bullied? Did your dad coach a team, or lead the Boy Scouts? Do you have any firefighters or police officers? Has anyone served in the military?

Did your sister help with voter registration, or work on election day? Has any family member ever served in office? Closer to home, have you raised kind, compassionate children? That’s the greatest blessing of all.

Do you have any teachers in your family? Medical professionals? Does anyone in your family know how to get blood from a patient painlessly? Those of us who have blood drawn regularly bless you for providing us with that most crucial cog in the medical world, the painless phlebotomist. That is a unique and powerful blessing.

Think back on the people who have provided rich blessings in your life. Maybe it’s the lawyer who helped you with your will. Maybe it’s the plumber who figured out where the leak was coming from.

Blessings travel faster around the globe than any scary pandemic. Like Abram and Sarai, our ancestors left home to find a new home. Some became famous, most toiled every day in difficult circumstances. But their blessings remain, and go forward through us.

In what ways will you be a blessing this Lent?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Genesis 2: 7-9, 3:1-7

It’s all about how much we’re willing to lie to ourselves. That’s really what that sad story of the Fall of Adam and Eve is about. The Prince of Lies sends out his first trial balloon. Hey, did God really say  you couldn’t eat any of the fruit of the garden? Oops, he overshot that one. Eve is already correcting him with the truth,  Oh no, we can have all the fruit except from the tree in the middle of the garden.

Okay, he’ll have to go straight to his BIG LIE. You poor thing! God is deceiving you. God knows that as soon as you eat of that fruit you’ll be as smart as the gods and you’ll know the difference between good and evil.

And there you have it. They knew all along that they were being played. God was holding out on them. They certainly are too smart to let God keep them in the dark like this. They grab the fruit and gobble it down.

And here’s the thing. Now they know the difference between good and evil, because now there IS a difference. Before they were lured into lying to themselves, only good surrounded them. You certainly won’t die if you eat the fruit! whispered the Prince of Death. The thing is, there WAS no death before they ate the fruit. It was in the moment of their profound lying to themselves that death entered the world.

We lie to ourselves a lot, and the result is that we are sick and sad. But Jesus saved us from ourselves. All the shiny objects of this world can’t lure us, because we know whose we truly are.

What are the lies you keep telling yourself?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Matthew 5:38-48

Of all the examples Jesus gives of nonviolent  resistance—turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile—it’s that business of the tunic that’s hardest, especially in bleak mid-winter.

Jesus says, “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well.” Try this. Imagine that you need milk and cereal for your kids, but you’re several dollars short at Walmart. The owner says, “Well, it’s snowing and it’s freezing. Give me your parka as collateral.”

Your kids are hungry, so you leave the store with your groceries and go stand at the bus stop with just a sweater to warm you. That parka is your only coat, so when the sun goes down it’s too bitterly cold to go back to the store to deliver the few dollars. In the morning, the police arrive to take you to jail because you haven’t paid for the groceries yet.

Now you’re in front of the judge, shivering in your thin sweater. “Here,” you say, taking off the only protective garment you own. “Since having my parka is so important to the owner, give him my sweater as well.”

It’s all about mercy. We are never to cast such a burden upon people that their most basic needs can’t be met. Hence the scripture, “If you take  your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset, for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body” (Exodus 22:26-27).

Use your wits, Jesus says. If your situation puts you in a position of servitude to a Financial Giant, find a way to make him look very small indeed.

How are you helping those without a coat this winter?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Matthew 5:17-37

Wouldn’t Jesus, the Master Teacher, have fun shredding some of our favorite cultural proverbs? I can just imagine the scene:

You have heard it said, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” but I say to you, “All that is hidden shall be made clear. All that is dark now shall be revealed” (Luke 8:17).

You have heard it said, “He who dies with the most toys wins,” but I say to you, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven…where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6: 19-21).

You have heard it said, “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” but I say to you, “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people” (Leviticus 19:17).

You have heard it said, “Look out for Number One, because nobody else will” but I say to you, “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:10).

You have heard it said, “Life’s terrible, and then you die,” but I say to you, “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope. And hope does not disappoint” (Romans 5:3-5).

You have heard it said that the bible says, “God helps those who help themselves,” but I say to you, “No, that’s Aesop’s Fables, not the bible. Go and find the Samaritan Woman at the Well, or the Man Born Blind, or Lazarus in the tomb. They will tell you that God helps those who cannot help themselves.”

Ah, so true. Thanks, Jesus.

What family proverbs do you have that Jesus could easily overturn?

Kathy McGovern ©2020

Reflecting on Matthew 5: 13-16

Jesus invited his disciples to be Real Salt, and Real Light, and by accounts we have of the earliest Christians, they really were. The second century theologian Tertullian imagined the pagans observing the behavior of the Christians and saying, “See how they love one another!”

Our parish is hosting an eye-opening class on Racial Equity. I realize, to my shock, that the places where I thought I was bringing salt—like taking a Spanish class in order to know a tiny bit about the parishioners in my heavily Hispanic parish years ago—were the same places I was rubbing salt in old wounds—like nominating myself to proclaim the Spanish-language reading, poorly, instead of yielding it to the actual Spanish speakers in the parish. Shivers.

I learned in class about an African-American employer who asked a young, white male applying for a job if he noticed her color. He gave the same answer I imagine myself giving, “Not at all. I don’t see color.” The interviewer helped him understand that it’s okay, it’s honest, really, to say something like, “Of course I see your color. If I didn’t I wouldn’t see you.”

Why was he afraid to give that answer? Perhaps he was wrestling with an unconscious assumption that seeing color means seeing someone who is “less than,” and he doesn’t see her that way. And that goes in both directions. When people of all ethnic backgrounds insist they don’t “see color,” might they also be really saying, “I don’t see you with the damaged worldview that I might have unconsciously received from the culture”?

Real salt. Real light. Jesus challenges us to bring Real Peace by sweeping out the dusty corners of our own hearts.

Kathy McGovern ©2020