When was the last time you read Charles Dickens?  My brother begged me to get reacquainted with him, and I’ve spent the last several months in reverent silence, listening to his stunning and shattering stories on audio tapes.

Hard Times is my latest find.  It was published in 1854, and reflects the soulless existence of the factory workers outside of London as the Industrial Revolution steals the health of the adults and the lives of the children.  Still in the throes of the 17^th century Enlightenment, the owners of the factories and the intellectual elite of the town preach a strict adherence to FACT and REASON.  “The Good
Samaritan was a poor economist,” they say.  “Jesus should have calculated the mathematical probability of being crucified,” they nod wryly.

In other words, there is no mystery in life, nothing sacred to our existence, no ocean teeming with fish waiting for us to lower our nets on the other side.  Jesus would have flunked The Enlightenment.

Isaiah, writing 700 years before Christ, tells of entering the Temple and seeing the Lord on a throne, and angels placing hot coals on Isaiah’s lips that he may be worthy to speak of such things.  He would have flunked The Enlightenment too.

As Paul relates in today’s second reading from I Corinthians 15, (the earliest account ever written on the resurrection, preceding even Mark’s gospel), Jesus appeared to many hundreds of people after the resurrection.  Those eyewitnesses went out to the ends of the earth, filled with the Holy Spirit, preaching the Risen Lord.  They would all have flunked The Enlightenment.

Oh Lord, I want to be in that number.

In what ways do you see mystery at work in the world?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on I Corinthians 12:31-13:13

When I drift off to sleep at night I try to recall all the radical love that came in my direction that day.  It washes over me like a delicious warm ocean wave, and like the ocean it rocks me gently to sleep.

There’s something about love.  We might not be able to define it, but we sure know it when we get it.  And bringing it to mind makes it “really present” all over again.

And then this thought occurs to me:  Since God is love, might it be that the only thing God CANNOT do is withhold love?  Maybe God is restricted in only one thing: God can’t stop loving us, madly, unconditionally, eternally.

At a rosary for a friend’s dad the other night the deacon read from the Rites, “God takes all of our good works with us to heaven.”  Those tiny good works that we’ve forgotten minutes after we offered them?  It turns out God has remembered every single one of them and has them stored up for us to take into eternity.

That image brings to mind the proud parent who has kept all our pictures, and trophies, and—yikes!—even our report cards, and somehow sees a beautiful, brilliant athlete/scholar there, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It’s a delicious circle.  God is LOVE, and because love never fails, God’s love keeps circling around us in an eternal loop of patience and kindness, never brooding over our sins or rejoicing over our wrongdoing.

Huh.  So THAT’S why God takes our good works to heaven with us.  Loving others creates the perfect joy that is the DNA of eternity.  Or, as Victor Hugo wrote so beautifully in Les Miserables, “To love another person is the see the face of God.”

In what ways have you experienced, by giving or receiving, the kind of love in I Corinthians 12:31-13:13?

This column was inspired by the recent deaths of four beloved Christians, each of whom loved so magnificently that it’s wonderful to imagine heaven bursting at the seams as they entered it, so much love did they bring with them.  Wayne Hendrix, Angela DiMartini, Jimmy McNamee, and Wayne Easley have each gone home to God in the past two weeks.  Watch for miracles.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 1:1-4; 4: 14-21

Of all the fascinating subjects—the saints,  scripture, social justice— that are part of the lives of the 1 billion Catholics on the globe, the one I find the most compelling is the brilliant 1969 lectionary.

If you haven’t sat with some kind of publication that has the Sunday scriptures—week after week for a year or two at least– you are missing the best-kept secret of all the reforms since the Council.

There’s a method to why we read what we read when we read it, and it’s breathtaking.  The first reading is chosen, out of all the scriptures in the entire Old Testament, to match the Gospel reading.  And the Responsorial Psalm is chosen, out of all 150 psalms, to be the soft light that illumines the connection between those two.

They rhyme, kind of.  They harmonize.  Today’s section from Luke describes the process perfectly.   Jesus takes his turn as lector in the synagogue in Nazareth.  Isaiah 61 is the Torah portion (actually the “Half Torah”, since it’s from a prophet and not from the first five books) this particular day, describing the Spirit’s anointing on the one who does justice.  Jesus closes the scroll and says, “That’s me.  Isaiah is talking about me.”

