Kathy Coffey

Even after more than 60 years since my education by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, this feast still captures my attention, still intrigues by its contradictions. On the negative side, the fierce discipline, the obsession with rules, silence and order might have been simply the products of an era when few schools were enlightened or creative. Some friends have worse horror tales from crazier nuns and more uptight Catholic schools. We may not have been encouraged to be especially innovative, but we were never physically punished. We may have sung maudlin hymns, but we were never subjected to a Mel Gibson-style obsession with the grotesque details of the crucifixion.

On the positive side, I still remember a statue of Jesus as the Sacred Heart which stood outside our school. It had the odd heart-outside-the-body typical of sentimental art. But more important: his arms were flung wide in welcome. His hands didn’t hurl thunderbolts, tick off lists of wrongdoing, or brandish law books.

The stance epitomized the insight of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, credited with popularizing devotion to the Sacred Heart. “The divine heart…is an ocean full of joy to drown all our sadness…” When she tried to convince others of this broadly inclusive approach, authorities called her delusional. Indeed, she had made a huge stride forward from 17^th century piety, with its emphasis on the externals of religion.

The inclusive tone of today’s feast is consistent with Julian of Norwich’s writing in The Showings about God as mother. “In the sight of God, we do not fall” (p. 222) because we are always graciously enfolded in love. Just as a mother brims with pride in her child, so we too are God’s joy, treasure and delight (p. 228). I’ve written about Julian in other places; thanks to a Sacred Heart education for the assurance that God can’t not love.

On this feast, it’s traditional to exalt the Eucharist and the church settings in which liturgies occur. Here’s a different take: the church of Sao Domingo in Lisbon, Portugal. It’s located cringingly close to the building, now a theatre, which was once headquarters of the Inquisition, but its inside is refreshingly damaged. With little of the gold that gleams from many Mediterranean churches, this one is scorched and battered. After two earthquakes and a fire, someone decided to leave it unrepaired. (Imagine the committee meeting discussing that decision!) While there’s still a bit of the obligatory glitz, it’s nicely offset by the wreckage. Statues of saints look worn and scruffy—no ruby collars nor jewel-encrusted robes.

Perhaps the appeal lies in its silent response to the question many of us have, seeing other overwrought and opulent sanctuaries: what about the children starving while the church money poured into marble decorations? Or maybe we recognize a kindred spirit, knowing ourselves to also be as battered and bruised as these columns and walls. When we’re honest, we see how we can be a quirky, beloved mess. If the church reflects that inner state, we feel more at home there, instead of feeling unfit, like the klutz out of place in a spiffy setting.

We come to this feast, or to any Eucharist out of need, not self-glorification. Jesus knew exactly what to give us: not another code of law, gleaming sword or eloquent book, but the simple nutrition of bread and wine. Then as he accomplishes his work in us, we are often unaware. See photos of the dinged church, its tattered beauty for yourself:                 

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g189158-d3876940-Reviews-Igreja_de_Sao_Domingos_Santa_Justa_e_Rufina-Lisbon_Lisbon_District_Central_Portug.html

“ And behold, I am with you always…”

We’ve grown so overly familiar with Bible quotes, we sometimes miss their stunning affirmation of Good News. Jesus’ last reassurance in today’s gospel aligns with what I’ve been reading in a book called Home Tonight by Henri Nouwen. I’d read his classic Return of the Prodigal Son many years ago, and often used the combination of Rembrandt’s art and Nouwen’s interpretation of it in talks and retreats. Hallmarks of that art are the concentration of light in the Father, his hands touching his woebegone son’s shoulder, one hand masculine, one hand feminine, his red cape framing them like a Gothic arch.

Nouwen began working on the material for Return more than three years before its publication. He’d suffered a breakdown during his second year at L’Arche, spent seven months in solitude, then gave a three-day workshop on what he’d learned from that time alone with the Gospel and the painting. That workshop formed the basis for Home Tonight.

Nouwen points out there that Jesus never said, “I know God fully; you can know a little.” Or “I can do great things in God’s name; you can maybe do a few.” Instead, there is a full outpouring of all God’s rich presence into us. We can enjoy the same relationship of unconditional love with our Father that Jesus had with his. Jesus shows us “a union so total and so full that there is not even the slightest place for an experience of absence or separation.” (p. 94) As I have frequently quoted Julian of Norwich, “between God and the soul, there is no between.”

Why then do we wander off track, so quickly forgetting God’s yearning to be in us and with us? We know “we have not here a lasting city,” no permanent security. We get busy, stressed, anxious and tired, missing the signals that surround us: music, laughter, health, surprises, the clean curve of a bird’s silhouette against the sky, books and nature swelling with beauty, the ordinary efforts of family and friends, delicate threads elegantly woven into the skein of life. We want the promise to be more visible, audible, tangible. But we mustn’t miss the faint signals, unique to each person, which Nouwen calls “a fleeting taste of home on the way home.” (p. 90)

One of the most striking sentences in the first reading from Acts (2:4) describes people speaking different languages, yet still being understood. We all know that even those who speak the same language can have a hard time communicating. Pentecost reverses the Tower of Babel story, which tries to explain why people began speaking in different languages. The people that day achieved understanding, despite their linguistic differences.

