Category Archives: Family Spirituality

The human ego resists change, especially as we age. “Gimme my safe rut, even if it’s miserable!” we say, defying logic. But Advent presents a different approach to change.

The names at the beginning of today’s reading from Luke stand like marble pillars, suggesting what appears to be the stoic permanence of the governor, tetrarch and high priest. Against such stony political, military and religious might, how could a voice crying in the desert have any effect at all? Ah, stay tuned… What a topsy-turvy, crazy toppling will ensue.

Change is bound to come our way this season too—the usual routines so disrupted that some people eagerly anticipate the resumption of school and work schedules. But the two key figures of Advent, John the Baptist and Mary have no script foretelling the future, no promise that everything will go back to normal January 6.

Mary models the perfect response to God’s unexpected, even scandalous intervention in her life. When she told Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said,” she had no guarantees. All she’d learned was the trust handed on by great great-grandmothers: if it comes from God’s hands, it must be perfectly tailored for me. If change brings us serious problems, do we run from them, or lean into them, wondering what they might teach us? Can we befriend our pain, knowing we’re more than its sting?

A stunning example of change occurs in the film “Small Things Like These” in which Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, an Irish coal merchant who through flashbacks re-imagines the loss and grief of his childhood, thus making his final action credible. The film, set in 1985, is based on the novel by Claire Keegan, nominated for the Booker Prize in 2022. As the title suggests, the plot is low-key, restrained, a whisper rather than a shout about the hellish Magdalene laundries.

According to a review in NCR, between 1922 and 1996, more than 10,000 women were enslaved in ten institutions run by Catholic sisters in Ireland. (https://www.ncronline.org/culture/magdalene-laundries-are-topic-new-cillian-murphy-film-small-things-these) The film cites a government investigation into 18 “mother and baby” homes that confined “56,000 unmarried mothers and about 57,000 children” during that same period. This 2021 study also revealed that 9000 children died in these asylums. But in the small Irish town of the film, they function routinely as the pharmacy, bakery or pub.

Delivering coal to the laundry, Bill discovers a desperate young girl locked in the coal shed. When he tells Mother Superior (Emily Watson), she assures him that all is well, the suffering a mere misunderstanding, gilding her hypocrisy with veiled threats to his own five daughters in the sisters’ school, and a subtle bribe to buy his silence. When he tells his wife Eileen, she warns, “If you want to get on in this life, there are things you have to ignore.” A friend adds, “These nuns have a finger in every pie.”

Exactly the death grip of the Irish church on Irish society that one courageous act could start to unlock. Although Keegan insists that Bill is no hero, his last act stirs a resemblance: could he be a contemporary redeemer, his hands covered with coal dust? Maybe this is what Merton meant when he said: in every age, the gospel message speaks anew, indeed to our age, with its unique perplexities, crimes, and shinings. Our job? Pay attention.

Advent again? We might wonder where the year has flown as we dig out the wreath, prayers, four candles. How often have we used that tattered purple ribbon? Can it be camouflaged under the greenery this year too? Can we possibly get together the gifts, decorations, baking etc. in the next 24 days?

Ah, we may be falling into the anxiety trap Jesus describes. A better approach comes from Thomas Merton who writes, “The Gospel is handed down from generation to generation, but it must reach each one of us brand new, or not at all. If it is merely ‘tradition’ and not news, it is not Gospel.”  (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 127) No same ol’, same ol’ –or as Jesus says, “stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

A marvelous newness stirs me awake this year: through the book Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories by Debie Thomas (Cascade Books, 2022). I hadn’t known this author before, but she has startling, refreshing insights into gospels stories that may have grown overly familiar. Her special sensitivity to women reassures me: I’m not the only one to seek their hidden stories. She points out how Jesus invites the woman with the 12-year flow of blood to tell her “whole truth” (Mark 5:25-35). He insists she come forward, not skulk away in shame, and he listens: even if she stammers, stumbles, or takes all day. She has been diminished and ostracized, but his careful attention “renames the outcast ‘daughter.’”