That’s how the lectionary is shaped.  The first reading is the overture, the gospel the opera.

It all started on that ancient day when Ezra the scribe, circa 450BC, read the earliest written version of The Books of Moses.  Thousands of people stood, silently aware that the Divine Presence was among them as the Word was proclaimed.

We stand still, all these years later, when the gospel is proclaimed, in communion with all the Catholic men, women and children old enough to understand.

Have you ever been fascinated with the way the readings connected on a particular Sunday?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on John 2: 1-11

African Christian Art

Right off the bat, at the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus sets out transforming us.  The first “sign” that John’s gospel gives us is that puny, weak bit of wine that runs out so quickly at the wedding at Cana.  Watch for the transformation:

Somehow, there are SIX STONE JARS sitting outside the tiny house!  This is funny, and it’s an inside joke for the Jewish-Christian readers of the first century.  Hmm.  Where else have we seen such huge jars?  Right at the entrance to the Temple, where men did ritual washings in order to make themselves pure so they could enter. Now those huge jars have been transplanted from the Temple all the way up to the little house where the marriage party is in full swing.

A similar joke might be if someone said, “We went to some Catholic friends’ home for dinner, and the stained glass windows from the Sistine Chapel were in their living room!”  It’s John’s way of saying, “Watch for the transformation that Jesus will perform.”

His mother gives directions to the stewards, and Jesus gives directions to the created world (which he created), and the water is transformed into the best wine of the party.

And of course there are countless transformations to come: the lonely Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well and becomes the premiere disciple in her village; the man born blind who is given sight so that we can see how blind we are; the dead Lazarus whose stone is rolled away.

But we don’t have to go far from the scriptures to see the best transformations, the ones that are endlessly happening in we who try and fail and try again to do whatever he tells us.

How do you try to do whatever he tells you in your life?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22

Happy New Year, everyone!

The other day my husband and I were walking our dog Gracie home from the park.  We passed several houses in the neighborhood, then for some reason I remembered that our friends live in the one we had just passed.  Looking back, I said to Ben, “there’s the Denny’s house”.  And there, waving frantically in the window, mouthing “Happy New Year,” were their darling grandchildren.

We waved and smiled and walked on, and wondered at the unusual coincidence that, without seeing them in the window and without hearing them calling to us, we turned in their direction in time to see their warm greeting.

At Jesus’ baptism, the heavens opened, the voice of the Father spoke, and the Holy Spirit actually appeared in bodily form as a dove.  But Luke doesn’t tell us who saw the dove, or who heard the voice. It happened, we know.  But who besides Jesus (and the evangelist, who is Spirit-inspired) had eyes to see or ears to hear?

If we could train our eyes and ears, I’ll bet we too would see the heavens open, and hear the voice from heaven speak.  This appearance of the Trinity—the Son coming out of the water, the Spirit resting as a dove, the Father speaking from heaven—was not a one-time event.  Christ is always with us in our dyings and risings, the Spirit is always pointing us to the ways of peace, and the Father is always speaking to us.

Or, to put it another way, love and comfort and wisdom are constantly being waved at us through soundless windows.  Take a moment to look back and notice.

What “God moment” have you had this week?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Is. 60: 1-6

On this gorgeous Christmas-tide feast day that remembers the manifestation of Christ to all the nations, I wonder if we could take a minute to let our imaginations wander in a direction which we may not have allowed ourselves for many years.  Let your heart indulge itself in this direction:

What would it be like if the United States of America were like the Star of Bethlehem?  What if our country radiated so much light, so much warmth, so much justice, so much compassion, so much strength of character that the glory of the Lord shone upon us?

What if all the nations walked by our light?  What if all the people of the world, who share the same sun and moon, (and I’m even imagining the wretched, starving masses in North Korea, who have no access to the outside world) observed such radiant wisdom in us that it literally lit up the sky and pointed all peoples in the direction of peace?

What if we, the city set on the hill, the world’s model of all possible ethnic groups living together, would be so changed by the horrors of violence against children in this country that we all put every other agenda aside until every child (and yes, the parents and siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends of every child) was safe tonight?

The divine wisdom it would require is staggering, but we are the nation that mightily helped save the world just 70 years ago.  We saved the world from the Nazis.  Can we can save ourselves too?

Of course we can. Oh Star of Wonder, guide us to thy Perfect Light.

