Kathy Coffey

Good Shepherd Sunday seems an appropriate time to thank all the family, friends, teachers, and mentors who have “guided us on the right paths.” Today, I want to focus on an author who has “shepherded” me: Frederick Buechner. Since he is the author of many books, I’ll focus just on his trilogy, Wishful Thinking, Whistling in the Dark and Peculiar Treasures. They are older books, available on interlibrary loan.  A resident of Vermont, an ordained Presbyterian minister, Buechner never pastored a church but saw writing as his ministry. That rang a bell, because for me writing is, in perhaps his most famous quote, “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

When I first read him, perhaps 45 years ago, I was a college English professor who assumed that all good writing was in the literary canon, and with fervor, I tried to pass on that love of literature to my students. I assumed that “churchy” writing was uniformly abstract, lofty, and so boring my eyes would quickly glaze over. That deadly style persists—for prime examples, see some of the hierarchy’s official documents. Buechner showed me it was possible to write about Biblical characters and concepts like grace, forgiveness and incarnation with earthy language and subtle wit. He planted a seed: was this something I, with maverick style and dubious orthodoxy could also attempt?

He seemed like even more of a kindred spirit when he admitted late in life that he was not much of a churchgoer, but found the sacred everywhere. “Needless to say, church isn’t the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, at any place, and to anybody,” when “you are apt to catch a glimpse of the almost unbearable preciousness and mystery of life.” He also describes these times as those “you say Yes to right up to the roots of your hair, that make it worth being born just to have happen.”

One of my favorite devices is the way Buechner echoes back to the beginning from the end: like Adam, near death, remembering Eden: “the leopard… the starling…the rose—he remembered giving each its name, remembered the green river, the shy, green girl.” In a meditation on feet, he describes the disciples meeting the risen Christ and in their terror and confusion, “they took hold of his feet,” (Mt. 28:9) “those same ruined, tired dogs that had carried him to them three years earlier, when they were at their accounts and their nets, that had dragged him all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem.”

How often I’ve wished to hear in a homily the profound reassurance that peppers his work: “Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it’s ruthless against anything that diminishes our joy.” “The one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.” If only a homilist could be this eloquently concrete: describing viaticum, the sacrament of bread and wine administered to the dying as provision for the journey “suggests that many a high adventure still awaits you and many a cobbled street, before you finally reach the fountain in the square.” Instead of the tired, tawdry cliches about Christmas, he offers this taut zinger: “unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light.”

When he died in 2022 at age 96, tributes poured in from across the theological spectrum. “Buechner doesn’t fit the standard categories. Perhaps that’s why he’s been able to speak to so many of us from so many different theological and experiential tribes,” wrote Russell Moore of Christianity Today.While other authors may frame brilliant theology, Buechner is often the springboard for laughter or prayer—and aren’t the two kissin’ cousins?

Although the Artemis II mission to the moon wasn’t overtly religious, it brought people around the world the joy of resurrection during Eastertide. The timing couldn’t have been better—as president Trump railed about annihilating a centuries-old civilization and raining down genocide, the astronauts reminded us we’re part of a better, longer story. One NASA administrator called them “humanity’s ambassadors to the stars” and they reminded us that earth is a lifeboat hanging in blackness where we’re all aboard together.

The science of the expedition is way beyond my powers to describe; what I found warm and fascinating was the gamut of deeply human responses to their experience. We could almost imagine riding along in their spacecraft with them as they broadcast, over and over, their wonder and delight. Christina Koch said, “I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon,” and Reid Wiseman added, “it’s absolutely unbelievable…incredible.” (Or as Canadian Jeremy Hansen told French-speaking Canadians, “incroyable…magnifique!”) Wiseman jokingly asked NASA for a new list of adjectives because there were “absolutely no words to describe what they were seeing.” After extensive training, meticulous preparation and grueling discipline, their awe was refreshingly child-like. As they described the solar eclipse, Kelsey Young, a lunar expert in Houston rose from her chair to share “moon joy.” How could anyone fail to be stirred, especially young scientists they hope to attract?

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, all four cried and embraced as they proposed naming one of the moon craters no one had ever seen before Carroll, in honor of Wiseman’s wife, the mother of Katie and Ellie, who died of cancer in 2020. Victor Glover, an African-American stressed that theirs was a human endeavor, “an opportunity to remember where we are, who we are and that we’ve got to get through this together.” Hearing his words, they all clasped hands, and even after 10 days in close quarters, their continuing affection for each other was genuine and unrehearsed.

