Kathy Coffey

Someday it may seem mild, but a priest who openly admitted being alcoholic and gay, then went rollerblading in his sixties was pushing the narrowly defined boundaries of priesthood in the seventies and eighties.

At one time, Mychal Judge drank so heavily he had blackouts. The drinking began in the seminary with little sips of altar wine. By 1976, “his alcoholism had become so serious that it became both crisis and opportunity.” After joining AA, Judge later attended as many of its meetings as he could. Some thought he was more familiar with the AA book than with the Bible.

The risk was dramatic at a time when “if a friar had drinking problem, it was hushed up or he was sent away for therapy.” So too for his second frontier: being gay. Judge was open about his gender preference even at a time when Archbishop O ‘Connor was quoted in the  New York Post as saying, “I would close all my orphanages rather than employ one gay person.” At first hesitant to march in New York’s first inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2000, Judge received wild acclaim from the crowd—and nervous disapproval from the church.

That continued when he was reported to the diocese for not wearing vestments at firehouse Masses. Judge told the young clerical bureaucrat who called him on the carpet: “if I’ve ever hurt the church I’ve served and loved so dearly for 40 years, I want to be burned at the stake on 5^th Ave., at the front doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.” “No matter how many robes Cardinal [O’Connor] put on or how much power he tried to exert, he still could not… quash Mychal Judge.”

The story of his death is well known: Judge rushed to the World Trade Center to be with the firefighters responding to the disaster. Some speculate that he removed his helmet to pray the last rites over a dying firefighter, was struck on the head by debris and died. Five rescue workers carried him out through the rubble; Shannon Stapleton’s photo of them was widely published. (His friends joked that even in death, Mychal still loved a photo-op.) Firefighters laid Judge’s body before the altar in a nearby church, covering it with a sheet, his stole and badge. His eulogist pointed out how appropriate it was that Judge died first; then he’d be in heaven to meet over 400 first responders who arrived later.

Judge’s biographer comments on the impromptu ritual of two cops praying over his body at Ground Zero. It’s not only OK for laity to give last rites in an emergency. It “was, in fact, entirely in keeping with Father Mychal’s own sacramental theology of hallowing the moment and was typical of the way ordinary people generated light in the darkness of that day.” The overflow crowd outside Judge’s funeral proved what his eulogist said: “When he was talking with you, you were the only person on the face of the earth.. . . We come to bury his heart but not his love. Never his love.”

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

The Grace of Grandparenting

A Day of Prayer for those who Nurture

Led by Kathy Coffey

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

(Romans 16:1-2)

Phoebe speaks:

I simply did what needed doing.

My dear friend Paul commended me for my deacon’s work in the church of Cenchreae, the one mention of me that’s endured. But we had none of the titles that must’ve evolved later. I wanted to bear witness to Jesus, to follow him, and to do his work. You might say he captured my imagination; he became my great happiness.

Anyone who heard about him for more than a day or two knew his focus on letting go of non-essentials. To him, those “fields shining white for the harvest” were more compelling than any synagogue authorities. After all, the man was baptized in a river by a fellow who ate locusts! No formal ritual in the temple for his initiation rite. None of the trappings of tribalism for him! Did he ever ask anyone for a marriage license or a baptismal certificate before he cured them? Did he check up on what church they attended or quiz them on purity codes before they had a conversation?

We tried to shape our priorities like Jesus’. I was Paul’s co-worker and we had much to do. (Even if some of my influence was reining in his large ego and toning down his zeal!) I didn’t even object to his description of me: “a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (16: 1).

My home, Cenchreae was Corinth’s eastern seaport, a place of cross-currents where cultures meet and stories spread. Good place to be!  I had managed a household, raised a family and welcomed friends to my home. It seemed a natural step to host Christian communities. Why would I suddenly take a lesser role? Paul certainly wasn’t threatened by me; indeed he welcomed and appreciated all the gifts everyone brought to his magnificent enterprise.[i] We may have been small groups of only forty or so, but we knew we could make tremendous change in the ego-driven, power-hungry, slave-holding society where we lived.

All that may explain why, when Paul asked me to carry his letter, I said, “of course.” I had the means and the wit; I liked adventure and liked carrying good news—why not? What an honor to read his message aloud for the first time.

