Author: Paula Hillery

From the Steering Committee:

Our PAX liturgy on May 22 will be a “test drive” for our return to an onsite service combined with a zoom liturgy.  A few important notes:

This liturgy will start at 9:00 AM 

(rather than our usual 9:30 for Zoom-only liturgies)

The liturgy will include participants onsite at St. Luke’s and participants via Zoom. 

For those participating at St. Luke’s:

We are concerned for the safety of community members and our presiders and will be taking the following precautions for those attending in person:

• There is an expectation that all in-person attendees will be fully vaccinated (unless contraindicated due to health issues)
• Everyone will need to wear a mask at all times
• Hand sanitizer will be available
• Chairs will be set up to allow for physical distancing
• Tables and other high-touch surfaces will be cleaned with disinfectant
• Communion will be bread only

For those participating by Zoom:

• You should be able to see and hear what is happening in the room and will be able to speak during prayers and announcements.
• Off-site planners will be able to do readings and any other speaking parts during the Mass. 

We know there may be glitches and we will be soliciting feedback on the process. Please reach out to any of us with questions or concerns.

For the two Sundays after the hybrid liturgy (May 29 and June 5) we will return to our current arrangement with a Zoom only liturgy at 9:30 AM.

May 22, 2022 – hybrid liturgy on-site and Zoom 9:00 AM

May 29, 2022  – Zoom only (Memorial Day weekend) 9:30 AM

June 5, 2022 – outreach Sunday, Zoom only 9:30 AM

June 12, 2022 and beyond – TBA pending feedback from the May 22 liturgy.

Please forward as appropriate to members who are not on the PAX-L

PAX Steering Committee – Ann Brown; Frank Distasio; Stephanie Niedringhaus; Carl (Tres) Siebentritt

anncalvertbrown@gmail.com

fdistasio@cox.net

sniedringhaus@gmail.com

csiebentritt@hotmail.com

1^st Reading:        Acts 13:14, 43-52       

2^nd Reading:          Revelation 7:9,14-17

Gospel:                John 10:27-30            

Today, Mother’s Day, we celebrate mothers and how mothers and women have mothered nonviolence.  Today’s gospel is a short reading, but it is the culmination of a long discourse in the gospel of John in which Jesus refers to himself as the Good Shepherd.  Jesus describes a strong, intimate relationship between the sheep and the shepherd so that the sheep know the shepherd’s voice and with trust respond to the shepherd.  The Shepherd serves as a beautiful image of kindness and compassion but also courage and strength to protect the flock.

The shepherd-sheep relationship mirrors that of newborn human infants and their mothers.  Indeed, in most cases, the bond between mother and child begins in utero. Immediately at birth, newborns recognize their mother’s voice; the new mother releases pheromones that the newborn also recognizes as mother.     A mother wants so much for her child—a life of happiness, success, and a kind, gentle world where everyone is considered scared and respected; a world where humans are good stewards of creation and a world of nonviolence, a world of peace.  Like the Shepherd, a mother has kindness and compassion along with courage and strength to protect her child.  Mothers want to create a safe world for their children, and many have done this by mothering nonviolence to justice.

Often when we think of nonviolence movements, Gandhi or Martin Luther King come to mind.  However, centuries before Gandhi or King, women have mothered nonviolence by responding in life-affirming, creative ways to an unjust world.  Throughout the world, women have struggled collectively and nonviolently to bring about peace and justice. 

In 1600, women of the Iroquois nation threatened to boycott affection and childbearing until the men gave them some power in decisions about war and peace.  Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer used nonviolence to fight for religious freedom in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; look at the nonviolence of Lucretia Mott, the Grimke Sisters, and Harriet Tubman to end slavery; there are the suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Alice Paul; the anti-lynching campaigns of Ida B. Wells; the textile workers; the mothers of Love Canal; Dorothy Day and so many, many more women who collectively came together to nonviolently work for justice.  They were often beaten, imprisoned, shunned by society, but each day they returned to their work to make a better world.     Throughout the world, South Africa, China, Turkey, Egypt, women have mothered nonviolence for social justice.