In the Cana story, Thomas points out how Jesus changes his plans, his timeline for love of his mother. “Jesus is no fool; he knows that his countdown to crucifixion will begin as soon as he makes his identity known.” And we cringe, we who are overly devoted to our deadlines and our plans–when the stakes are far higher for him.

If we’ve grown jaded about the gospel and want to rediscover the vulnerable Jesus who notices, who pivots, who astonishes, this book gives a fine nudge. And Thomas deftly interweaves highly relevant personal experiences, so it’s clear: She Gets It. An added bonus–we like the same authors: Barbara Brown Taylor, Mary Gordon, Brene Brown, Frederick Buechner, Parker Palmer.

Recently, I’ve been reading Merton with his focus on contemplation and Teilhard de Chardin, who praises the Creator, and Kathleen Singh who comes from a Buddhist perspective. Thomas brought me back to the humanity of Jesus, who got tired, thirsty, and relished the feel of ointment on dry skin.  Poignantly, he compares himself to a mother hen, wings stretched wide in welcome, whose children refuse to draw near. Yet still, she calls us home; “she will not fold her wings and turn away.”

Although I’ve just begun this book, I’ve also ordered Thomas’ A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity and two copies of Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories for Christmas gifts.  This newness stuff gets addictive!

The Thanksgiving blog is fun to write, because I get to choose the best entries in my gratitude journal for the last year. Some patterns repeat—frequent mention of cookies, shafts of sun on flowers, the play of light on water. But here are a few that seem to be unique this year:

The way memory can transform, so that during a grueling weightlifting class, I’m mentally elsewhere—aboard a vaporetto approaching Venice, spray in our faces, outlines of domes and campaniles ahead

The gift of a spiritual director who doesn’t confine his attention to the allotted hour, but follows up with e-mail and book recommendations, CD loans. Without his deeply sensitive listening, my transition to the Bay Area 9 years ago would’ve been much harder  

Waking during the night and discovering: still 2 or 3 more hours of sleep to go!

A friendship of over 70 years—we went to kindergarten together—someone so consistently gracious and generous it’s been an honor to have her company this long. She’s the kind of person who during lunch, long before anyone else has thought about the bill, slips her credit card to the waitress. Or the minute I send her good news of my daughter’s wedding, responds immediately and whole heartedly

The cheerful kindness of helpers at the grocery store

Marvelously (and sometimes darkly) addictive streaming on PBS: “Broadchurch,” “Astrid,” “Professor T,” “Poetry in America,” “The Marlow Murder Club,” “Call the Midwife,” “Magpie Murders,” “Moonflower Murders,” “Mr. Bates vs The Post Office,” and several on other channels too

Packing a suitcase, remembering the last trip, anticipating the one to come

The easy rhythm of routine, so we needn’t think of every next step

Doing a shoulder stand at yoga, straight and clean as a candle

Surprising gift of an hour here or there—an exercise class cancels, a car mechanic finishes sooner than expected, parents get home early after grammy’s childcare

Happy cacophony of trash trucks clunking along their routes, doing their jobs

Unanticipated cards, texts, calls or e-mails from friends, family or unexpected folks

Patches of blue marbling the sky after a long stretch of grey

An evening reading by the fireplace, totally absorbed in Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

A first-grade teacher who is awake at 3 am brainstorming more strategies to help students who are a year behind in reading.

Lap swim in summer—held between cobalt sky and azure water

The fragrance of home-made pizza drifting through the heating vents on a chilly night

Returning to authors who were old favorites—Merton, Rupp, Finley, Teilhard, Oliver, Dillard, Patchett—and meeting new treasures—Singh, Penny

The steady fidelity of mail delivery trucks pulling out of the Post Office every morning

First wink of a red cherry tomato hidden under leaves in the garden

Getting everything on the day’s “To Do” list DONE

The green shimmer of hummingbirds drinking deep at my feeder

Hiking beneath redwoods whose feathery tops brush the sky, reminding that beyond human concerns, God is sovereign and Love has the final word.