I may get the press, but I wasn’t the only one. A tomb inscription in Cappadocia describes the less glorious work of more anonymous women: “Here lies the deacon Maria…who according to the words of the apostle raised children, sheltered guests, washed the feet of the saints, and shared her bread with the needy.”[ii] I’d be honored to stand as a representative of so many women, unnamed and unsung, who built that early church, pulled between arguments and grace.

And still they stand. In enlightened parishes this weekend, we’ll hear women’s voices raised. Their homilies are far too infrequent, but true to form, feisty Pheobe gives us the excuse…

[i] Florence Gillman. Women Who Knew Paul (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 41-42.

[ii] Phyllis Zagano, Holy Saturday (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 94.

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

The Grace of Grandparenting

A Day of Prayer for those who Nurture

Led by Kathy Coffey

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

I cried through most of “Daughters,” a documentary on Netflix. It tells of a dance arranged for incarcerated fathers with their young girls—“A Date with Dad.” Wisely focused on four of the girls, we watch, for instance, as Aubrey at five delights in her dad’s attention at the dance, and learns how seven rotations of the earth around the sun will constitute her dad’s sentence—7 years. It all began when a girl explained that her dad couldn’t come to the school dance because he was in jail. So community organizers said, “Let’s take the dance to them!”

For the fathers, the preparation is intense—10 weeks of a parenting course, followed by fittings for suits. The film shows them teaching each other how to tie ties, and one organizer’s 80-year old dad shines their dress shoes. Then the day arrives: other inmates wave goodbye as the dads leave for the dance. In perhaps the most dramatic moment, they sit, all dressed up, boutonnieres in their lapels, nervously and expectantly filling folding chairs along a sterile, institutional corridor of their D.C . jail. They lean forward tensely, all eyes on the door. When the first little girls appear in their best dresses, their hair done, the children’s excitement turns to a running plunge into dads’ arms. Some had worried they might not recognize each other, after absences of 3 to 5 years, but those concerns are quickly alleviated with hugs and tears all ‘round.  

They have the time of their lives at the dance, with party food, music, games, art projects, lots of dancing. It gives new meaning to the Carey Landry song, “And the Father will dance, as on a day of joy. He will exalt over you and renew you by his love.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYQLLpWR9Q0)

Then the sad part—the goodbyes. Everyone is weeping; no one knows when they’ll see each other again. Wisely, the girls’ moms comfort them, and the dads have a processing session together. What emerges is how widely they’d failed to understand their own importance in their daughters’ lives. As one dad admits, “I’m usually in and out of jail every six months. But I’m never coming back.” Impressively, 95% of the dads who participated in the project don’t return to jail.

The film follow-up continues for several years, and some dads leave prison, returning to their families. One 10-year old who’d assumed adult responsibilities because her mom had a new baby had rarely smiled before. But caught in the rain with her dad, she breaks into a radiant smile and giggles. Sadly, the older girls seem to grow more distant, and Aubrey’s dad unexpectedly has his sentence turn into 10 years. She becomes noticeably cooler, returning almost numb from one rare visit where a pane of glass separated them. The dad grieves: “I couldn’t hold her like I did at the dance.” Some dads mention being better role models for when their older girls start to date—this is the kind of guy to look for.

The film won many awards and a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But its ending may leave the viewer flummoxed: why was such a successful project not repeated, maybe as an annual event everyone could look forward to? Has it been replicated in other prisons? One review indicates that its success rate has led to its implementation elsewhere. Let’s hope so. Or–let’s make it happen?

Once a snob about reading mysteries, I sneered at them as a colossal waste of time. Now I know how much I can learn from them, how happily I can grow absorbed in their worlds. Last week introduced the Canadian writer Louise Penny and her intriguing mystery series featuring detective Armand Gamache. This week focuses on one of the books, A Great Reckoning. It’s better to start with Still Life, the first, but Penny weaves in enough background so the reader starting in the middle won’t feel totally lost.

Two elements of A Great Reckoning seem particularly noteworthy. One is a creative, artistic map woven throughout as a symbol, but no one knows its significance until the end. It’s touching when Gamache and his group discover it was left by a grieving mother for her three sons, missing in action during World War I, just in case they needed to find their way home.  Though all had died, it prompted me to think about the many teachers who’ve offered maps to uncharted inner territory: most recently, Henri Nouwen, Kathleen Singh, James Finley. Their books have been signposts, maps of a different kind, offering pathways Home.