One of the most poignant, courageous examples of a mother’s love and the mothering of nonviolence is the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  In 1976, the military overthrew the Argentine government and established a junta, and so began the junta’s Dirty War.  Young people, an estimated 30,000, disappeared if they joined a union, sang freedom songs, raised their voices, were seen with the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had done nothing at all.  They were snatched from their homes in front of their bewildered, powerless parents; some left for a university class to never return; some young couples left for Sunday Mass, but never made it to the church—they disappeared.  Mothers went to the Ministry of the Interior seeking information from the officials.  After waiting for hours to meet with an official, mothers were told that their cases would be processed but, in all likelihood, their missing children had run off, had abandoned the family, or their children were terrorists who had been executed by other terrorists.  After being dismissed and told by one official after another that the missing children were of no concern, the mothers realized they were wasting their time at the Ministry and decided they had to take their cases to the Plaza de Mayo in front of the Presidential Palace. 

At a time when public demonstrations were forbidden, the mothers decided to stand together as witnesses to the disappearance of their children.   First, there were only fourteen women who met every Thursday at 3:30, but then more and more mothers, sisters, daughters, and grandmothers joined walking in a slow-moving circle around the Plaza carrying photos of their loved ones.    The newspapers were afraid to write about the mothers’ actions; American and British journalists who attempted to interview the mothers were arrested.  People walking by the Plaza were afraid to acknowledge the women’s presence and looked away. 

As the mothers drew international attention to the human rights abuses in Argentina, they became targets for police violence, repression, arrests, and murder.  For about a year, the women endured the police violence until three of their leaders, two French nuns, and seven young helpers were murdered.  The mothers withdrew from the Plaza.  The junta thought the military police with the tear gas, guns, billy clubs, and murder of leaders had defeated the mothers.   They were wrong.  For months the mothers met secretly to organize, and despite the previous terror, the mothers returned to the Plaza every Thursday at 3:30 in greater numbers.  They wore simple white head scarves stitched with the names of their children and the date they were disappeared; and now the photos of their disappeared children were poster size.  Their number was so great that several blocks away you could hear a hum that sounded like buzzing in the electrical wires; it was the voices of the mothers as they marched and spoke their children’s names. 

These women were the only group out of desperation, fear, and love who stood up to the brutal dictatorship to demand information about their missing children.  The Catholic Church was silent; no Oscar Romero-like person emerged giving voice to the terror or suffering.  Unfortunately, some priests betrayed the mothers and gave information to the police leading to their arrests.  Yet, the mothers endured and continued to march.  The mothers became a powerful, social movement and one of the only visible forms of protest during the seven years of terror and fear, the junta’s Dirty War.  The mothers’ courage became contagious.  Onlookers now stopped to applaud the mothers; newspapers gave them coverage; and the world began to watch.   All agree that these mothers helped topple the ugly regime and helped bring the day in December 1983 when the people of Argentina inaugurated a president as head of a democratic government.

After democracy came to Argentina, the mothers still marched every Thursday to challenge the attempt to grant amnesty to the perpetrators.  They successfully demanded investigative truth commissions and trials of the military junta. 

The courageous Mothers of the Plaza were willing to face terror, violence, and death for their children.  Wearing white scarves, every Thursday for seven years they marched.    They marched.  

Paula, your mother, Grace, would march for you; Ron and Kathy, your mother Marie would wear a white scarf and march for you; Nikolai, Ida would be at the plaza every Thursday for you; Marilu, Lucille would march for you; Dan, Anne Marie would march; as would Martha for you, Sara.  Barbara, Phyllis would march as would Anna for you, Shane; Frank, your mother, Josephine would March for you; Mafalda, Elizabeth would march; Charles, Helen would be at the Plaza for you; Molly, Joan would march as would Joyce for Mike; Megan, Diane would there; Charlie, Janet would march for you; Anne, Maria and Gail would be at the Plaza for you; Steve, Phyllis would march; Ann, Carolyn would march for you; Marian, Hildegard would don a white scarf and march for you.  Would not all our mothers march?

Today on Mother’s Day, let us carry the mothers of the Plaza and all our mothers in our hearts in thanksgiving for the love and protection given to us and for the mothering of nonviolence in the world.  We need to change the universal rhythm so that it is by nonviolence we bring about justice in our lives, in our country, and among nations.  Like the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, we need to mother nonviolence.  We want a world where nonviolence has a home.

Although we didn’t realize it would be his last, Fr. Drew Christiansen presented his last homily with PAX for the 2^nd Sunday of Advent on December 5, 2021.

See your children gathered

from the west and east

at the word of the Holy One.

