Kathy Coffey

The context of Jesus’ farewell today is the last supper; the friends to whom he speaks are understandably confused and anxious. Earlier, they had questioned his allusions to leaving them. Temporarily? Or forever? He’d seen beneath Peter’s bravado (“Why can’t I follow you? I’ll lay down my life for you.”)

Under the arrogance, the needy, vulnerable child who desperately needs comfort. Jesus, not focused on his own imminent ordeal, looks fondly on his friends: bedraggled, flummoxed, sloppy, dear. And dreading more than anything, as most children do, being abandoned by those they love.

A similar situation is described by the marvelous poet and U. of Indiana professor Ross Gay in his book Inciting Joy, which traces the dance between sorrow and joy, the first state carving space for the second. His family, gathered around his dying father, leaves the hospital briefly for “a somber dinner…a pallor over us, edging toward the world without this person we loved.”

Like Jesus, his dad has been more focused on his loved ones than his own liver tumor. A week after the dad’s diagnosis, his son Ross gets sick. Dad cares for him, bringing a cold rag for his feverish neck, making lightly buttered toast, and when he feels up to eating more, a plate of supper he’s kept warm in the oven.

Ross doesn’t gloss over the fact that like most dads and teen-aged sons, they’d had a rough patch during his adolescence. But their relationship as adults shows how one can dwell in the other forever. They share a love for playing basketball, cooking, and smelling lilacs. “He would close his eyes to breathe [the fragrance] in, and I would do the same without noticing I do it, too.” Ross recognizes in himself the same bluster his dad shows when he’s “insecure, threatened, small, dumb, or not enough, which is not exactly infrequent.”

During their last goodbyes, Ross notices his father’s freckles, “like a gentle broadcast of carrot seeds… through my tears I saw my father was a garden… And from that what might grow.” Ross Gay’s community garden is a refuge from racism, and a deep source of joy, described in his Book of Delights. Another inheritance from his father, and a striking parallel to Jesus, who suffered and rose in a garden, bringing spring life. And how are we, maybe without even noticing, like him? From us, what might grow?

Hang on for what may be a stretch—the imaginative connection between Jesus’ farewell to his friends, a selection of the gospel read in some churches this weekend, and schools all over the country drawing their years to a close. Both events are full of goodbyes and glories.

In the glory department, consider the first grade teacher who begins the year with three students at a kindergarten level. They have no pre-reading or writing skills as the other children do; they require a separate curriculum. Their teacher puts in many hours after school; volunteers work one-on-one with these children. Initially, they resist the nudge to work by creating games with pencils and erasers. Cheerful and apparently happy, they have little to no focus on the subject matter. When other children hunker down with a chrome book on their own, they look for chances to play.

Fast forward to May. Amazingly, these three are now slowly but surely reading. It feels like wheels are turning as they connect letters with sounds to say aloud. They can even sound out a word, approximate its spelling and form wobbly letters on a page.  Only a total cynic could say a miracle hasn’t occurred. Inch by inch, this trio has acquired the basics of skills that will get them not only through second grade and further education, but life.

Recently, I saw a Treasury of Dick and Jane, which must’ve been designed for Baby Boomers who learned to read with this little family. Father wore a coat and tie, Mother an apron and heels, and Baby Sally was endearingly round. The pastel illustrations and simple sentences brought back a rush of emotion: This was the beginning. For me, reading has enriched a lifetime, starting with children’s authors like Beverly Cleary and Katherine Paterson or series like Nancy Drew. It’s helped me endure boring stretches, long flights and disappointing days. Without it, life would be colorless and bleak. Fear of losing vision for reading keeps me eating spinach and popping eye vitamins.

On the back cover of my book, A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting there’s a photo of six grandchildren and meself, all of us wearing t-shirts that proclaim, “I’dRather Be Reading.” Our stance applies to all the arts: I marvel when a choir director wrangles middle schoolers into memorizing lyrics, rehearsing, producing beautiful sound and performing their spring concert. Easily distracted and improbable vocalists, they concentrate on the leader, move in disciplined ranks, and master difficult harmonies.  

Praise to teachers, students and May, the season for grateful graduations, goodbyes, beginnings—all giving glory to God.

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.

Few of us look out our windows to see shepherds with flocks on the hillsides, but if we broaden the imagination, we can see them in unique ways. People shepherd creatively, perhaps never dreaming that they model one who gathers the sheep in his arms. For example,

A mom with a demanding job and two young children nevertheless stays at the vet with her sick dog overnight and throughout another day. She can’t bear to leave him, frightened and alone, so she sacrifices her sleep. Just what the Good Shepherd might do…

In Oakland, CA, over 100 volunteers read in 14 elementary schools to 5,000 students for Asian-American and African-American months, shepherding children from a variety of backgrounds towards, or re-acquainting them with, fascinating cultures.

