Category Archives: Family Spirituality

Kathy apologizes for the delay in posting an Easter message. She was called to Colorado suddenly to clear out and sell her home there, the final step in moving to the Bay Area to be near her beloved children and grandchildren. She prays it will become a resurrection…

God of Resurrection

and new life, you whose

dear son Jesus broke open

the tomb and the clutches

of death, help us to hear

the good news with the

enthusiasm of Mary Magdalene,

Peter and the beloved disciple.

May we too run with energy,

pause with prayerful reflection

and then believe as they did.

Help us hear “rumors of resurrection”

everywhere we go –and spread them.

***

As David Steindl-Rast points out in GRATEFULNESS: THE HEART OF PRAYER, the angel’s message to bewildered disciples doesn’t say that Jesus has come back to life. Our concept of life edges inevitably towards death. But Jesus has already passed through death. “He is not here” means that Jesus has gone far beyond our limited understanding. All we know is that “the tomb is open and empty, a fitting image for wide open hope.”

How touching: in his final hours, Jesus’ focus is not on the evil that will pin him to the cross, nor the imminent brutality, but on  a last gesture of concern for his friends. Today’s gospel begins with his  Passover meal. His final gifts to the disciples are nurturing bread, inspiriting wine, songs of praise, thanks and blessing.

One of the most heart-breaking lines in the account of Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane is, “Why are you sleeping?” We know how miserably his friends failed him then, but what about ourselves in similar situations? Do we stand with the grieving, those who suffer Christ’s passion today?

As the disciples sleep, Jesus agrees to his Father’s plan, despite what it will cost him. He recognizes, as we should, that God is infinitely wiser than the limited human mind. With any of life’s most challenging passages—marriage, parenthood, a career, dying–we have no idea what we’re getting into. We grow into that awareness. During his passion, Jesus is not a child nor a slave, but a conscious adult, who agrees in love to whatever the Father asks.

This is a good week to take some quiet time and reflect on Jesus’ innocence and willingness. We could ask ourselves the unanswerable question voiced by God at the veneration of the cross on Good Friday, “My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!”

Today’s gospel (John 11:1-45) prompts us to ask where we ourselves are bound and death-like. Have we capitulated to the culture’s definition of us as consumers? Have we bought into the put-downs tossed off by the careless that do unintended harm? Do we resort to old categories (gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, socio-economic level), caging unique human beings? Jesus’ call comes to us all: “Lazarus come forth!” Shed those paralyzed trappings; enter into new and abundant life.

It is marvelous to consider Martha’s role in this miracle. She starts with an understandable complaint: “If you’d come sooner, my brother wouldn’t have died.” Yet she dares to hope for more, just as Mary once told Jesus at Cana, “they have no more wine.” Martha is far more creative than the bystanders, who never dream that this “Johnny-Come-Lately” could defy death and wrench their friend from the tomb.

Approaching his passion, it’s almost as if Jesus needs one slight affirmation. He must wonder whether those who’d been with him so long had the slightest glimmer of understanding. Peter had once professed that Jesus was the Christ, but in the next verse, Jesus is warning him because of his stupidity, “get thee behind me, Satan!” Martha, on the other hand, gives Jesus what he needs: her belief that he is “the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Encouraged by her trust, Jesus asserts his truest identity: “the resurrection and the life.”

Scripture scholar Thomas Brodie writes of the man born blind: His first words, ”ego eimi” mean literally, “I am.” But there’s more to this than a simple self-identification. They also place him in line with God’s self-definition, “I am who am,” and Jesus’ string of identifiers elsewhere in John: I am the bread of life (6:35) and light of the world. This spunky, uneducated man represents us all, made in God’s image. (The Gospel According to John New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 55.)

Furthermore, the formerly blind man models how to trust. He’s so grateful to Jesus he believes him completely, and bows in reverence to him. He may not have read anything, but he stands in sharp contrast to the Pharisees who desperately cling to a tired tradition: “we are disciples of Moses.” Their blindness keeps them from seeing how awesomely God works in the present.

We shouldn’t pick on them when we all have our blind spots. Sometimes, metaphorically, we choose to hang out in the dark basement, rather than the gorgeous, light-filled ballroom to which God invites us. If we wallow in despair or anxiety, we overlook our amazing identity: created like God.

Jesus arrives at the well in today’s gospel (John 4:5-42) tired, thirsty, aware that he’s among Samaritans who have a long history of conflict with his people.

He immediately breaks a social taboo since a good Jewish boy never spoke to a woman (even his mother, wife or sister) in public. So the Samaritan woman is surprised–and intrigued. Jesus refused to categorize her by gender or  nationality. He begins by expressing poignant human need, the same thirst he named from the cross. Then he engages in conversation with her, just as he did with Martha, Peter, or the other disciples.

His conversational style is important: some believe that the Trinity itself is a marvelous conversation or dance among the three persons of God. In contrast, the one-sided lecture form seems stale and lifeless. Jesus’ conversation liberates the woman from enshrined prejudices and irrelevant beliefs. Where we worship is secondary, he says. How we worship is primary.

Since Jesus has invited the woman’s participation from the beginning, it’s natural for her to become involved in spreading the good news. She leaves behind her water jar, symbol of exhausted systems and drudgery, in her eagerness to tell her village about Jesus.

The Samaritan woman got more than she bargained for when she went to draw water. She got a life-giving spring, gushing up to eternal life. And we, working at the old tasks, the same routines or the endless chores, we too might be surprised by a stranger…

“Try it in G,” the musician suggests and we hear the same song in a different key. So Jesus models a transition from his glorious mountaintop experience to the verses that follow today’s gospel, about a boy foaming at the mouth, grinding his teeth and rigid. Descending, Jesus scolds a “faithless generation,” who cannot cure him, then rebukes the demon, curing what today we might term epilepsy.