                                                          Baruch 5: 5

Our opening reading this morning from Baruch re-affirms the prophetic message of the post-Exilic prophets that God will gather his people, not only the exiled people of Israel, but all the peoples of the Earth. The most famous of these visions is found in chapter 2 of Isaiah:

All the nations shall flow to [the mountain of the Lord],

And many peoples will come and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

. . . that he may teach us his ways,

And that we may walk in his paths.”

In the Isaiah’s vision, those who come to Mt. Zion are not just the returning Israelite exiles but “many peoples.” Psalm 87 is shockingly explicit about the inclusiveness of God’s Kingdom:

Among those who know me I count

Rahab and Babylon.

Babylon the city of Israel’s exile, degradation and dispersion. The lament we know as Psalm 137, “By the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept/ On the aspens of the land, we hung uo our harps,” ends with a note of uttermost hostility: “Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock.” Yet, in the divine dispensation, according to Ps. 87, Babylon belongs to God’s family and calls Jerusalem mother.

Behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia—

This one was born there, they say.

The boldness of Psalm 87’s rendering of the theme of universal salvation is exceptional. Philistia, that is Palestine, belongs to God’s family, so does Tyre, that is, southern Lebanon. To this day, Israel holds them as enemies. And Ethiopia represents the peoples of Africa and the far ends of the earth.  (Today’s Israel is uncertain about Ethiopians, sometimes giving them refuge and sometimes deporting them.) All nations are God’s children. In reminding the Israelites of God’s love for all peoples, the Psalmist anticipates our Advent theme: Discerning voices from the periphery.

The post-Exilic prophets attempted to give the Israelites a sense of the universality of God’s love that would overcome the hostilities and resentments of their tribal history. Israel, as Jewish theologians will tell you event today, was to be the school where others would come to know God with the intimacy Israel had known in the desert. Unfortunately, today the Middle East is still a center of rivalry, enmity and combat between peoples and nations. The most obvious of these rivalries is manfest in the dispossession and persecution of the Palestinian people.

       In his recent writing, Massimo Faggioli has reminded readers that Pope Francis sense of mission to the peripheries has taken him to Iraq and Abu Dhabi. In the case of Iraq, he wanted to let the Iraqi people know that after 20 years of war they were not forgotten and also to affirm hard-pressed Shia Muslims of his solidarity with them.  In Abu Dhabi, he joined in a program of tolerance to alleviate the tensions between Christians and Muslims.

From Lampedeusa to Lesbos, to the U.S.-Mexican border, Francis has been an advocate for migrants and refugees. Thanka to his devotion to people on the periphery, Faggioli writes, “Rome is much closer to becoming a truly “holy city” that brings the Bishop of Rome closer to the immigrants and refugees, to prison inmates, and the marginalized.”

Writing of Pope Francis’ synodal way, Faggioli writes, the pope hopes to give the Church “a self-understanding more aware of the non-European and non-American Catholic churches and the richness and complexity of the one human family.”  Few Catholics know that besides the dominant Latin church we know the best there are 24 Catholic churches. The Second Vatican Council affirmed that these communities that we used to call “rites,” singling out their distinctive liturgical traditions, are churches in the full sense.  Francis goes farther, however, teaching in Evangelii Gaudium that the beauty of the church lies in its diversity.  The Gospel, he teaches, takes a unique form in every culture, giving rise to distinctive forms of Christianity. This teaching has profound implications for Christian identity in the 21^st century.

In particular, it means we must become more accepting of diversity among Christians around the world. We must also anticipate more diversity still as long subject peoples, like Native Americans, enculturate the Gospel to their own culture and adapt their forms of piety to their own traditions. In 1999. I participated in the First Congress of Catholic Patriarchs of the Middle East. Each morning Mass was celebrated by a patriarch or bishop of a different tradition. There were different languages, different vestments, different rituals. Most were sung or chanted, not recited. I confess that what finally got to me as a westerner was the different sense of time. Each day the liturgies seemed to get longer, and by the end of the week I fled the featured Mass to the Latin Mass the Latin Patriarch celebrate early in the morning with the nuns. Though he celebrated in Latin, the Mass was in western time. It took only a half hour or a little more to be celebrated.

Walking the synodal path will tax us in ways we little expect. I would hope that after sharing Pope Francis’ vision of the Church, I would be more patient of a long liturgy in a very strange tongue. PAUSE

Faggioli conceives of another demand in the pope’s appreciation for the global diversity of Christianity, namely, we must accept a diminished convergence between American values and interests and those of the universal church.