In between the two poles of the emotional spectrum were refreshingly earthy bits—like Hansen providing maple syrup and maple cream cookies for a distinctively Canadian celebration when they went further than any humans had. Or a persistent toilet malfunction. Or Christina Koch remembering how she awoke on April 3 to a whisper, “we’re going for launch,” then her nurse putting her to bed the night of April 10 asking, “Ma’am, can I get a hug?” Around the world, people on the NASA website posted flags of many nations and wished in many languages, “godspeed!” or “Welcome home!”

Humbly, the astronauts acknowledged over 50 years of quiet preparation since Apollo 13: “how well supported and trained we were.” It wasn’t luck that arranged such a meticulous landing, precise research or careful attention to their health. No wonder that hard-working scientists at mission control in Houston dressed for the occasion—some of the men in ties and some of the women in dress blazers—in a room where the exhilaration on landing was palpable.

As the astronauts held their first interview there, they affirmed how hard it was to be away from their families: “we will always choose earth and each other.” Or as poet Robert Frost wrote in “Birches,” “Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. “ Wiseman summed up their hope: “for just a moment to have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted.”

The crew so likeable, enthusiastic and thoughtful was right out of central casting—as was the final setting, their splashdown in the Pacific and retrieval by helicopter to a nearby ship during sunset—a golden hour. Rare, irreplaceable, best of being human. How aptly the scripture fit the moment: “Awe came upon everyone” (Acts 2:42).

See Kathy’s review of a book on judging: https://uscatholic.org/articles/202604/do-not-judge-anyone-points-to-mercy-in-an-unforgiving-world/

St. Thomas’ second name “Didymus” means twin, and especially this week we could all feel kinship with him. Or as Frederick Buechner writes, “If you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep.” (Wishful Thinking, 23) It may be even more than doubt. A government we once believed stable and responsible? That trust has been wiped out by the current president’s maniacal threats to “annihilate an entire civilization.” Yet doubt, even of greater things like the resurrection, doesn’t seem to bother Jesus.

Where we might have expected glory and trumpets the first Sunday after Easter, instead we get typical, honest, human groping towards truth. A splendid reunion between Jesus and his friends? Not quite. But maybe something better: Jesus’ mercy, meeting them where they (and we) are stumbling, extending his hand in genuine understanding and compassion.

Despite the fact that it has been celebrated for centuries, the quality of mercy remains an abstraction. Today, Jesus gives mercy a human face and touch.

Before we criticize Thomas too much, we should ask what we might do in a similar situation. Would we also be skeptical if our friends told us that someone had returned from death? Wouldn’t we want to see for ourselves? Thomas may simply voice the questions most disciples harbor secretly.

The first disciples, caught in fear and confusion, are hardly the finest spokespersons for the gospel. But then, neither are we. We have the same mixture of doubt and certainty, anxiety and joy that they had.

Jesus responds to us as he did to Thomas—without harsh judgment. He understands our needs for concrete reassurance. After all, God created us with five senses to help us learn. And if Thomas—stubbornly insistent on tangible proof—can believe, maybe there’s hope for us all.

To us as to him, Jesus extends the same merciful invitation: “touch me and see.” Only by coming dangerously close to this wounded Lord will we know transformation of our wounds—and resurrection. Doubt isn’t evil: it’s the entryway to hope.

See Kathy’s review of a book on judging: https://uscatholic.org/articles/202604/do-not-judge-anyone-points-to-mercy-in-an-unforgiving-world/

In chilly, dark December, we sang with gusto, “Oh we need a little Christmas, right this very minute. Need a little Christmas now!” Maybe this year, we should echo, “We need a little Easter, now!”

Each day’s news brings another crushing assault on our democracy, and every new headline describes major, cruel policy shifts we never voted on. But fine columnists like Nicholas Kristof in his article “War’s budget could save lives, not end them,” did the research to discover:

–For just over two weeks of war on Iran, we could give free college tuition to every US family earning less than $125,000 annually

–For four hours of this war, we could get eyeglasses to the 2.3 million low-income children in the US who need them but don’t have them

–For less than 13 hours of this war, we could screen uninsured women who need it for cervical cancer, which kills a woman every two hours on average in the US.