Pentecost continues today, as African students in an EAL classroom learn English and across the hall, North Americans learn Spanish. Movies streamed into our homes educate us on the cultures of Iran or Korea.  Small Californians learn to eat dumplings with “cheater” chopsticks.

One way to celebrate Pentecost is to appreciate the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in our lives. The processes of ordinary living are so fragile, so immensely significant, so fraught with terror, that we desperately need someone beyond ourselves. We need the warmth and power of the Spirit to help us in whatever we have undertaken.

With whoosh of wind, the Spirit barrels through the US in the Pentecost I imagine. Just as faith leaders of all traditions once joined to march with M. L. King Jr. and enact Civil Rights legislation, so Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists and agnostics rise together as a concerted public voice for gun safety. They move past “thoughts and prayers” to concrete legislation to reduce the skyrocketing death toll. They don’t want their country to be known as the nation where guns are the #1 cause of death for children.

Hopefully, we’ll look back on these efforts and say, “So you, life-giving Spirit and Guide, were there all along.” A phrase later in Acts describes a Spirit-guided way of making decisions: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). That might sound arrogant, or even cynical (If this backfires, we can always blame the Spirit). So too, we make decisions with the Holy Spirit, maybe not naming that presence or guessing that strength. But in the long run, what hope, power and grace!

On this day in 1610, Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci died in Beijing and was the first Westerner honored with burial in the capital. His story is an intriguing one of openness to another culture, of asking how one could ever bring the gospel to someone they didn’t know. His “friendly conversation” style of evangelizing makes all the other efforts of his era seem clumsy, intrusive, disrespectful and violent.

Sent to China in 1583, he spent 15 years becoming proficient in the language, learning Confucianism, Chinese customs, literature and etiquette. A scholar of mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and geography, he dressed in appropriate silk robes like other mandarins. His world map astonished and impressed the Chinese, who were unaware of other lands beyond their own. Ricci believed that the 4000 year old tradition of China converted him. Despite maintaining armies, the Chinese didn’t wage wars of aggression, in contrast to European nations consumed with the idea of domination.  

Furthermore, Ricci worked out a synthesis of Confucianism and Christianity, and adapted liturgy to the Chinese style. Today it’s called “inculturation”; then it was mind-blowing.  Throughout the age of discovery, the track record of Christian missionaries was abysmal: baptism by force, widespread slaughter, alliance with military rule. How might it have been different if Ricci’s attitude prevailed: enter lands new to Europeans, housing other cultures, with wonder and appreciation, curious about what westerners could learn?  Instead of branding native peoples “savages,” and plundering the resources of their lands, missionaries could’ve acted on the Christian belief that the indigenous, like all humanity, held the spark of God within, and respected the beauties of God’s creation in uncharted terrains.

It’s probably no surprise that the Vatican, epitome of a “closed system” hostile to new ideas, condemned Ricci’s efforts in 1704 and more vehemently in 1742. They seemed especially troubled by filial respect to ancestors and called the rites to honor the dead superstitious and idolatrous. Ironic, in a church with a long history of honoring its saints and founders, erecting statues to them in every church. But Robert Ellsberg describes the prevailing attitude in All Saints: “When in China, do as the Romans.” What underlying fears of difference motivate such arrogance? Whatever happened to the deep security of the beloved child of God, curious about God’s varied creations?

Several centuries later, a similar scenario recurred. French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a respected scholar, paleontologist and geologist was sent to China because his creative ideas ruffled hierarchical feathers. There, he made marvelous discoveries and happily worked with native scientists. The Vatican forbade him to publish, suppressing his writing as they had in 1704 shut down a fresh infusion of eastern ideas that could have enhanced western spirituality.

In the complex and lengthy process of naming someone a Catholic saint, Ricci reached the stage called “Venerable,” or close to the finish line, in 2022. It took only 412 years for the Vatican to recognize him, but perhaps one should be grateful they reached this point at all. When oh when will they canonize St. Teilhard?

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.” John 15: 11

Sometimes a dip into contemporary culture can affirm the gospel message of joy. For a rollicking dollop of it, see “Wicked Little Letters,” a British film which has been showing in theaters, and maybe by now is streaming. Olivia Colman stars and gives us her first dire glimpse of religion along the lines of, “if our Blessed Savior suffered, then we who must suffer grow closer to him.” It might not be so funny if it weren’t expressed with such eye-rolling piety. Olivia plays Edith Swan, who lives with her parents in the early 1920s and has been beset by a plague of anonymous nasty letters.  