Of course, since the time of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, there have been many disparities between American interests and modern Catholic political values. But during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, there was also much collaboration in the promotion of human rights, for example, in the liberation of Eastern Europe and on curbing the nuclear arms race. Since the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror in 2003, however, there have been more obvious and growing divisions.

Faggioli believes, moreover, the U.S. Catholic Right has aggravated the divides and tensions not only between the Vatican and the U.S. but also within the American church by promoting its own version of social teaching that promotes American interests over against Francis’ love of the peripheries.

All of us as American Catholics will have to adjust ourselves for membership in the church of the peripheries, where the influence and dominance of the United States will be problematic, and where solidarity with the Earth’s poor, afflicted and stateless will mean sacrificing some of our privilege and enduring disagreements with our fellow citizens. “The ‘marginal Jew’ Jesus Christ and his relationship with the social and geographical peripheries of his time,” observes Faggioli, “have become more paradigmatic than before for the Roman papacy.” We can add, not just for the papacy but for the entire church.

I would like to suggest one group that especially needs our support because they are uniquely on the periphery, at the very edge of organized political life, I mean stateless people. They are refugees, most of them, but refugees in a very special way. They have no state of their own.  The Rohingya are the most egregious example.  Myanmar, where they have lived for hundreds of years, does not accept them. Bangladesh, where many now dwell, even though they are Muslims like the Bangladeshis, does not want them. 

Think of the Kurds, spread in a band across four countries: Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. While they have a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, in Turkey they are persecuted, In Syria, they are subject to Turkish attack and remain as a bulwark against ISIS for the U.S. and others.  Even in Iraq they are subject to Turkish attack and raids by ISIS. Without a state of their own, the Kurds are without the forces and resources to uphold their rights, except in limited ways in a limited space in northern Iraq.

Then there are the Palestinians. In 1993, with the Oslo Accords it appeared the nationhood they had dreamed of and the UN had promised with the 1948 Partition Plan would finally be realized. But it wasn’t to be. The Final Status talks, scheduled for 1996, were delayed. Camp David II in 2000 failed to bring agreement on key issues, and the Clinton Administration’s last minute initiative at Taba the same year failed to bring the two sides together. Since that time, we all have been witnesses to the depredations the Palestinians have suffered, most recent the expulsions from the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Sheikh Jirrah and Silwan, the biblical Siloam.

The Israeli colonization of the West Bank, the remaining 22 per cent of the land intended for the Palestinians continues unimpeded.  It proceeds for ultra-nationalist motives: to occupy all of biblical Palestine, what the Likud calls Judea and Samaria. Settlers also occupy the high ground, the Judean hills that are part of the West Bank, for environmental reasons.

The aquifers on which both people rely for water are found there.  I can offer you numerous stories about the inequitable distribution of water. Let me relate just one.

In 2000 for the Great Jubilee the French Government built an aqueduct to carry water from newly opened West Bank wells to the city of Hebron. When the water failed to flow in the expected volume, the Palestinian authorities sent inspectors to determine the source of the trouble. There they found Israeli water rustlers diverting the water into tank trucks. When the inspectors returned with Palestinian police, the Israeli army was there to deny them access and tell them the well was off-limits in the future. 

This is what it is to be a stateless people, without a government to enforce and uphold your most fundamental rights, without the resources to defend against the greed and the power of your hostile neighbors.

So, as we walk the synodal way with people on the peripheries, I suggest we pay particular attention to stateless people, particularly those stateless people who are reduced to a marginal life by decades of U.S. policy. Let us witness with Pope Francis on their behalf, and as a faith community let us work for reparation, let us repair the injustice done in our names. Amen.

1^st Reading:        Isaiah 43:16-21           

2^nd Reading:       Philippians 3:8-14 

Gospel:                 John 8: 1-11      

Homily:               Jesus Rivera (paraphrased from notes taken)

Imagine Something New!  Our first reading bids us to “Forget the events of the past, ignore the things of long ago! Look, I am doing something new!”  How can we do this? You’re telling us to let go of the things that are dear to us.  The first reading was dear to the Jewish community, it reminded them of their former oppression and subsequent exodus from Egypt.  But while God smote the Egyptians, God tells the community not to dwell on their escape.  They are instead called to celebrate their freedom.  Something new is being created.

In our second reading, Paul proclaims, “I consider everything a loss in light of the surpassing knowledge of my Savior Jesus Christ, for whose sake I have forfeited everything. I count everything else as garbage…”  Whatever he formerly considered wealth is now rubbish in his eyes, only “Christ may be my wealth.”