In a moving scene near the end, after the murders have been solved and Armand returns to his deepest joy, his family, the local community and officers who’ve been key to the action gather in the village church for the baptism of the Gamaches’ grandson. The minister asks, “Who here stands for this child?” Two previously designated godparents stand, then the most cantankerous, foul-mouthed, nasty alcoholic stands, straight, tall and resolute. Gradually, one by one, the whole congregation follows her lead and stands. Even a pet duck rises, looking “as dignified as a duck possibly could.”

I don’t know if that question is particular to the Canadian rite, but how it resonates. In the face of the all-too-prevalent wreckage to children—in war, parental abuse, separation of families at the border, blatant neglect, dismal schools–the whole sickening list—someone must stand. Who will be voice for the voiceless, shield for the vulnerable, advocate in a system that steamrolls the innocent? In a small response that barely registers on the cosmic scale, the question prompted the renewal of my commitment to volunteer in an Oakland first grade for another year.

In March, I spent five days in surprisingly uncomfortable living conditions. No way to change; simply adapt. What helped? Knowing that every night for an hour of reading, I could slip into the comforting world of Armand Gamache. He’s the detective hero of Louise Penny’s mystery series. I hesitate to use the word hero, because he’s the first to admit being “a crowd of faults.” His mistakes are public knowledge, and he directs the officers he educates to four signposts: saying, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I don’t know. I need help.” Hardly the unflappable, infallible superhero we might first associate with the term.

But how could books which inevitably depict at least one gory murder bring such consolation? Since the August readings in some traditions are full of bread references, maybe it’s not a leap to the Quebec variety: croissants and baguettes. Armand Gamache, his wife, colleagues and friends eat often and well. Cookies, bowls of café au lait, eclairs, hot chocolate, soups, and wine abound—how else does one survive a Canadian winter? Furthermore, Penny sets her stories in a fictional community where anyone would long to live: Three Pines, a charming place surrounded by deep forests, rivers and mountains.  

She writes of it: “The village does not exist physically… Three Pines is a state of mind. When we choose tolerance over hate. Kindness over cruelty. Goodness over bullying. When we choose to be hopeful, not cynical. Then we live in Three Pines.“ At its heart is a bistro with fireplaces, high ceiling beams, cozy chairs and food that leaves the reader drooling. Penny says of the choices above, “I don’t always make those choices, but I do know when I’m in the wilderness and when I’m in the bistro.” It’s led me to wonder if we can’t all create a Three Pines of the heart—maybe easier for those who as children lived imaginatively in Narnia or the Secret Garden or Hogwarts.

All the books in the series are intriguing, full of wit, literary references, unpredictable characters and twisty plots. At the center of each stands Armand—a scarred, honest, calm, strong, kind, unorthodox, wounded, brilliant leader. Simply by listening carefully, he can get a surprisingly accurate read on every suspect in a crime. While it would be ease and joy to devote a blog to every book, the focus next week will be on A Great Reckoning.  

Once a reading snob, I’m grateful now to dive into the wicked, wonderful world of mysteries. May go back to earliest days reading Nancy Drew…

For those asking about the trees retreat described last week, it was given by arborists Dennis and Anne Yniguez at San Damiano Franciscan Retreat Center, Danville CA, https://sandamiano.org.

“Trees are poems the earth writes on the sky.”–Kahlil Gibran

I am a retreat junkie, but a recent “retreat under the trees” was a unique experience, different from any ever made before. For a whole weekend, two arborists simply taught about trees. Over and over, we saw the remarkable design and care poured into every leaf. How bent on light and life the tree is, how it works against gravity to soar, how it gains ground by going nowhere. The tree is like an interdisciplinary classroom, combining chemistry, engineering, art, geometry and poetry.  I will never see a green, leafy canopy the same way again, now recognizing in it “so great a cloud of witnesses.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Recent research has confirmed the deft strategies a tree uses to survive drought, fire, wind, floods, animals like deer nibbling on its bark. While my understanding is rudimentary and far from complete, I highly recommend The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard  to expand this brief description. Video versions and adaptations for children are also available. The more one learns, the more one agrees with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.” 

Redwoods, the tallest trees in the world, some almost 300 feet high, send out roots as long as 6 feet, graft roots onto each other for stability, and grow in groves to protect from wind. After an old one falls, a fairy ring of tubers sprouts, new clones of the original parent. These saplings then grow in a family circle, nourishing and protecting each other from pests and other threats through a silky underground network of fungi.