Dean William Treanor of Georgetown Law shepherded his school when the Trump administration threatened to bar their students from federal jobs if diversity, equity, and inclusion continued to be part of the curriculum. With a clear, succinct “No,” he said, “that is not who we are.” Uncowed by bullying, Treanor wrote: “The First Amendment… guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it.” As a Jesuit and Catholic institution, they have always welcomed people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives—and will continue to do so.

A guard at the Louvre museum in Paris noticed a small girl crying. She’d been pushed out of the crowds so eager to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa, they’d shoved her aside. Afraid she was lost, the guard found her grandmother and led them to a clear space in front of the art, took their pictures and stopped the tears. Of course he didn’t have to do it, but the shepherding instinct runs deep and kind.

As it does for a man who explains somewhat shyly that he’s kept his housekeeper when he no longer needs one. “But she’s 65—and where would she go?” he asks from a large and generous heart.

A religious sister who works in prisons introduces “Project Bedtime Story,” where inmates read to their children, their voices then electronically conveyed home to the kids. Both men and women’s prisoners even add back up choruses, singing the ABC song or whatever works as their friends read aloud.

So the Shepherd strolls, maybe where we least expect…

The skunking of the tired disciples in John 21:1-19 reminds me of Sandra Cisneros’ comparison of fishing to writing. The author of The House on Mango St. and many other works celebrating her Mexican heritage said the writing process is like assembling your gear, your tackle, your bait and your boat. Then after all that preliminary work, you row out, cast your line into the water and wait for a tug. A fish? Or for a writer, an inspiration, the words on the page falling together with a pleasing cadence, the ideas or the characters aligning surprisingly well.

How must they have felt, then? Jesus’ friends, after a discouraging night, suddenly find a net so full they can barely pull it in. Then, they don’t even need to arrange a celebration—Jesus has it all prepared. The maternal Jesus—a man who cooks–invites his tired, bedraggled disciples, “come, children, have breakfast.” He’s waited till dawn on the shore for them, now speaks to the hungry and bewildered a word of comfort, offering exactly what they need.

No fulmination, no revenge, no recrimination. Just a silhouette against the sunrise, and the tenderness of a parent feeding a family. The scene is so close to home, it affirms and underlines all we know best: goodbyes past, the warmth of fire, beauty of water, relief of food when we’re really hungry. Before asking Peter to feed the flock, Jesus makes sure his friend is well fed himself. He knows how wavering and uncertain our human nature can be. But he also knows, like a good mom, how to nurture.

Theologian Karl Rahner, SJ says “the resurrection means we become all we could ever have been. All the limits of this life are lifted and we are all we could ever hope and desire to be.” What potential! My imagination runs amuck with this—becoming a fine poet, a marine biologist, a really good wife and mother, a ballerina, an activist for justice, a world-renowned artist or musician, an environmentalist, a doctor-without-borders, an Olympic gymnast/skater/swimmer.

Even naming these must mean the seeds are in us, which will someday flower. So our own resurrections mean not only entering into infinite love, but also achieving all the goals we didn’t even attempt on earth. If limits on time and space are off, we can return to our favorite, most beautiful places in this world—with no check-out time.

In light of Pope Francis’ death, those who’ve seen the movie “Conclave” might remember the homily given by Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, to cardinals assembled for the new pope’s election. “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.” St. Thomas would’ve approved.

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.

In chilly, dark December, we sing 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!”

With each day’s news bringing another crushing assault on our democracy, and every new headline describing major, cruel policy shifts we never voted on, let’s try to turn our thoughts to Resurrection.

We have a preview in the parable of the prodigal son where the phrase “he got up” or “he has come to life again” recurs four times. The deliberate repetition leads us to ask, “where do we rise up?” At a certain age, simply getting out of bed in the morning is a triumphant act of courage. And if we uplift our attitudes, we learn to think of the day not as “what drudgery must I do?” but “what awesome surprises does this hold? What gifts does God have in store today?”

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 small signals call us to hope in the larger arena: the spark in a substantive conversation, the surprise call or e-mail, the shared understanding that sometimes comes without words.  The delayed, reluctant reader sounds out the first word, 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.
 

A contemporary death-to-life story is told in “Blink,” a touching National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney +. A family in Montreal learns that 3 of their 4 children will gradually go blind. The mother recounts with painfully honesty how she rushed online to research the condition, reading there, “no cure.” With considerable bravery and luck, the parents set out on a world-wide tour to give the children visual memories, images they can store in their mental banks when their vision is gone. A safari in Africa, a trek through the Himalayas in Nepal, rides on camels in Egypt, a zip line through the rain forest in Ecuador—everything on the family bucket list gets checked and experienced.