And now, dear reader, in the spirit of gratitude, add your own…

Joyce Rupp is a precious treasure in the world of spirituality, and I’d say that even if she weren’t my friend. If, like me, you’re overwhelmed by the thought of holiday shopping, her books are perennial favorites, read and re-read—and you’re in luck for the gift list. The newest: Vessels of Love is available from Orbis Press: 800-258-5838, orbisbooks.com.

It’s for those who wonder about aging: if they’ll become invisible or marginalized, “put on the shelf” with a condescending pat on the head. It’s especially appropriate for those who want to acknowledge the negatives that may come–illness, memory loss, loneliness—but also see the equally wonderful gifts of this time. For those in the thick of aging, she models how to light-heartedly laugh at our foibles and forgetfulness.

Rupp is well-qualified to guide people through this life chapter, as she has through many others in previous books. For over forty years, she’s directed people on the spiritual path, so she understands the wide diversity in how they approach the divine. She values the many traditions who benefit from her work, and wants to be not a parental voice, but one who, at 80, honestly shares her own life experiences.

The book is divided into prayers–preceded by captivating quotes, followed by discussion prompts–and poems, all taste-tested by her panel of experts in an Eldering workshop. Her topics are often those people don’t want to talk about—“Having a Medical Procedure,” “Releasing Regrets,” “Moving into a Senior Residence,” “When Adult Children Take Over,” “After a Tumble in the Shower,” for instance. The concise, witty writing, never flowery nor sentimental invites discussion and encouragement—as one chaplain used it in assisted living.

The book’s title is symbolic of healthy aging: vessels may pour forth, and they are also being filled. To see an aging person as a “vat of matured wine” brings zest, spirit and sparkle to the process. Who wouldn’t want to become a “crucible of kindness,” poured out for others? With Rupp setting our direction, we can celebrate the festival of lights within, an abundance of memories, blessings and gifts.

To see and hear Joyce Rupp in person, interviewed by publisher Robert Ellsberg about this book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Np4dxcpaY&list=PL_I9zTQkaIOvdWF_dm6kbINWCZ-fkjpXt&index=2

Before seeing “Conclave,” my friend and I had lunch together—during which I pontificated self-righteously about the Catholic hierarchy not being of any particular interest. I’m intrigued by other modalities of Catholicism, I explained to this good Presbyterian, like creation spirituality, mysticism, and social justice. But the election of a pope by only men, wearing red skirts? Not so much…

HA! Then I got totally caught up in “Conclave’s” surprising drama: the ironies of the guys in crimson beanies arriving with their wheelies; the supposedly powerless nuns who cook for them having a hidden clout; the character of Cardinal Lawrence riveting because of his vulnerability. Ralph Fiennes plays Thomas Lawrence, dean of the college of cardinals, tasked with convening the papal election and running it smoothly. He shares his reluctance with his witty friend Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), but plunges gamely into some tricky plot twists. It’s a unique mix of ancient ritual, modern security, Latin formulae, Sistine Chapel, and the sudden shock of terrorist bombs.

The moving theme comes in Lawrence’s opening homily: “certainty is the deadly enemy of unity. If there were only certainty, there’d be no mystery and no need for faith. Let’s elect a pope who doubts.” Wisely, Lawrence sees that certainty is the stuff of demagogues, not for the followers of a poor carpenter. Easy to imagine how that annoys the sanctimonious conservatives, represented by Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) who wants a Latin Mass and calls Muslim terrorists “animals.” No doubts for him, by gum! But it will have direct bearing: the one who’s ultimately elected “lives in the spaces between certainties.”

The humanity of the cardinals, their parallels to politicians (yup, there’s intrigue, bribery, scandal, progressive vs. conservative factions) help us see that the drive for power is no different when it’s cloaked beneath medieval custom and swirling robes. We sense a coiled tension smoldering in Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), who’s been told her inferior position, but clearly doesn’t believe it. At a crucial moment, she disrupts the male domination: “Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible, God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears.”