The list goes drearily on, and grows even more tragic when the bill for war contrasts with the good we could be doing abroad, like saving children from starvation. Maybe the dire situation and the hopeless frustration point even more convincingly this year to our need for resurrection. We can’t pivot too easily towards Easter; the passion narratives show the arduous, grueling pain that finally brings new life. What we must do is audaciously, defiantly imagine what we can’t see now, the hope that hovers beyond what’s visible.  

As Jim Finley says on his podcast, “Turning to the Mystics,” Jesus always approaches people who are caught in something unresolved. He sees beyond the current impasse to what endures: God’s infinite love for God’s child. Post-resurrection, that continues with the disciples walking towards Emmaus. The hallmark of an Easter people is always joy, because as theologian Karl Rahner says, “If they can take it away, it’s not God.”  

Surely the tender, tiny leaves emerging on trees sing of new life. As Thomas Merton wrote in When the Trees Say Nothing, “beech leaves are the loveliest things in creation when they are just unfolding.” Other signals call us to hope in the larger arena: the millions who turned out on March 28  for No Kings Day protests with hilarious and brilliant signs, the diversity of the Artemis II astronauts and the excitement of their mission to the moon, the group at the San Diego federal courthouse that laid palm branches down the path migrants would take to detention hearings, reverencing the parallel to Jesus’ unjust condemnation, Cecillia Wang, the ACLU lawyer arguing for birthright citizenship guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment who “walked in the spirit of my parents and so many people’s ancestors who came to this country with hopes and dreams, and they gave birth to future Americans, and that’s us.” A first grader sounds out a word and writes it in shaky letters, and the women find the tomb empty. From a group of unruly, distracted middle schoolers, a choir director coaxes beautiful song; Mary hears her name in familiar tones.

Anyone who lives long enough questions. Why do the wicked prosper? Why do the young die? Why does potential wither while evil thrives?  Why do high hopes sometimes smash against rocky reality?

The genius of today’s gospel is that Jesus doesn’t try to answer such unanswerable questions. He enters into them. After his arrest, he can’t act as he has before. He’s rendered passive—and from that stance, saves humanity.

Seeing his hopes unravel and his plans destroyed, Jesus plans a last meal. His concern in his final hours isn’t with imminent, brutal suffering but with a last, poignant gesture of friendship. He reaches out to them–and to us–with the nurture of bread, the spirit of wine and the praise of song. During his whole ordeal, there is no word of recrimination, though it would be understandable. He responds to crushing betrayal by pouring out love.

According to Frederick Buechner in Peculiar Treasures, the early church held a tradition that Judas’ suicide wasn’t based on despair but on hope. He knew God was just, thus knew where he was headed. But he also knew that the merciful Jesus would make a “last-ditch effort to save the souls of the damned” in hell. So, Judas figured, hell might be the last chance he’d have of heaven. No one really knows, but it’s interesting to speculate. “Once again they met in the shadows, the two old friends, both of them a little worse for wear after all that had happened, only this time it was Jesus who was the one to give the kiss, and this time, it wasn’t the kiss of death that was given.” (93-94)

An interesting spin on the story we’ve often heard. The questions aren’t answered, but One goes before us who lives through them, endures.

Read “Grounded in Creation” by Kathy Coffey, US Catholic, March 2026, 23-25.

The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead will be read in many Christian churches this weekend. Seeing its parallels to our own time deepens its meaning and relevance.

The tomb seems especially dark now, three weeks into war-on-a-whim.

The belligerent attack on Iran represents a violent, tribal mindset that we might have hoped humankind was outgrowing. The President told NBC News on March 14 that strikes on Kharg Island, home to Iran’s primary oil export terminal, “totally demolished” most of the island but that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”

“Just for fun”? Tell that to the parents of 165 children killed Feb. 28 in an Iranian elementary school by a “target mistake of the US military.” Tell that to the widow of Maj. Alex Klinner, father of three children ages two and under, killed in the crash of a refueling jet in Iraq, which US Central Command calls an “unspecified incident.” And mention the cost–$1 billion a day–to families struggling to pay for health care, groceries and gas.  You play with exorbitantly costly toys, Mr. President.

Yet glimmers of light and flutters of grave cloths still bring hope.

Polls show that a majority of Americans don’t want a war without any evidence of Iran posing an imminent threat of attack, begun without Congressional authorization. Some of our representatives have voiced the public’s outrage. Sen. Adam Schiff and other Democratic senators have twice introduced the War Powers Resolution that would “direct the removal of U.S. armed forces from hostilities against Iran.” Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) observed that Trump “has more plans for the ballroom he’s trying to build at the East Wing than anything he’s gonna do next in the Middle East.”