The film is more or less based on a true story of the Littlehampton Libels, a scandal in Sussex filled with battling neighbors and lots of profanity. (If this bothers you, then the movie may not be your cuppa.) Edith and her parents immediately blame their neighbor, Rose Gooding. She’s a perfect target: rambunctious, irreverent, bawdy, obscene, often drunk, and newly arrived from Ireland. It’s enough to swing the townspeople and police into glorious self-righteousness. In the real case, Rose was convicted and served four months in Portsmouth Prison. But the letters to many people continued, and the issue was not so neatly resolved.

Enter policewoman Gladys Moss, who with an unlikely and hilarious band of women detectives cleverly cracks the case. Edith Swan remains a model of stiff propriety, flinching at the disgusting language she must nobly endure. But as her domineering father becomes more emotionally abusive, and she appears more repressed, one starts to wonder… When a grown woman is forced to copy out Bible verses as punishment for some minor infringement, might she in turn spew venom with glee?

To question any more might reveal deliciously wicked plot twists. See for yourself, and may your joy be complete.

One phrase from Richard Rohr and I’m on a roll. He writes of resurrection revealing “just enough now to promise.” In other words, the small “r” resurrections that suffuse our days give an initial experience to prepare us for Jesus’ “Capital R” Resurrection, and are perhaps glimmering offshoots, sparks of his. These can be beloved faces, books that open new windows for mind and heart to explore, travel that reveals unimagined beauties, medical diagnoses not nearly as bad as we dreaded, sweeping vistas of oceans, gardens or mountains, the energy of exercise, the ease of sleep, the accomplishment of tasks large and tiny, the surprises we never thought we’d see…

I marvel at a granddaughter I first cared for when I had to support her wobbly head with my hand on her neck. Eight years later, she starts a load of laundry and makes my breakfast before I’m even out of bed. She wins the readathon for third grade, swims on a team, draws and writes with precision. There’s always such hubbub and commotion around small children—“Do you have your water bottle?” “Where are your shoes?” that we somehow fail to notice the incremental growth, the miraculous unfolding, inch by inch, day after day.

The joyous news of resurrection is now underscored by research on neuroplasticity. Humans have a “negativity bias” that dates back to the days when the survival of the species meant being attuned to warning signals like the approaching footsteps of a hungry lion. In other words, we’re more sensitized to red lights than green lights. But Rick Hanson explains in Hardwiring Happiness that we can build on positive experiences, placing them in the “treasure chest of the heart” to strengthen the neural pathways that heal and uplift. He compares it to growing more flowers and fewer weeds in our inner garden. Mary ran towards joy in a garden and encouraged the other disciples to run away from fear. Similar message in a different, scientific language?

Jesus as Good Shepherd may seem a difficult concept for readers whose experience is primarily urban. But the more I think about it, the richer it seems. Never mind that shepherds say the critters they tend are stupid and smelly. No odd aromas nor slow wits deter Jesus. He simply says, “I know my own,” placing no blame.

On Easter Monday, the gospel mentions the women running from the tomb with a cocktail of emotions, “fearful yet overjoyed.” “And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them” (Mt. 28: 9). No matter how meandering our ways, through grocery stores or gyms, offices or schools, retirement centers or prisons, Jesus, eager to see us, meets us on each unique and personal path. We needn’t be running a marathon or ascending to an altar—he’s there waiting, arms open wide.

I recently observed Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, where Emmy, aged seven, her glossy dark hair escaping from the braids where it had probably been neatly placed earlier in the day, was asked what the Shepherd does. One strap of her overalls was unfastened, but she was clear in her response. Softly, she said, “He takes care of us.” All we need to know for security and confidence…

In a relevant tangent: The shrine of Our Lady of Aranzazu, Spain was built on the site where Rodrigo de Balzategui, a Basque shepherd, found a statue of the Virgin Mary nestled in a thorny bush with a cowbell in 1469. Stunned, he asked, “You? Among the thorns?” Exactly where a shepherd might seek the lost, in brambly wild places. St. Ignatius visited the shrine in 1522 on his way to Montserrat. Some suspect the experience must have influenced his signature quest for “finding God in all things.”

Today’s gospel defies all the self-help books about achieving inner peace. Peace is pure gift, according to Luke. Furthermore, it comes unexpectedly, during confusion, mourning, terror and anxiety. The disciples find it too good to be true.

To alert them to reality, Jesus asks for something to eat. He reminds us of adolescents who are always hungry, or long-awaited guests whom we welcome with a special meal. This touchstone in human nature apparently convinces the skeptical. Wisely, Jesus starts with bodily needs, then “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” (24: 45)

How ironic that he tells the poor, uncertain, wavering crew: “You are witnesses of these things” (48). Jesus always seems to choose the most unlikely prospects. As Desmond Tutu says, Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine.”

And to all, Jesus extends the same invitation: “touch me and see.” Only by coming dangerously close to this wounded Christ will we too know transformation of our wounds—and resurrection.

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.