Despite the gender disparity, it’s heartening to see the racial and cultural diversity in the gathering. Lawrence is stunned when a surprise cardinal–Benitez, Archbishop of Kabul, turns up unexpectedly. Turns out he’d been appointed secretly “in pectore,” (how evocative, that mysterious term remembered from childhood), a protection in dangerous circumstances. Bellini quips, “How many Catholics are there in Afghanistan?” But Lawrence finds his credentials impeccable, and Benitez rightly criticizes the men who battle each other when they haven’t experienced the real wars he has.

To reveal the surprise ending would be behaving like the lowest cad in the hierarchy—so no disclosures here. Let’s just say a stunned Lawrence has to sit down for a moment–and it left us grinning and cheering as we left the theater.

Anyone seeking directions on a website or application will discover many routes by different forms of transportation: bus, car, foot, rapid transit, etc. So too, the saints have found multiple ways to God—or perhaps with vast creative power, God finds multiplies ways to reach them.

Consider, for instance the dazzling diversity between Junipero Serra, who poured energies into building a string of California mission churches, and Thomas Merton, who wrote of the same building: “The church was stifling with solemn, feudal and unbreathable fictions. … The spring outside seemed much more sacred. . . .  Easter afternoon I went to the lake and sat in silence looking at the green buds, the wind skimming the utterly silent surface of the water, a muskrat slowly paddling to the other side… One could breathe. The alleluias came back by themselves. “[1]

Unsung saints continue to pioneer wildly diverse roads today: in the research hospitals that seek a cure for Alzheimer’s, the labs that discover new ways to purify water or use solar power in Africa, the schools that encourage and educate neglected or traumatized children. They carve paths in subtler ways that are no less holy: the parents caring for the autistic child who try different ways each day to touch him, the artist or musician who gives audiences another way to see or hear, the mother trying a new recipe for the hungry kids, the spouse of the Alzheimer’s patient, the scientists who discover alternate forms of energy and innovations to preserve the planet’s resources.

The church’s shorthand often refers to a puzzling group. For instance, St. Isaac Jogues “and companions.” Did the unnamed ones not bleed as profusely, scream in as much pain, shake with as many convulsions when they were tortured? Or in more peaceful terms, did the initial six and many sisters who later accompanied Marianne Cope not work as hard in the leper colony of Molokai? When her energies flagged, she probably still got up in the morning because they were all counting on each other. Father Palou, Serra’s friend and biographer, shared the heartache and ordeals, but who’s ever heard of him? Fifteen unknown sisters helped Katharine Drexel found her first school for native Americans in 1893; by 1903, eleven Navajo women were nuns prepared to carry on her work.

And what about the Irish priests who defended Julia Greeley, or arranged for the early education of Augustine Tolton, who escaped slavery in Missouri as a child and became the first black priest? What of the Franciscans who, when Tolton was rejected by seminaries in the U.S., sent him to Rome for education and ordination, or who supported Cesar Chavez’ early efforts?  

Americans love heroes, but sometimes we overlook the people who support the star. As Carol Flinders points out in Enduring Grace, we must “see the incandescent superstar for what it is, but … see the constellation in which it has come into being, too, the reverent and loving care that has surrounded and nourished it.”[2]

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson names the feast of All Saints the one for “’anonymous,’ whom the world counts as nobodies and whom the church, too, has lost track of but who are held in the embrace of God who loses not one.”[3] The letters of Paul address all the early Christians as “saints,” even when he gets frustrated with their angry feuding.

In what arenas do we still need pioneer saints today? Surely, in health care, immigration, poverty, the environment, rightful places for women in church and society, education, an end to human trafficking; the list is endless. And in many other fields, needs are still undefined. There the saints of tomorrow will shine. If we’re alert, we might even notice them moving subtly among us now.

Excerpt from When the Saints Came Marching In by Kathy Coffey, Liturgical Press, 800-858-5450, litpress.org

[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 295.