In today’s Gospel, the accused woman is to be stoned according to the Law of Moses.  When Jesus is asked by the religious scholars and Pharisees, “What do you say about it (the punishment)?” – he knows he is being set up.  Jesus is silent. 

Jesus simply bent down and started tracing on the ground with his finger. When they persisted in their questioning, Jesus straightened up and said to them, “Let the person among you who is without sin throw the first stone at her.” Then he bent down again and wrote on the ground.

Instead of attacking the scholars and Pharisees or defending the woman, Jesus does something new.  What a beautiful way to relate to those who would bring us down. Jesus lets us know the woman is a daughter of God, one in need of love and the fullness of life (not death).

As we continue our Lenten journey, let me offer this idea.  Lent invites us to let go of control, of the need to attack.  It is a time to let go, to surrender, to be one with God, to look to God for guidance.  It is important to remember we are one with Love and one with God.  God wants this too, for us to be one with God, to be with God.

Someone gave me a new insight into the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Jesus’ humanity is like the parent in the parable – welcoming back the wayward offspring.  Jesus is telling us God doesn’t expel us from the Garden of Eden even when we make mistakes.  We are welcomed home with a robe, a ring, sandals, and a feast.  God and we are one.  Amen.

Meditation:         Prayer of Pope Francis

God, Parent of all, all cultures and all origins,

Look at our world separated by borders, torn by wars,

Disfigured by hunger and injustice, divided by our fears and prejudices,

So many migrants roam in search of a better future.

In Jesus Christ, you have come to reveal humanity,

you have sown friendship and trust in our hearts.

You showed us the way of sharing and meeting.

You opened our eyes to recognize our brothers and sisters.

Fill us with your Spirit so that we live like your children,

United in the diversity of our cultures.

May your kingdom come, reign in peace, justice and community

For all the peoples of the earth.

AMEN

1^st Reading:        Joshua 5:9, 10-12

2^nd Reading:       2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Gospel:                 Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32    

Homily:               Marie Dennis

“Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us to be constitutive to the preaching of the Gospel.” (1971 Synod of Bishops)

In 1971 the universal Church was prophetic, clearly calling all of us to implement Gaudium et Spes – to bring the Church into the world and to participate in its transformation – literally – in response to the signs of the times. Remember? “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties … of this age, especially [of] those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” (Guadium et Spes)

What the world needs now, I believe, is not so different from then – what the world needs now is still transformation – even more that it did 50 years ago. But what might that look like now, in 2022?

Pope Francis, from the beginning of his papacy, has been offering some answers to that question, setting the stage for full-on Catholic re-engagement with what he sees clearly as an urgent paradigm shift.  Formed by his experience in the Latin American Church of Medellin, Puebla, Santo Domingo and Aparecida, Francis is constantly asking how the signs of the times affect the most marginalized people on the planet – and the Earth itself. His visionary encyclical Laudato Si, his clarion call for ecological conversion and for a “new post-pandemic normal,” his descriptions of “political charity” and “social love” in Fratelli Tutti point clearly in this direction.

Now, the signs of the times are even more ominous.  The war in Ukraine is not more important than the other wars destroying human lives and the earth, but, as The Tablet says (March 19), it is “history-making, game-changing, paradigm-shifting.”

U.S. Institute of Peace senior advisor, Maria Stephan (who spoke to the Pax Community a few years ago), calls this “a moment of profound moral clarity.”

We have shaped our society, and especially our economy, around the belief that militarized security is the only way to survive. We are extremely well armed, yet we are standing at a precipice. Thirty plus year after the end of the Cold War we are facing the very real possibility that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, which are illegal and should have long ago been abolished, will be used. The war in Ukraine itself is an incredibly serious threat to human life and it may push Earth’s climate over the tipping point. It is hard to comprehend the level of threat. And the only off ramp is nonviolence.

It is no wonder that Pope Francis’ pleas for peace are becoming more and more urgent. In Fratelli Tutti, he said, “Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.” (261)  Two years ago, that was still an abstract idea (unless you were living in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Colombia …), now it is too real for every person on the planet. Last week to an international congress of educators he said, “A war is always – always! – the defeat of humanity, always …There is no such thing as a just war: they do not exist!”

