Kathy Coffey

Anyone who lives long enough questions. Why do the wicked prosper? Why do the young die? Why does potential wither while evil thrives? The genius of today’s gospel is that Jesus doesn’t try to answer the questions. He enters into them.

Some passion accounts begin with the exquisite scene of Jesus’ anointing. The bean-counters hate it: how will they justify the expense or fit it on their spreadsheets? But Jesus answers: hold onto kindness and beauty, which help us through the worst. As the author of ATONEMENT writes, such actions are a “last stand against oblivion and despair.”

As is a meal with friends. Jesus’ concern in his final hours isn’t with imminent, brutal suffering but with a final 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 insulting betrayal by pouring out love.

To the logical, it makes no sense. But to the believer, the powerless triumph. Those who seem defeated ultimately win. The questions aren’t answered, but they are blessed by the presence of One who lives through them.

(John 11:1-45)

Today, she’d be the CEO of Google or Apple. Brilliant, outspoken, direct, she gave Jesus exactly the affirmation he needed to proceed to Jerusalem and his passion. But let Martha tell the story…

“I was at my worst then: exhausted, vulnerable, grieving for Lazarus, angry at Jesus. I was so outraged, I spewed pure venom when he arrived. Lazarus’s place at our table was empty, the brother I loved had vanished, and Jesus’ delay became the target for my fury.

People with better social skills might have welcomed him with, ‘Thanks for trying,’ or even, ‘Your friend is dead,’ but I dumped the guilt trip: ‘If you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.’

The accusation hurt; I could tell by the sadness in his eyes. Still it didn’t paralyze him; maybe he continued our conversation because he could trust I wouldn’t mask the truth. I would look him straight in the eye and speak without a shred of syrupy politeness.

Still, he hesitated. It was as if he needed something from me, some mysterious affirmation before he plunged ahead. The roles were reversed: just when I needed to lean on him in grief, he asked for my support!

Even if I’d lost Lazarus, I could still encourage Jesus. Maybe he had taught me how to give people exactly what they need. He had wept with Mary; he had discussed the afterlife with me; now it was my turn to answer the question he hated to ask. So few people understood him; all he wanted was one person to show some inkling.

And I did know who he was. In some quiet, sure place within, I was bedrock certain of his identity. So I said it aloud. Not to sound arrogant, but Jesus forged into that foul-smelling tomb as if propelled by my words. I ran after him, just in time to see Lazarus lurch forth. Three days before, weeping, I had covered my brother’s face with the same linen. Now, I unwound the burial cloths as if unwrapping a splendid gift.

I barely thanked Jesus or noticed him leave. But neighbors said he walked purposefully toward Jerusalem, driven as he had been to Lazarus’s grave. Did my words still echo in his ears? Had I ignited some fire within him? As I had a hundred times before, I asked myself, ‘Now what have I said?’”

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

Let’s take a pause from Lenten reflections this week for what may seem a detour, but in a sense lies smack on the spiritual path. If you liked Amore Towles’ Gentleman in Moscow, you’ll probably get quickly immersed in his newest novel, The Lincoln Highway. It’s radically different, but still shows the author’s signature interest in unlikely characters, and skill in developing their quirks and gifts through a complex weave.

Not often I get to hang out with 3 teen-aged boys from the “juvenile reform farm” that’s a subtler form of jail. Yet this rollicking road trip with Emmett, Duchess and Wooly proves the axiom, “to understand all is to forgive all.” It begins when Emmett wants to leave a small Nebraska town, prompted by his little brother Billy’s deep desire to find their mom in San Francisco. How do they wind up in New York instead? Ah, therein lies the tale.

Towles is wise enough to know that one doesn’t simply label a person with the dismissive term “juvenile delinquent.” Each one arrived at unwise action by a different path—one illiterate, abused by a parent, one quite wealthy and mentally ill, one trying to defend his father’s reputation, but landing an unlucky punch. A crazy logic governs their worst shenanigans, and a strong sense of companionship explains some of their mishaps. Denied justice, they still seek it—perhaps in skewed and illegal ways, but with committed gusto. In every case, the “delinquent” was betrayed by people who should’ve cared for him—yet he laughs and shines.  