[2] Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 219.

[3] Elizabeth Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets (New York: Continuum, 1999), 250.

Anyone seeking directions on a website or application will discover many routes by different forms of transportation: bus, car, foot, rapid transit, etc. So too, the saints have found multiple ways to God—or perhaps with vast creative power, God finds multiplies ways to reach them.

Consider, for instance the dazzling diversity between Junipero Serra, who poured energies into building a string of California mission churches, and Thomas Merton, who wrote of the same building: “The church was stifling with solemn, feudal and unbreathable fictions. … The spring outside seemed much more sacred. . . .  Easter afternoon I went to the lake and sat in silence looking at the green buds, the wind skimming the utterly silent surface of the water, a muskrat slowly paddling to the other side… One could breathe. The alleluias came back by themselves. “[1]

Unsung saints continue to pioneer wildly diverse roads today: in the research hospitals that seek a cure for Alzheimer’s, the labs that discover new ways to purify water or use solar power in Africa, the schools that encourage and educate neglected or traumatized children. They carve paths in subtler ways that are no less holy: the parents caring for the autistic child who try different ways each day to touch him, the artist or musician who gives audiences another way to see or hear, the mother trying a new recipe for the hungry kids, the spouse of the Alzheimer’s patient, the scientists who discover alternate forms of energy and innovations to preserve the planet’s resources.

The church’s shorthand often refers to a puzzling group. For instance, St. Isaac Jogues “and companions.” Did the unnamed ones not bleed as profusely, scream in as much pain, shake with as many convulsions when they were tortured? Or in more peaceful terms, did the initial six and many sisters who later accompanied Marianne Cope not work as hard in the leper colony of Molokai? When her energies flagged, she probably still got up in the morning because they were all counting on each other. Father Palou, Serra’s friend and biographer, shared the heartache and ordeals, but who’s ever heard of him? Fifteen unknown sisters helped Katharine Drexel found her first school for native Americans in 1893; by 1903, eleven Navajo women were nuns prepared to carry on her work.

And what about the Irish priests who defended Julia Greeley, or arranged for the early education of Augustine Tolton, who escaped slavery in Missouri as a child and became the first black priest? What of the Franciscans who, when Tolton was rejected by seminaries in the U.S., sent him to Rome for education and ordination, or who supported Cesar Chavez’ early efforts?  

Americans love heroes, but sometimes we overlook the people who support the star. As Carol Flinders points out in Enduring Grace, we must “see the incandescent superstar for what it is, but … see the constellation in which it has come into being, too, the reverent and loving care that has surrounded and nourished it.”[2]

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson names the feast of All Saints the one for “’anonymous,’ whom the world counts as nobodies and whom the church, too, has lost track of but who are held in the embrace of God who loses not one.”[3] The letters of Paul address all the early Christians as “saints,” even when he gets frustrated with their angry feuding.

In what arenas do we still need pioneer saints today? Surely, in health care, immigration, poverty, the environment, rightful places for women in church and society, education, an end to human trafficking; the list is endless. And in many other fields, needs are still undefined. There the saints of tomorrow will shine. If we’re alert, we might even notice them moving subtly among us now.

Excerpt from When the Saints Came Marching In by Kathy Coffey, Liturgical Press, 800-858-5450, litpress.org

[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 295.

[2] Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 219.

[3] Elizabeth Johnson, Friends of God and Prophets (New York: Continuum, 1999), 250.

(Mk. 10: 46-52, Mk. 8:22-26)

This weekend, some will hear the story of healing blind Bartimaeus. Let’s look at it from his wife’s viewpoint.

I was so embarrassed, I started the shushing. Right there in front of everyone, my husband bellowed to some fool preacher called Jesus. Where Mark later said, “many rebuked him,” I was first. I must have told him twenty times to hush, but that only made it worse. The ridiculous man just kept broadcasting his need. Why couldn’t he hide it politely, as all the rest of us had learned to do? I for one knew how to keep needs bundled, almost smothered. It was startling when Jesus stood still. How, in all the tumult and noise, had he heard one lone voice of one unimportant person on the fringe?