“Will the real Jesus please stand up?” We’re inclined to believe in the one whose face dazzles and whose clothes shine, affirmed by the Father’s voice. Clearly Peter is stunned into babbling an elaborate plan for building tents, so Jesus can converse with the prophets in peace.

Yet it is no less Jesus who repeats, “how much longer must I put up with you?” in exasperation with the disciples’ lack of faith and inability to cure the boy. He heals him “instantly,” so his power is still intact; his compassion still overflows.

We also go through various transformations in our days. We might be praying, then cooking, gardening, paying bills, caring for children or the elderly, chatting, reading, singing, shopping, working on the computer, filling the car with gas or doing the laundry. It’s the same self, in different keys. But because of Jesus’ transfiguration, we do all these things as divine children of the Great King. It’s all prayer in different ways. The disciples who saw Jesus in dazzling light also see themselves anew.  The radiance might not be obvious, but it is there nonetheless, hiding beneath the surface.

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 somehow 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. How might God be present in difficult circumstances?

As ashes are signed on our foreheads, we hear the words, “Turn from sin; trust the good news.” What does that mean? Sin in the Hebrew context was anything less than the fullness of what God wants us to become.

“Turn from all that drags you down,” Jesus says. 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. Just as Jesus would say that the Prince of this world has no hold on me, so we belong to God, not to all that threatens. If we over-identify with our emotions, achievements, children, 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 life source this Lent?

Before concerned readers send heart-felt offers of therapy, a caveat: as addictions go, this is fairly minor. It’s the slightest binge on two t.v. shows, savored on laptop because at the moment, I don’t own a t.v.

Two favorite scenes have offered volumes for reflection, the first from “Downton Abbey.” See—isn’t everyone addicted to Maggie Smith as Lady Violet?  This absolutely silent moment occurs after Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes have returned from their honeymoon to a reception in the servants’ quarters. He excuses himself from the party, explaining to her that he must check if his room has been cleared out completely. When he glances around the small space, it must kindle fifty years of memories. Walking through the door, he removes his name plate, “Mr. Carson,” and slips it into his pocket.

Why did that quiet moment resonate so deeply? Having recently moved from Colorado to California, I know how difficult it is to part with the past. Leaving friends, familiarity, work, home and beautiful Rocky Mountains was heart-breaking. From a spacious deck, I could see snow on the high peaks. Friends offered their mountain cabins for several days of skiing or hiking, and cozy evening fires. I’d gone there for graduate school 45 years before and traveled widely since, but always perked up when the plane flew over the Rockies and landed at Denver airport.

However, children and grandchildren lived in the Bay area, and California had always been a favorite vacation spot. Six grandchildren under the age of  four on the west coast beckoned with powerful allure. I wanted to be part of their lives, not a quarterly visitor. I wanted to help their parents when they needed it most, in those vulnerable early years. My life in Colorado seemed increasingly self-centered, when I could be a big help in California.

And so I moved. As Carson removes his name tag from the door, a bright new future lies before him. Despite his age, he’ll make a home with a wonderful woman whom he loves dearly.  It doesn’t discount one bit of that potential to pause, perhaps for gratitude or goodbye.

Colorado will always hold a place in my heart and I’ll visit as often as I can. But the future lies on the west coast now, with little ones hugging my knees and calling, “Grammy!” Flowers bloom in January outside my kitchen window, and a crimson-throated hummingbird hovers as I write.

The other scene occurs in “Madam Secretary” where Tia Leone plays Elizabeth McCord, a bright and powerful woman, an amalgam of three actual female secretaries of state. Her marriage to handsome Dr. Henry McCord seems impossibly happy, but her three children provide welcome notes of imperfect reality.  Consistently she works for peaceful solutions of world problems, even though she’s surrounded by military leaders urging war. In an episode titled “The Show Must Go On,” a series of kerfuffles leads to her being sworn in temporarily as president of the United States.

She has no time to prepare, but she steps forward and places her hand on the Bible with confidence and grace. Although the private ceremony has been hastily arranged, her reverence acknowledges the dignity of the office she’ll assume.

It reminds me of the many times we’ve all assumed tasks that seem huge; we wonder fleetingly if we’re up to the challenge. But then we plunge ahead for whatever reason, because someone has to do the job. Gradually, God’s power becomes ours. And when God empowers, there’s no time wasted on futile discussion of gender. We do what the moment requires, and perhaps only in retrospect, recognize one of our finest hours.

Anyone who’s had small children knows the grubby intensity of the knotted tennis shoe lace. Maybe kiddos now have Velcro, but back in the day, we had epic struggles and gruesome battles with the stubborn knot, while the child wriggled in frustration.

Maybe that’s why I was so drawn to Mary, Undoer of Knots. Last weekend was my introduction; I hadn’t known this is one of Pope Francis’ favorite devotions. Just google the name; you’ll have a feast of images and prayers. Most of the art is quite traditional, so the devotion must go back centuries.

Most people’s ordinary life is so full of complexity and thorny problems, it makes us want to lie down for a long nap. That’s where this image of Mary comes in. She gets it. Surely in the life of Jesus and the early church, she wrestled with mammoth issues. Some images present her as gliding smoothly along a paved highway with no traffic. This one shows the reality: questions that she, like us, needed all her strength and courage to resolve.  Hooray for a Mary who lived as we do, AND who has an extraordinary grace to untie the knots.