Even the frustrating parts of the journey are recorded—squabbles, getting stuck on an aerial gondola in Ecuador for 9 hours, fatigue, cold rain and sad, encroaching signs like loss of night vision. But the joy is evident and the resurrection continues in a quieter vein when they return home and learn to navigate with seeing eye dogs.

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.”  

Sometimes it helps to see parallels between the passion narratives and our daily experience where we find many kinds of Eucharist. At the grocery store recently, choosing the wrong check-out line as always, I wound up behind a customer who engaged the clerk in a lengthy discussion of measles. Every symptom from childhood on was discussed at great length. By the time we hit “my sister at age 5,” I glanced at the guy behind me.

Big, young and sweetly shy, he had a beautiful assortment of flowers in his grocery cart, which I complimented. “Odd assortment of groceries, huh?” he responded. Along with the flowers were many small packets of jello and rice pudding. “I work at a nursing home,” he explained. “We’ll put a flower on each lunch tray.” “And jello will be a treat!” I finished. As the conversation ahead turned to dog diseases, I was grinning at “a cart full of jello and joy.”  

Like Eucharist, Christ’s Good Friday continues in the suffering of the Mystical Body. The pain inflicted on Jesus gives us a framework to hold the current cruelty of the U.S. government. When Trump and Musk ended the U.S. Agency for International Development, probably illegally, reporter Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times traveled through East Africa and reported on the devastating, preventable deaths that have already resulted. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html?campaign_id=45&emc=edit_nk_20250317&instance_id=150222&nl=nicholas-kristof&regi_id=73769963&segment_id=193680&user_id=2a4e71af79d7b498d29e2d0c1faa1e7d)

Kristof’s clear, dramatic diagrams show the heartbreaking numbers who will die without the medicine and health workers the U.S. once funded. And how much money will the billionaire’s cuts save, presumably for his rich cronies? “The cost of first-line H.I.V. medications to keep a person alive is less than 12 cents a day.” Joseph was betrayed by his brothers for 20 pieces of silver and Jesus by Judas for 30…

No logic can explain it. No words can wrap around the bottomless grief of a mother losing her child in S. Sudan, or Mary’s at the crucifixion. The eyes of faith can turn only to the broken bones and bloodied hands of One who suffers in innocent orphans and desperately ill, malnourished people. He is with us in our worst brokenness. Thomas Merton once wrote about his younger brother’s death in war: “and in the wreckage of your April, Christ lies slain.”

Questions are unanswerable, but One goes before us who shares the agony. And those with a conscience, those who celebrate Holy Week must answer Kristof’s challenge (3/19): “pulling back aid… largely silent about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis… comes painfully close to complicity.”

(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 on him: ‘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

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 in the Hebrew scripture, “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 those who may be more educated, still desperately clinging to a tired tradition. 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, and what follows may be mine. This Lent is pervaded by news of crushingly inhumane federal policies which benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. It’s the kind of gross injustice the Hebrew prophets railed against, and they didn’t even have our expectations of democracy, a system rooted in the consent of the governed.

When did we the governed agree to freeze funding for Jesuit Refugee Service’s life-saving work of—just one example–providing medicine, food, shelter and services for children with disabilities? Or agree to stiffing the Catholic bishops for $13 million worth of care provided before Jan. 24 to resettle refugees who are in the U.S. legally? When did we vote to treat Canada as enemy and Putin as ally? A major foreign policy shift, and we had no say?

To avoid closing with pessimism, two examples of clear seeing: first, a film streaming on Amazon, “Becoming Katherine Graham.” During previous crises, this woman who was totally unprepared to take on running The Washington Post made the brave decisions to publish the Pentagon Papers, revealing the disaster unfolding in Vietnam, and to uncover the Watergate fraud which eventually led to Nixon’s resignation. At stake was the first amendment, which will sound familiar to those following the controversy about the AP refusing to conform to “Gulf of America” and being punished with no access to the oval office. (Nixon used the same strategy.)

The second clear clarion: when Trump threatened Georgetown Law about eliminating all DEI, Dean Treanor responded and didn’t hold back: “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”

Blindness and insight take different forms, but have characterized humanity since biblical times.

The Genius of Jesus, The World of Women–Kathy Coffey

Day of Prayer, Sat. April 5

St. Thomas More Parish, Manhattan, KS

$55

8:30-3:30

900 Kimball Ave, Manhattan, KS 66502 | 785-776-5151 | stm@stmmanhattan.com

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.