I must admit my outrage when some idiot in the crowd whispered, “take courage; get up, he is calling you” (Mk. 10: 49). Now I was Doomed. History. Toast. I couldn’t look when he eagerly threw aside his cloak to “spring up.” The man hasn’t sprung in twenty years. The last coil of energy I remember was during our courtship. Before his accident, he was springy—but now he was old and awkward, so he probably “lurched.” Was this a pathetic effort to recapture an earlier happiness? Was he crazy to think this guy might help him? And how did he ever find his way to that voice? After he impetuously tossed the cloak, did some homing instinct lead to what he needed most?

It seemed so futile and heart-breaking, I started trudging home. On the way I worried about him being shamed and disappointed in front of the crowd. How would I endure their nasty gossip afterwards? In a place the size of Jericho, word gets around faster than the flip of a bird’s wing. So I guess I missed the healing.

But I got the story second-hand: all the neighbors chattering eagerly at once, then ol’ Bart himself, appearing at the door. He rushed right for me, elated, fairly leaping. For a second I hoped he’d forgotten how much better I looked the last time he saw me. What if he noticed the weight I’d gained? The stress of those years took its toll on my body. I knew I was more stooped, more grey, more wrinkled. But he drew me into his arms as though I were his bride. Kissing my hair, he told me how beautiful I was. Well, I won’t lie. I relished that—what woman doesn’t want to drink the youth potion?

But soon the neighbors went home, the excitement died down, and I faced harsh realities. Daily I worried: He made a fair living as a beggar; I didn’t want to lose it. Sighted, he’d get no sympathy. Now what would we do? Was he expecting me to start some lucrative career? Even deeper bubbled a dark thought. For all those years, I had been his eyes. Sighted now, would he still need me? We had a system for coping then; now he’d wrecked it. Sometimes he stares at me so intently I want to scream.

Bit by bit, I’m growing used to Bartimaeus’ wild enthusiasm for everything he can see. He’ll run in from the garden, balancing vegetables in one hand and flowers in the other. “Look!” he’ll cry with a child’s delight. He never misses a sunrise, which has interrupted my sleep and made me even more crabby. Aglow himself, he watches the dawn stroke the treetops and hillsides. A walk to the market takes forever. He stops, astonished, at every bend in the road. Connecting voices with faces is another exercise in sheer glee.

When he says he’s following “on the way,” what does that mean? Does it have something to do with this new-found awe and praise? I feel left behind. Even the things I take for granted stun him. He gets eloquent about a lake glazed with the silver mesh of sun, or buds curled tight as fists. To him, every annoying insect is a marvelous toy. My husband has become curious as my infant grandson, examining the intricacies of his own hands and toes with painstaking attention.

And don’t get him started on stars, or the patterns in clouds! Please—I’ve got dishes to wash and a porch to sweep! Part of me wishes he’d shut up, but another part wants to see everything as freshly as he does—like taking that first stroll through paradise in Genesis. Every day he’s intrigued as Adam. When do I get the chance to take his hand and look out like Eve? It sounds crazy, but I’m almost tempted to echo his words, “Master, I want to see.”

Excerpt from More Hidden Women of the Gospels by Kathy Coffey. Orbis Press, 800-258-5838, orbisbooks.com.

What unique paths people take to navigate the geography of grief.

When Susan Swetnam is widowed and childless at age 54, she enters a labyrinth of grieving, and through her skillful writing brings the reader along every step of the way. She begins by explaining that “the angel of disturbing circumstance” can be loss of marriage, job or home, health concerns, career or financial challenges, failures of every sort, any interruption of the trajectory we expected for our lives. How do we endure these shocks? Some will never really get over them, and everyone will bear some scars.