Even one leaf is a marvel, with smaller ones clustered at the top so they won’t block sun, and lower ones larger to capture more light. Thus one poetic description of trees is “aerial light nets.” Even pine needles, like larger leaves, have stomata or tiny holes on the bottom to take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As they release oxygen, they become our carbon banks, and are growing faster now as carbon dioxide in the air increases. A microscope reveals how the holes close to prevent the leaf releasing too much moisture which it must conserve during a drought.  

In a constant exchange with the environment, trees host mites that eat the fungi that would eat their leaves. Soil resists the encroachment of roots, so the tip of a root is lubricated to ease its way forward. Such intricate and awesome design! Or as John Muir said, “Waters and winds,… meadows and groves, and all the silver stars are words of God.”

Experts on aging like Kathleen Singh propose that the task of the later years is to move away from “selfing,” or ego dominance. While ego serves a worthwhile purpose, like accomplishing work and following directions, it wastes precious time on judgments and anxiety. As we approach our final days, “far more compelling experiences of transcendence occupy our attention.” It may take something vast and magnificent to nudge us from the ingrained ruts of thought and the old, tired patterns of behavior. Something like a forest, coming at just the right time.  

As the poet David Wagoner writes,

“The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.”

According to the proto-gospel of St. James, Joachim and Anna are the grandparents of Jesus. Their daughter Mary was born late in life, a long-anticipated gift like the child of Abraham and Sarah or Elizabeth and Zechariah.

My most vivid image of the couple, understandably, appears on the cover of my book, A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting. With understated humor, artist Micky McGrath gave Anna big hoop earrings and both grandparents are cloaked in vivid symbols of mountains, sun and stars. Held in that cosmic embrace, the child Jesus endearingly wears bunny slippers to symbolize his resurrection, and holds tiny stuffies in his hands, the lion and lamb, of Isaiah 11:6. The title of the art, “Jesus Has a Sleepover with his Grandparents” places today’s tired, bewildered grandparents in a long and sacred line.

Anna and Joachim must’ve been puzzled when their daughter told them the strange circumstances of their grandchild’s birth. And Joseph’s parents must’ve looked for their son’s resemblance in the mysterious child. In short: confusion is OK, maybe even holy.

When Pope Francis established a World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, celebrated on the Sunday closest to this feast, he must have been remembering his own Nonna Rosa. Rosa, her husband, and her son Mario had emigrated from Turin, Italy to Buenos Aires in 1929, fleeing poverty. Although it was high summer in the southern hemisphere, she wore her fox-collared coat for the journey because she had sewn in the lining the money from selling their family home.

Many consider Nonna Rosa the most important woman in Pope Francis’ life. Rosa lived around the corner from his childhood home in Buenos Aires, and looked after little Jorge as his four younger siblings were born. She continued to play an influential role until she died in his arms in 1970, when the future pope was thirty-four. When Cardinal Bergoglio moved to Italy to become Pope Francis, it brought his family history full circle. In many ways, Italian language, food, and customs must’ve felt familiar. His Nonna Rosa had prepared him long before for a life no one could have predicted. So too, grandparents have no idea what the century ahead holds for their grands—but they give them a firm foundation in love, a launching pad in care that can carry them far.

Let’s give the pope the final word here: “Grandparents are a treasure. Often old age isn’t pretty, right? There is sickness and all that, but the wisdom our grandparents have is something we must welcome as an inheritance.” And: “One of the most beautiful things… in the family, in our lives, is caressing a child and letting yourself be caressed by a grandfather or a grandmother.”[1]

Excerpts from A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting. Orbis Books, 800-258-5838, or website: https://orbisbooks.com/

[1] https://www.osvnews.com/amp/2021/07/08/pope-francis-offers-tip-of-the-zucchetto-to-grandparents-and-the-elderly/

Let’s hope that on the Feast of Mary Magdalene July 22, we all do our part to correct the misperception of her as prostitute. That error, a conflation of three Biblical texts, was given authority by Pope Gregory the Great in the seventh century, and not corrected for 1400 years, until revisions to the Roman calendar of 1969.

Luke’s gospel names her as one of several financially independent women who supported Jesus’ ministry. But her role is more important than financier. Dan Brown’s best-selling Da Vinci Code gave her a romantic role, but again, her centrality in the early Christian community was more than simply a private relationship.

All four Gospels agree she was one of the first witnesses to the resurrection. When Jesus calls her name in the garden, it is a pivotal point of human history. Her name is the hinge to a new order. She was the first to realize that God could vanquish even death, and to tell the other disciples. She convinced them and skeptics throughout history that “love is stronger than death.” To silence her voice and discount her primary role does her a great disservice. She calls us instead to the vision of a world free of sexism, suffering, exploitation and death. Arguments over authority simply distract from that larger hope.