One, abandoned by his father to an orphanage because the child is “inconvenient,” has the good fortune of meeting with a cigarette-smoking nun who embodies compassion. Sister Agnes sees the goodness in the boy even when he pulls the most aggravating stunts. She invites his companion Emmett to be a Good Samaritan because at a critical juncture, the irritating boy needs a friend. The familiar parable fleshed out in vivid, contemporary terms is just one of the book’s nuggets.

Another is Billy, the clear-eyed child who in his quiet, steady way, leads them. Not only that, he draws the parallels between their adventure and classic epics such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. He has a keen sense of rightness in human relationships, and directs his older brother to cherish these above all else. When Billy was six, his brother got into the fight that changed their lives, but Billy clearly remembers that even during the violence, “Emmett … never once let go of Billy’s hand.” (p. 511)

The depths of any person can be known only by an imaginative author—or a Creator, “who causes the sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, who sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike” (Mt. 5:45). Fortunate readers glimpse here that all-embracing theme: Either all is sacred, or nothing is sacred.

The owner. The gardener. The tree. At different times in life, most of us fit all three roles.

The first, impatient, eager for results. “C’mon! We’ve given you a hundred chances. Three years is more than enough. When you gonna produce?”

The second, voice of mercy. Nurturer. But also practical: if fertilizer fails, chop down the procrastinating tree.

Third, the silent pivot of the story. The tree stands for centuries as symbol of our failures, our lack of fruit, our disappointing dullness after so much has been invested in us. But an equally long-standing symbol: the tree of life, which occurs in many world religions, and in Christianity was tied to the cross of Christ. Which are we? Or are we both/and at different seasons? Sometimes inner-directed, hibernating, poised for growth. Other times, flowering, fragrant, fruitful.

Interestingly, the San Jose Mercury News reported on May 11, 1996 the reason for a dismal cherry harvest. It seems the trees need 900-1000 hours of temperatures below 45 degrees; without the necessary dormancy they are “sleep deprived” and fail to produce.

The nondualistic intrigue of the gospels: the fig tree of Jesus’ parable may in due time bear fruit. We too, may need the inwardness, the care, the nudge. Jesus leaves us without the easy control of the clear-cut resolution; instead, we reflect in wonder and mystery.  

“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: some happy, some frustrated, some neutral. But because of Jesus’ transfiguration, we do all these things as children of the divine. 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. Do we see the world as hostile, or full of hidden grace?

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. But he clearly understood the context of anything less than the fullness of what God wants us to become.

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.

Just as Jesus would say “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?

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. And how have light wings touched us during ordinary days? Through health care workers, kind friends, relatives who don’t tire of our cranky moods or repeated stories?

Ash Wednesday arrives next week, and Lenten reflections will start the following weekend.  Beforehand, the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar has recently released a thought-provoking film that deserves notice.

“Parallel Mothers,” set in Madrid, stars Penelope Cruz as Janis, an unmarried photographer who becomes pregnant accidentally, and crosses paths with a 17-year old single mom in the hospital maternity ward. That story becomes a bit melodramatic, more interesting for its intersections with the larger story: uncovering the horrors of the Franco regime.

Janis’ great-grandfather was brutally murdered and buried with his friends in a mass grave; she asks the forensic anthropologist Arturo to help the families of her village put some closure to their grief and find remains to bury with loved ones. When this finally happens and the skeletons are exposed, it’s a moving scene.

The families, a small army of women, some holding pictures, some crying, arrive at the grave site like a community of remembrance. Arturo says, “we will withdraw now. It’s your moment.” As he and his crew step back, these ordinary villagers stand like a monument to the Bible verse “love is stronger than death” (Song of Solomon 8:6). Another ending quotation pays tribute to the fact that no one, despite their best efforts to suppress, can erase history.

How do the two stories relate? Perhaps the first story of the two mothers is a holon, defined as being whole within itself, yet also part of something larger. The symbolic links to the communal story are the repetition of mouth-swabbing DNA tests to establish identities, and the use of cameras, not only Janis’ profession, but a record of the fascist atrocities.

As Leah Greenblatt’s review says in Entertainment Weekly, the film is “chaotically and improbably plotted,” but nonetheless a “freighted tale of memory and identity.” A.O. Scott’s review in the New York Times adds, “Injustice festers across generations. The failure to confront it casts a persistent, ugly shadow.” In our time and place as well as in mid-20^th century Spain.