Swetnam leads us to imagine how God can use things which first seem disastrous to serve God’s unfolding purposes. The essential hinge: framing “life’s disruptions as annunciations,” saying “yes” as Mary did, despite our fear or bitterness. Fortunately, Swetnam spares us the pieties and shows how Mary too is initially shocked, resistant and confused by the angel’s message.

To move forward when her concept of the future is shattered, Swetnam reflects on six Renaissance paintings that depict the Annunciation, the ultimate “yes” to an unknown script. They show the whole range of emotions Luke reports Mary feeling. Her steppingstones to acceptance give readers permission to be human as they too reconcile to the divine will.

Swetnam’s intensely personal experience offers hope to many who endure incalculable loss. The author is brutally honest about natural, futile attempts to cope: depression, addiction, denial, magical thinking, suicidal ideas, and luminously clear about how Mary’s path might better accompany. She alerts readers to “Gabriel surrogates” and reaches the delightful point of saying to Mary, “Oh girlfriend, I get what you’re feeling.”

Over a 20-year process, details discovered in the paintings and shifts in Swetnam’s life experience lead her to see how “Yes comes in many forms… and adapts to many timetables.” Eventually, tragedy turns to treasure and desert to garden. Lucky the reader who gets to come along for the transformation.

Teresa was the first female doctor of the church, named in 1970. A non-ordained woman was a departure from tradition, but Pope Paul VI said she exercised the priesthood of all the baptized. Thirty-five years earlier, under Inquisition scrutiny, the papal nuncio called her “a restless gadabout, a disobedient and contumacious woman who invented wicked doctrines.” Teresa seemed to inspire extreme responses.

Context

The Influence of the Italian renaissance on Spain produced a golden age of literature, and the Bible translated into the vernacular. Study groups led by women were like the Vatican II renewal. But the challenge to the clerical monopoly on God incensed the Inquisition, which became a doctrinal watchdog, forbade women teachers, and destroyed vernacular Bibles.

In a rigid hierarchy and dangerous climate of suspicion and fear, Teresa danced nimbly around her critics. She became expert with coy disclaimers that she didn’t know what she was talking about. How could others condemn when she beat them to it?

Biography (1515 – 1582)

Teresa’s grandpa was a Jew, forced to convert to Christianity. Punished and humiliated in Toledo, Spain, he moved the family to Avila and became successful again.

Her youth was frivolous and flirtatious and she deeply regretted 20 years of indifference. But they were a “happy fault”—giving reason to praise God’s infinite mercies. In convents then, the wealthy had freedom to come and go, an entourage of family, friends, and servants, good wine, food and social life. Illness brought Teresa to deeper spirituality and by 1562, she founded her first reformed convent.  Despite lawsuits, she established 17 convents separated by muddy roads and terrible traveling conditions. These may have prompted her metaphor: “Whoever truly loves you, my God, travels by a broad and a royal road.”

Themes

At the time, prayer meant rote formulas; Teresa shifted it to intimate conversation with a friend. She introduced metaphors like the spiritual life as garden. We work hard at watering, but grace brings rain. One of her most popular books The Interior Castle shows Christ within, the soul’s radiant light. She reminded her sisters, “We are not hollow inside.” “The soul’s amplitude cannot be exaggerated.”

Among her endearing sayings: “From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord deliver us!” She learned to avoid scruples, and once digging into a feast, chortled, “there is a time for fasting and a time for partridge. THIS is the time for partridge!” Brisk, practical and fun, she admitted she was a sucker for affection: “I could be bought for a herring.”

From “Extraordinary Influencers” by Kathy Coffey, Liguorian.org, Oct. ’22, p. 13.

The Grace of Grandparenting

A Day of Prayer for those who Nurture

Let’s celebrate what grandparents do naturally—love the grandkids with God’s own free-from-judgment love, and mirror their beauty. We’ll explore the spirituality that underlies that miraculous process.

Oct. 21—9 to 3

$50 includes lunch

Villa Maria del Mar, Santa Cruz CA

To register: www.vmdm.retreatportal.com

More info: Sister Michelle, vmdm.retreats@snjmuson.org, 204-688-1785