At the same time, what the world needs now is actually happening, visible – in Ukraine (and Russia) – a deep and sophisticated understanding of the power of nonviolence. The stories coming from Ukraine and Russia about creative, active nonviolence are really important. They are stories about dogged diplomacy, civil resistance, civilian based defense, symbolic action, non-cooperation, winning over enemy combatants, solidarity and accompaniment, music and art, acts of kindness and welcome, the use of digital tools to document war crimes and more. (You have seen them I’m sure – the orchestra playing in defiance of approaching Russian troops in a public square in the middle of Kiev; people stopping with their bare hands and bodies armored Russian military vehicles approaching their town; streets signs turned in the wrong direction.

These stories are about nonviolence – a way of life and a spectrum of realistic, effective strategies for preventing or interrupting violence, for protecting human life and the planet, for promoting a more just and peaceful world. The question is not whether the people of Ukraine have a right to protect themselves and defend their country. Of course they do – the question is how.

What the world needs now – really – is to stop dismissing nonviolence as naïve, simplistic, disengaged or ineffective and to invest in a radical reset of our values, our priorities, our relationships with each other and with the planet. We need to start right now to build a new nonviolent paradigm that replaces the scarcity model and “survival of the fittest” with values that draw on the wisdom and experience of cultures and traditions committed to respect, reciprocity, justice and life and upon which we need to rebuild the systems and structures of our societies.

What the world needs now – still – is a prophetic Church (both institution and people of God), a Church that is committed to participating in this urgently needed and deeply challenging transformation of the world toward nonviolence and social justice and ecological integrity. But (paraphrasing the 1971 synod a bit): “Anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice (and nonviolence) must first be just (and nonviolent) in their eyes …” and that will require an examination of the Church’s own ways. The synod on synodality is happening just in time!

Homily:               Joe Nangle OFM

Let me follow up on Marie’s reflection and bring her comments closer to home.

My introduction to PAX came in 1975 (!).  I found a community which was implementing the wonderful renewal of the liturgy, concentrating on meaningful, participatory celebrations. My first Eucharist with PAX began with one of the members placing the stole over my shoulders – a sign that I was authorized by the Community to celebrate with them. Wonderful imagery!

Gradually over the years increasing attention was given to the signs of the times along with the wider Church:

-John Paul II wrote on Human Labor as it was lived at that time;

-Globalization and the runup to the Millennium came into focus in the life of the Church;

-And now we have Pope Francia (not much needs to be said about his approach to Church life and ministry).

PAX ‘s life was parallel (to) the wider Church.

Marie spoke about the theme for our Liturgy today – “The World Needs a Prophetic Church.” Applying this to PAX means several things:

-continuing this same trajectory of reading the signs of the times;

-doing this especially as Catholic/Christians in the First World/U.S.;

-deepening the habit of Social Analysis (not something totally in our DNA as a society of activists);

-using the lens of American Exceptionalism and Entitlement and personal freedoms vs the on (common) good.

As part of the larger Church, the current Synodal process gives us a vehicle for doing these analyses. We are called not only to deal with intro-ecclesial questions but the wider issues of our time.

PAX has a word to say in this moment because of its/our history and our unique place in the Church. And we have many examples of continuing to do this work of responding to the signs of our times. To name just a few (with apologies for inevitably leaving out others):

• Stephanie Niedringhaus and Sylvia Diss who continually bring these issues to our attention;
• Doug Spaulding with his work on behalf of the prisoners at Guantanamo;
• Nellie Ohr with her reflections on these same issues.

So thank you PAX. May we continue in this same inspired pathway.

Meditation:

The Vatican has sent bishops around the world the text of the prayer that Pope Francis led on March 25 for the consecration of Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thanks to Nellie Ohr for providing background regarding the history of this prayer.  Here is the full text of the prayer.

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you. As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you. Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence! You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Yet we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.

We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.

We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons. We stopped being our neighbor’s keepers and stewards of our common home. We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters. We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!

Introduction:

We carry the people of Ukraine in hearts as we pray for the end of their suffering and for immediate peace.  Jesus said when one or two are gathered in his name, he is there.  Our Lenten theme is “PAX and Synodality:  Our Journey Toward a Church Transformed.”  Today our liturgy focuses on coming out of the desert to build a new Church.  Let’s begin our celebration with a song that prays for healing: healing for the people of Ukraine, healing for a broken world, healing for us, and healing for our Church.