The title of this Netflix series might first seem to refer to the people we’ve become and who surround us during COVID. The experts say that rates of mental illness are soaring, and those who were nervous or edgy before the pandemic have gotten worse.

But this film isn’t depressing; indeed, it’s the kind of parable about forgiveness that Jesus would’ve told, or liked. The theme is similar to that of another film by director Felix Herngren, “A Man Called Ove”: Ordinary people undergo dramatic transformation.

A group of eight strangers are caught up in a hostage situation when a robber ruins a chance at a bank, and instead takes over an apartment open house. Why they’re all there reveals their underlying stories and subsequent plot twists. Somehow, it strikes the perfect balance of goofy humor and poignance.

We begin with the cops, a father-son team who are laughably incompetent, deeply human. Perhaps in Sweden where this film is set, the police don’t have such a bad reputation, but it’s a good reminder to North Americans that ours are human too. When the emergency announcement of the bank robbery comes, the younger one, Jack is getting his hair cut; he dashes out and tries to proceed heroically with clips in his hair, half trimmed and half long. We smile benignly and admire his youthful gusto. 

As the story unfolds, the humanity of each character emerges. The bank robber, it turns out, isn’t a hardened criminal, but simply a desperate human. (No more clues—don’t wanna spoil.) When the older cop Jim, delivering pizza to the hostages, hears the robber’s story, he becomes an ally.

As do the other inadvertent heroes/hostages, who devise a clever way to protect their nemesis-turned-friend. Without wrecking the plot, let’s just say it’s a tale of redemption. By the end several key characters have huge burdens lifted off their shoulders. One banker who thought she was guilty of a man’s suicide early in the film because she denied him a loan, finds out otherwise. Anna Lena confesses to her husband that she really hates IKEA and his remodeling efforts. And Estella, lonely in a big apartment after the deaths of her husband and son, rediscovers a family to fill it. Even the bumbling cops, distraught by their daughter’s/sister’s drug addiction, reach a reconciliation with her and each other. Jack discovers there are more important human values than solving a crime—like preserving a family.  

Dorothy Stang’s story has all the attributes of a folk tale, so let’s tell it that way. First, the setting(s). In Brazil, less than 3% of the population owns 2/3 of arable land. Displaced farm workers can’t find jobs in the city, so the government grants them land in the northeast, the last frontier. However, loggers and ranchers consider the Amazon their domain. They burn poor settlements, sell valuable timber, then use land for grazing cattle (to supply our McDonald’s!) The consequent loss of the rain forest is tragic. Some call it “the lungs of the planet.” As it shrinks, global warming increases.

It’shard to imaginea place more distant from the Amazon than Dayton, Ohio. Young Dorothy Stang lives here, her backyard a model of organic gardening, because her father is a chemical engineer. She learns composting and the dangers of pesticides. In a typical 1948 story, she becomes a Sister of Notre Dame and teacher. You expect her to become a benevolent nun who dies of old age in a quiet convent, right? That’s when her story gets interesting.

Our heroine volunteers for Brazil when her order calls for missionaries. In the 70’s she accompanies families to Para, bordering the rain forest, where they’ve been given land. Sr. Dorothy organizes people into co-ops: they learn about crop rotation, read the Bible and worship with music and dance. (Because priests are rare, she becomes the “shepherd.”)

When her people are attacked, she tells them brusquely to quit crying and start rebuilding. Her car, an old VW Beetle, wobbles over bridges with rotting planks. For her people, she travels to Brasilia and camps out at government offices. When officials deny receiving her letters, she finds them in their files. Persistenty, she asks for protection of poor farmers, but nothing is done.

Here’s the amazing part—she keeps this up for 38 YEARS. Dorothy starts fruit orchards with women and projects for sustainable development. The Brazilian Bar Association names her “Humanitarian of the Year” in 2004.

Enter the villains. The ranchers hire gunmen who shoot her six times on February 12, 2005. Dorothy doesn’t run, cower, or plead for her life, as most folks would, when she sees the gun. Instead she pulls out her Bible and reads the Beatitudes aloud.

Despite her brutal murder, her model continues to resonate. Without much in the way of institutional church, she finds God in the green canopy of trees, the cathedral of forest.