Some religious leaders remind us that Iranians aren’t “the enemy”; war is the enemy.  The current state of affairs isn’t the whole story; we have been part of a better narrative and can return to it. Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago condemned a social media video posted by the White House featuring footage from the war spliced with scenes from action movies and captioned “Justice the American way.” Cupich took issue with the video’s focus on entertainment. “A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening.” (NCR 3/8/26)

Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington DC said the Iran war fails to meet just war teaching “because it is far from clear that the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done…nations have the strict obligation to end a war as soon as possible. This is particularly true when the decision to go to war was not morally legitimate.”(NCR March 9, 2026)

Commentators and cartoonists remind us that a big motive for going to war may have been to distract from the Epstein files. Nicholas Kristof informs clearly that after the horrors of World War II, the U.S. led efforts to “try to tame the savagery of combat and, in particular, to shield civilians.” Secretary of War (aptly renamed) Pete Hegseth blithely dismissed these additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions as “stupid rules.”  

And Yet. Lazarus stirs. Somewhere a boat sails across a starry sea. The bells of hyacinths gradually unfold. Children shriek with delight as their swings arc higher and higher. The scent of new-cut grass arises after rain. Simply because we live in an autocracy doesn’t diminish the magnificence of God. We know we can’t change the government single-handedly, so we turn to shared strengths and faith. Jesus approaches the tomb, arm outstretched. We hold tight to the promise: “all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out…” (John 5:28)

Read “Grounded in Creation” by Kathy Coffey, US Catholic, March 2026, 23-25.

I was so excited my son could see, I couldn’t understand how anyone would twist a miracle into placing blame. But the interrogating Pharisees didn’t have my memories: the blind child, moving on instinct, his hands waving before him, sometimes bumbling into doors or trees, the other children jeering, the times when the attempt to keep up became too much, and he collapsed in exhaustion.

But my boy’s wit served him well. He’d met a long series of bullies, so he knew how to stand up to the Sanhedrin. When they probed for information about his healer, he asked slyly, “Do you want to become his disciples too?” “He can speak for himself,” his father said. And he could—eloquent and bold, even through a grilling that would have intimidated trained orators.

Still, I wondered. The rabbis taught that my sin had caused his blindness. How had I made the light die in his eyes? How had I harmed one most precious to me?

But soon the sudden sparkle in my son’s gaze ended the guilt I carried within. My son’s vision restored my own. Like the scales slipping from his eyes, my burden vanished. Jesus freed me from placating the synagogue crowd when he said, “Neither he nor his parents sinned.” Were the rabbis wrong, or had I just moved to a different stage, a greater light and liberation?

Excerpted from Hidden Women of the Gospels by Kathy Coffey, Orbis Books, orbisbooks.com, 800-258-5838

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Read “Grounded in Creation” by Kathy Coffey, US Catholic, March 2026, 23-25.

She just wants to fill her bucket and get home before it gets any hotter. The encounter which changes her life comes in the ordinary drudgery—at the well, not the synagogue; in the office, not the church; in the kitchen, not the temple. Almost like finding enlightenment in the frozen food aisle.

But Jesus welcomes desire at the well, indeed, considers it even more important than his own drink. Both the woman and Jesus find so much joy in their conversation, they forget the concerns that brought them here in the first place. He never gets his drink; she abandons her jar. But their deep yearnings meet.

As John Main writes in Word Into Silence, “The consuming desire of Jesus [is] to flood [us] with His Spirit.” (p. 46) Or to give “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She’s plucky enough to believe him. She responds to a promise, never seeing this miraculous water nor feeling it spill down her sleeves. Maybe she likes his style: to call, never coerce.

Curious how we might respond? Main, says, “numbed by the extravagance of … New Testament claims… we … tone them down in safe theological formulae.” (p. 44) The woman no longer skulks alone and anonymous to the well at noon, when no one else is there. She blazes into the village like a brass band, eager to speak her truth. Newly come to voice, she snags people, holds them in the hollow of her hand.

The Samaritan woman is a model to us all of how to befriend our longing and move towards trust. Her water jar, symbol of domestic duty, is left in the dust. She herself becomes the vessel for the best news anyone could hear.

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Read “Grounded in Creation” by Kathy Coffey, US Catholic, March 2026, 23-25.