In what ways are you resolved to radiate only Light this year?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

One Christmas Eve, while on pilgrimage to Israel, my husband and I took a memorable walk to Bethlehem from Shepherd’s Field.  This is the field that remembers the sacred place where the shepherds—that group who were considered so unclean that their testimony was not honored in court—saw the angel, who entrusted to them the greatest news in the history of the world.  Then the heavens opened and they saw “a multitude of the heavenly host” praising God.

Ben and I decided to follow their footsteps from Shepherd’s Field that Christmas Eve afternoon.  We “went in haste” those three miles, which gradually got steeper as they led to the Church of the Nativity.  Breathless and with hearts bursting, we entered the church which, at Midnight Mass in ten hours, would be packed with pilgrims from around the world.  But at this moment we were alone.  We climbed down the dark stairs that led to the ancient cave where the shepherds found “Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.”  Then those shepherds, those “outlaws”, testified to them what they had been told about Jesus.

What peace we felt there in that cave on that Christmas Eve.  As we walked out into the December chill we promised to increase our own testimony of Jesus, and to work harder for peace on earth, and goodwill towards all.

Are there places in your heart that can’t embrace a God who has love for all people?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Don’t you wish we knew more about the Holy Family?  We’d love to know about Joseph, the silent protector of Mary and Jesus.  He utters not a word in scripture, yet his docility in accepting God’s miraculous work, and his divine role in that unfolding, makes him the perfect model for all fathers. Imagine a world where children, especially sons, don’t have that “dad-sized hole” in their hearts where their fathers should have been.

The earliest artistic rendering of Mary is a fresco, c. 150 A.D., in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome.  It’s so touching to see her, protectively cradling Jesus, on this ancient wall upon which the martyrs of Rome carved their faith. About this time a book appeared, The First Gospel of James, which was immediately beloved by the Christian communities in Rome.  Though never accepted as part of the canon of the New Testament, it contrived to give background stories of Mary and Joseph that we crave to know even today.

When we see them in heaven we can ask them all our questions.

What would you most like to ask Joseph or Mary?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas this year? Because I’m sure I saw more presents for you, hidden under the tree and tucked away in secret places where you can find them at just the perfect time.

Here’s one addressed to you from “Heartfelt Compassion”. This present will open itself for you. You’ll feel your heart break open as you feel “’with passion” the daily struggle of a relative whose addiction has already strained the bonds of love in your family. It’s okay. Feel that tenderness and love for your broken relative once again. It’s Christmas for them too, with all its promises of God with us.

This next gift goes with it, so open up “Kindness” too. This is SUCH a perfect gift for you because it will keep surprising you all year! Watch for that thoughtful stranger who says, “I can see that you’re in a hurry and just have a few things to buy. Jump ahead of me.” It will show up in the surprise letter of gratitude from an old friend, or the sweet gift of taking out the trash which your spouse does every single day without saying a word. Or maybe it will be your adult child, who calls and says, “Remember how hard I fought to get you to let me hang out with my friends when I was fourteen? I’ve never thanked you for holding your ground and keeping me safe.”

There are lots more presents, and they all have your name on them. They are from Emmanuel, who promises to be with you in every struggle and every joy of the coming year. Merry Christmas.

What is your favorite memory of God’s presence with you?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 1: 39-45

Last year at this time I told you of the beautiful song The Visit, which recounts Mary’s encounter with her cousin Elizabeth (and her pre-born child John the Baptist).  I received more comments on the website which accompanies this column about that song than any column in three years.  I gratefully offer it again, reprinted with permission from Sr. Miriam Therese Winter of the Medical Missionary Sisters. And may you each, like Elizabeth, experience the joy of the presence of Christ, this Christmas and always.

THE VISIT

She walked in the summer, through the heat on the hill. She hurried as one who went with a will.

She danced in the sunlight when the day was done. Her heart knew no evening.  She carried the Sun.

Fresh as a flower at the first ray of dawn, she came to her cousin, whose morning had gone.

There leaped a little child in the ancient womb, and there leaped a little hope in every ancient tomb.

Hail, little sister you herald the spring. Hail, brave mother, you carried our King.

Hail to the Moment beneath your breast. May all generations call you blessed.

When you walk in the summer through the heat on the hill, when you’re one with the wind, and one with God’s will,

Be glad with the burden you are blessed to bear. For it’s Christ who you carry everywhere, everywhere… everywhere.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).