She asks the right questions: not narrow denominational or territorial concerns, but “How do we preserve the earth’s treasures? How do we empower God’s beloved people?” She reminds that we all need the large stage of the natural world. When we lose our sacred connection to the earth, we’re stuck with small selves and petty concerns. Her wonder at the miracle of the rain forest’s resilience is contagious.

Her brother David explains, “she was so in love with what she was doing, she didn’t notice her dirt floor, primitive plumbing or no electricity.”

As the population ages, Dorothy is patron saint for slow butterflies and reluctant caterpillars. She didn’t remain captive to her traditional upbringing. Vivacious and feisty, she tried new things, journeyed to new places. Her face is so youthful, it’s hard to think of her as 73. She could’ve hunkered safely into the retirement center, counted her wrinkles and monitored her ailments—as some elders do. Instead, she pours the wisdom of her experience into service of poor Brazilians.

Finally, she models innovation in the church. Brazil’s tremendous needs for ministry can’t be restricted by gender-defined roles. It didn’t much matter if Dorothy was male or female, ordained or not. What DID matter, burningly, was “no greater love than this–to give one’s life for one’s friends.”

Similar material has appeared in Kathy’s book When the Saints Came Marching In (Liturgical Press, 2015) and a “Wise Guides” feature in US Catholic.

In her newest collection of essays, These Precious Days, the novelist Ann Patchett writes about the children’s author Kate DiCamillo. Each of her books, Patchett believes, is an elegantly crafted jewel—which can be read in an evening! I followed her model and began a DiCamillo binge, which has been richly rewarded.

The adult characters tend to be clueless, sunk in their own misery, or absent. (For example: Raymie’s dad ran off with the dental hygienist and Sistine’s with his secretary who can’t type. Rob’s father hit him so hard, dad ripped his jacket sleeve—because the boy cried at his mother’s funeral.) Given that pattern, the reader can focus on the children, who are all deeply hurt but magnificent.

Raymie, 10-year old heroine of Raymie Nightingale has the profound insight that “we are all heartbroken.” Nevertheless, she bands together with two other girls from baton class to right what wrongs they can. (A clue to their pathos: her friend Louisiana gets excited about going to Raymie’s home, asking eagerly, “will there be dinner?” Although meals aren’t a regular occurrence for the child, hunger doesn’t dim her pluck. When the filling station manager offers her a free pack of peanuts, she takes eighteen.) All three girls, for various reasons, want to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, (DiCamillo wryly delights in southern shlock) but they don’t let competition overshadow an alliance that leads to a small, satisfying triumph.

How could anyone resist the opening sentence of The Tiger Rising? “That morning, after he discovered the tiger, Rob went and stood under the Kentucky Star Motel sign and waited for the school bus just like it was any other day.” The caged tiger, we discover, symbolizes the wounded children’s emotions stuffed tightly into locked suitcases. His new friend Sistine (yup, named for the chapel) is filled with anger as he is with grief. But she can recite the Blake poem, and he can deftly carve wood. Within one hundred twenty-one pages, they reach a healing which is neither contrived nor gimmicky, but springs from natural, limited human efforts. (Though Sistine does recognize Willie May, a motel maid, the only adult they can confide in, as a “prophetess.”) Despite the tiger’s death, the reader ends with a comforting sense of closure and new beginnings. No wonder it was a finalist for the National Book Award.

The Magician’s Elephant could be a theological parable of grace and redemption. Ten-year old Peter lives with a crazy, abusive soldier who has always told him that his little sister Adele is dead. But when Peter gets the first hint that might not be true, he follows an arduous path, people by colorful characters, to discover her. Not to spoil the plot: when he finds her alive, he carries her as if he could do so forever. Even when she leaves the room for a brief time, he’s elated by her return. The author earns the insight that could’ve come from John’s gospel: “she was struck with a peculiar feeling of having been well and truly seen, having at last been found and saved.” As Meister Eckhart and other contemplatives have taught, we are truly seen in God’s gaze, the only one that matters. We rejoice because we are finally found.

As a child, I’d sometimes leave the library with utter glee because my arms were full of books. I felt the same way after scooping up the DiCamillo offerings at our local library. And blessings abound—I’ve got three more to read!