We all have moments of transformation. Our clothes may not be radiant and we may not chat with prophets, but ever so subtly a shift occurs, moving beyond our default mode, an inch or two closer to God’s dream for us. Or to reframe the traditional Ash Wednesday prayer, said as ashes are marked on foreheads: we “turn from ego. Trust the good news.”

To become less judgmental, less anxious—such a transformation could take all of Lent and beyond! But like the disciples in the Transfiguration gospel, we go through a broad spectrum. First the shining vision. Then Jesus’ touch lifts from prostrate fear to action. The disciples next encounter an epileptic boy, who falls into fires and water. We may want to linger on the mountaintop, but Jesus leads back to the nitty grit.

Then our challenge becomes, as Jeremy Smith describes, “realizing the power you have to transform an obstacle into an opportunity…reframing a loss into a potential gain, recasting negativity into positive channels for gratitude.” Case in point: my gym moves our classes into a crowded new space, where we feel crammed, with a smaller parking lot that fills fast. We’d grown used to the spaciousness and amenities of the first location, especially the coffee shop conveniently next door for R and R after work-outs. Grumpiness ensued, meself among the most vocal critics. Until the day I decided to reframe.

“We’re all here,” I thought as I saw Sue, Tessa, Barb and Whitney, exercising around me. Our wonderful teachers are making the best of an uncomfortable situation, determined to be cheerful. Best of all, we’re accomplishing what we came for: strength, fitness, flexibility. Aren’t the details fairly minor? Aren’t we lucky to be here, independent and mobile, when—at a “certain” age–we could so easily be preparing for surgery or feeling chronic pain? And after class, aren’t we free to find other coffee shops, coast on adrenaline surge through the rest of the day, doing mostly whatever we want?

I know: it’s a flimsy example, when others are undergoing far worse and managing to see the positives in terrible experiences. But it’s close to home and rooted in the real. Jesus’ magnificent example shows the Best that humans can become, with his compassion healing the epileptic boy immediately after the unveiling of his splendid light. Perhaps his model is almost-overwhelming, so we can’t be in doubt about the high ideal to which we’re called.

So as we grow, details that once seemed so important don’t matter as much. People I once would’ve labeled “strange” are fascinating, and have much to teach. “How can I brighten this day for someone else?” becomes a more important benchmark than “What can I accomplish today?” And G.K. Chesterton gives the perfect example of attitude adjustment: Cinderella whines to her fairy godmother about having to leave the ball at midnight. Her kindly helper replies, “Sweetie, who said you could come to the ball in the first place?”

And so we pray: transform me into Yourself. Help me take on the kindness of Christ.

This season for Christians, as for other traditions that take time to repent, marks a turning point. From what to what? Jesus didn’t know or use the word “sin,” which wasn’t part of the Hebrew construct. As John Philip Newell points out in Christ of the Celts, the doctrine of original sin, invented in the fourth century has tragically taught that “what is deepest in us is opposed to God rather than of God.” It disempowers because it says “we are essentially ugly rather than rooted in divine beauty, essentially selfish rather than made in the image of love.” It has done untold damage, especially indoctrinating children, denying their inherent dignity.

Not to deny the existence of woundedness, greed and self-interest. Jesus clearly understood the context of anything less than the fullness of what God wants us to become, our birthright. So he says, “Turn from all that drags you down.” Are we haunted by worries about the future or shame about the past? Are we still angry about something that happened years ago? Lent means springtime: it presents us with the opportunity to slough off like a snakeskin all that deadens. Instead, we turn to the God who made us, who redeemed us and who lives in us. As Julian of Norwich said, “between God and the soul, there is no between.”

Jesus said, “the Prince of this world has no hold on me,” so we belong to God, not to what threatens. If we over-identify with our emotions, achievements, fears, work or ideas, we risk being in bondage to one sector of our lives, out of balance as a whole person. Instead, Jesus invites us to belong completely to him, with all we are. The only door into the future is trust. God who has been faithful before can be trusted again. Can we step towards that source of vitality this Lent?

Some gospel accounts of Jesus’ temptations end with the phrase, “and angels waited on him.” After a dreadful ordeal, when Jesus is hungry and probably exhausted, the presence of the divine is still with him. It is possible that angels attend all our lonely desert places. Where we sense the least comfort, there it abounds. Perhaps it’s a relationship, health or job issue, looming decision. And how have light wings touched us during ordinary days? Through health care workers, nature’s shining beauty, kind friends, relatives who don’t tire of our cranky moods or repeated stories? Grace restores our natural, finest self.