Sandaled but Stinky

Send-off scripts are fairly standard: “Got your phone? Don’t forget your keys/lunch/directions!”  That’s why Jesus’ parting with his disciples seems a bit off: he tells them what not to take. Some Christian churches will hear this weekend from Mark 6: no money, no food, no sack and no second tunic. Whoa—no clothing change in the heat of the middle east? They must’ve been a fragrant bunch when they returned!

Perhaps he wants them to avoid entanglements with the crutches that often buoy us up: our achievements, possessions, treats like the granola bar tucked away in the backpack.  Instead he focuses on what they do need: each other. Or as Pooh said to Piglet, “Life is so much friendlier with two.”

Although Jesus never mentions it explicitly, he too will accompany them. They must’ve suspected that presence and power when they cured the sick and cast out demons, actions way beyond their human scope. As Henri Nouwen points out, Jesus in John 15:15 doesn’t say he’ll reveal some of what he knows about the Father, but “everything that I have heard from my Father.” Furthermore, he promises: “You will do greater things than I have done.”

Life is often a balance between going forth and coming home. One wonders about the other bookend for this passage: the return. The disheveled bunch must’ve been hungry, eager to shower, relax, have a beer and tell tales of their adventures. Let’s hope they didn’t boast, but wondered what sort of mystery enfolded them. And who this was who’d sent them?

They may have remembered the psalm, “you lead me along right paths…” Totally unexpected, but absolutely marvelous trails. Do we have similar questions, parallel awe? We too can look back at stirrings in childhood or seeds in adolescence that materialized into lifelong attractions, interests or careers. We can recall familiar ways taken so often they wore grooves in our psyches and shoes—or those so breathtakingly new we had to read signposts in a foreign language. All the journeys of feet or mind part of a longer arc, pathways into God.

How can one encounter radically diverse universes in two days, within an hour of home? God must find ways to stretch us if we ever grow too complacent or stuck in the familiar…

Let’s just say I didn’t go to the local car show intentionally, but the main road in town was closed for it, and I wanted to get to yoga. Made it there on foot, which gave me bird’s eye views of gentlemen displaying their cars. Many antique, all glistening. The hoods were open for engine inspection (though I wouldn’t know what to look for?) and the owners hovered nearby with white handkerchiefs, lest a speck of dust fall therein. Clearly a great amount of time and energy had poured into these vehicles. I must admit that I simply want my car to start and get me where I’m going with minimal fuss. In short, I don’t want to think about it. So the ardent devotion and dedication was a glimpse into another mindset.

Next day, I was overwhelmed in a different way, at Stanford University’s commencement. After the huge event for over 5000 students in the stadium, each department held their own smaller gathering in tents scattered around the campus. Tables were filled with abundant refreshments, background music played quietly, and the pride of parents was on full display.

It quickly became apparent why they were bursting at the seams. Many students seemed to be first generation, and a majority were women of color. They were pursuing fascinating research and futures full of potential. (One Latina for instance, after receiving her Ph.D. at Stanford, was going on to Harvard within the month for an MBA, then planned to open a non-profit. Some received their law degrees and Ph. D.’s simultaneously, and brought their knowledge to amicus briefs and AI.) Although I’d known in my mind that the face of higher education was changing, I saw it with my own eyes: among the 30 graduates at all levels in the Linguistics department ceremony I attended, only one white male. (Cue Bob Dylan: “And the times, they are a changin’…”) A sampling of backgrounds: Lakota, Hong Kong, Burma, Cuban part of Miami.

That might have been simply one department, but the impression was borne out afterwards, by the waves of students crossing campus: again, without a scientific count, many graduates were people of color. Their mothers dressed in garments unique to their cultures, wearing a wide variety of beautiful saris, elaborate embroidered aprons over long skirts, with their offspring in mortarboards decorated for individual ethnicities.

I hope what I saw there was the emergence of a tremendous force for good in some of the brightest youths at one of the world’s finest universities. Of course at such an event, all is potential: waving banners, displays of rich colors in academic hoods, balanced by long traditions, family and institutional launching pads built over generations.

Our worlds can grow narrow without our noticing—unless we’re lucky enough to have a large nudge and potent reminder that “in the Father’s house, there are many rooms.”