Opening Prayer:

Dear God,

You are not found in neat orderly places, distant from reality, but walk ever at our side. You meet us where we are. As we begin this Synodal process, let us ask ourselves are we walking on the same road, walking together? Look at Jesus in the Gospel. First, he encounters, then he listens, and finally helps the person discern.

Dear God,

Help us encounter, listen and discern. Help us to be completely present to the other with open hearts, courage, and willingness to be challenged. Help us to listen to one another. Help us to hear with our heart. Summon us to the spiritual discernment of the Synod and bring light to that grace-filled process of healing guided by the Spirit. Help us to know what it is (You want) to say to us in this time. And the direction in which She wants to lead us. Amen 

Excerpts from Homily of Pope Francis, Opening Mass of Synod on Synodality 10/10/21        

1^st Reading:        Deuteronomy 26:4-10

2^nd Reading:       Excerpt from Homily of Pope Francis,

Opening Mass of Synod on Synodality 10/10/21    

Gospel:                Luke 4:1-13

Homily:               Myrtle Hendricks Corrales

The first reading relates the offering of the first fruits that God’s chosen were supposed to make when they entered the Promised Land after the Exodus.  The first fruits are evidence that their journey from slavery is ended, and they now dwell in the Promised Land.  The gospel depicts Jesus having his own wilderness experience.  Jesus’ forty days serves as a reminder of the forty-year sojourn of the Israelites in the Exodus.

We planners identified with the desert experience of the Israelites and of Jesus.   As PAX begins its journey with the Synod in the hope of a Church transformed, we feel it important to first recognize that many of us and Catholics throughout the world feel as if we have been in the desert with the institutional church.

For years the Church and its clericalism, patriarchy, closed-mindedness, and lack of compassion has disappointed many.   In the late 1980s, the Church labeled homosexuality as an intrinsic evil.  How good that Pope Francis has countered this by stating that gay and lesbian people are children of God and have a right to a family.  Yet, we know the Church and much of the clergy have not gone far enough in supporting and embracing the LGBTQ community.  The Church dictates that women cannot be priests because women do not image Christ; so, it appears it is not important to be like Christ in carrying out the gospel message, but to have a physical male body like Christ.  The rampant child abuse, the lack of removal and consequences for the abusers, and the treatment of the victims are appalling.  The Boston dioceses attempted to claim bankruptcy rather than compensate the victims.  The lack of willingness to share power and responsibility for the future of the church has silenced the laity for years.  This is the desert experience.

This stream of negatives does not deny the good that the Church has done.  No other faith tradition speaks as strongly as the Catholic Church for the poor, marginalized, and the immigrant.  Yet with these teachings, the Church itself needs to do more to be a model of these prophetic statements.

Now this Jesuit from Argentina, Pope Francis, invites us to participate in the life of the Church in most novel, significant way.  He asks that every Catholic in the world to encounter, listen, and discern.  He invites questions, concerns, and hopes of every Church, people, and nation.   As people from around the world respond, there will be varied concerns.  Leon made a subtle reference to this a few weeks ago in his comment that we may hear some things we do not like.  For example, for one person desiring the ordination of women, there could be three opposed.  Yet, Pope Francis asks that we have the courage to accompany him on this Synod journey.  This synod challenges the culture of clericalism and purposes a culture of dialogue and consensus. 

This synod is like prayer, and a prayer is where we bring our hopes for a desired outcome.  Participating in the Synod as a prayer for a transformed church is like an experience many of us in PAX had over 44 years ago. Some of you remember when PAX met in the gym at St. Luke’s.  PAX members were very active in the parish, holding offices on the parish board, sponsoring adult education programs, assisting parish members in numerous ways, and much more.  PAX was aware that there was some animosity among some parish members toward PAX for various reasons—too liberal, had the best mass time, got their own priests, to name a few. 

This background of tension is integral to the story I am about to relate.

A member of PAX learned that a parish woman we knew as an acquaintance had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.  Our hearts ached for her: she was our age with children ages 2, 8, 10, and 12.  Margaret Schellenberg asked me to call this woman, Denise, to determine if she would welcome us to come pray for her.  I called Denise; after a brief hesitation, she said yes.

Margaret Schellenberg, Joan Urbanczyk, Barbara Lamont, Rosa Scott, when she could leave work, Mafalda Marrocco, and I went to Denise’s home every Wednesday morning to pray.  As the weeks turned into months, members of St Luke’s parish joined us.  Some of these parish members were very traditional, some members occasionally attended PAX, some were part of the Cursillo movement, and some were fundamentalists.  

As we prayed, some women would speak in tongues.  I remember when the young associate pastor once attended and spoke in tongues, it sounded like Gregorian chants—it was beautiful.   One week a new member of the parish joined us.  She approached me to state that she never thought she would pray with a member of PAX, but she smiled and said, “Well, here we are, and I am going to sit next to you.”  Our band of six had grown to over 40 women united in our prayer for the complete healing, the full recovery of Denise.

Denise seemed to be improving; she had signs of healing.  She felt better, gained weight, and had more energy.  Inspired by her progress, the music director at St Luke’s composed a song entitled “Praise! Denise is being Healed.” Then one Saturday afternoon, Denise asked me to come to her home.  She was in bed resting and asked that I sit beside her.  She wanted to talk about her loving family:  her devoted husband and four young children.  We talked about the joy and work of the prayer group.  As we talked, I gradually realized that Denise was saying farewell.  Three days later, the associate pastor called to tell me that Denise was now sleeping with the angels.

At Denise’s funeral, we six PAX women were gathered outside the church waiting to enter.  Some of the prayer group members approached to express their disappointment that our prayers had not been answered, that Denise had not been healed.  We replied that Denise had indeed been healed, just not the way we had asked for.  Denise was spiritually healed, so that she was able to leave her family and us gently and peacefully. And had not all of us too been healed?  Look how the different fractions of the parish had come together with the united purpose of praying for Denise, and now our diverse group had become friends.  We would always be united by this most profound experience.

This I know to be true to this day.  Forty-four years have passed; yet, if members of the prayer group, by chance meet, we embrace and are genuinely happy to see one another.  The Denise prayer group was an extraordinary group of women who came to appreciate and celebrate our differences and were united in our purpose. We journeyed together and I believe for all 40 women it is one of the most significant experiences of our lives.  In our prayerful journey with Denise, we encountered, we listened, and we grew. 

It appears that the PAX Community may have an opportunity like the Denise prayer group.  Pope Francis asks us to join this Synod prayer group, to pray for the healing and transformation of the Church, to join him on the Synodal journey.  We do not know how it will end; we may not realize the fruits of our labor; we may never see fruition of our deep concerns.  Yet, what if this journey does lead to a transformation?  What if it is not futile?  What if it is successful? What if there is healing?  We cannot know the outcome, but what is certain is that the PAX community will grow because of the journey.  We all know the expression that the journey is more important than the destination.  Could there be a better example of this expression than the Synod on Synodality?

With open hearts, with faith, with hope, let’s answer Pope Francis and begin this Synod journey.  A journey the Pope describes as “a journey of spiritual discernment, of ecclesial discernment that unfolds in adoration, in prayer, and in dialogue with the word of God.”

Marie Dennis stated that “We have a Promise and are waiting for it to be fulfilled.  Maybe a new Church birthing is a step in the right direction.”  Let’s be as Pope Francis invites: “Pilgrims in love with the Gospel and open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit. Let’s not miss out on the grace-filled opportunities born of encounter, listening and discernment.”    So dear sisters and brothers in PAX, let’s begin our Synod journey.

Introduction:      Leon Hooper SJ

For this morning’s prayer, we planners, with some uneasy laughter, stumbled over variations on the theme that God calls us to “recklessly love our enemies” or, maybe a tad softer, we are called to “playfully love our enemies.”

The “loving our enemies” came from our Lukan version of the Sermon on the Mount, with Luke’s insistence on our loving those who hate us. The “recklessly’ or “playfully’ part of our theme comes from the dangerous recommendations of Luke’s love commands and from 1 Samuel’s description of the relationship of Saul and David. We found the combination of 1 Samuel and Luke 6 a bit amusing and, also, a bit terrifying. Amused and terrified, we sing of our merciful God.

Opening Prayer:         

Good to be back with you folks. As best I can recall, the last time I prayed with a formal PAX gathering was Theo’s thanksgiving eucharist, around the first of December. Following that, for two and a half months, I had planned to avoid Washington: a week in Leon, Wisconsin (the unincorporated township where my sister and brother-in-law reside) and at least two weeks in Devilan, County Mayo (Ireland). And then there could have been Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

But Omicron happened. Very quickly we’ve all had some catching up to do – both God-wise and bug-wise. More is required of us. It seems that our God wants us to grow even as a church in ways we haven’t anticipated. Pope Francis is sparking a conversation called a Synod – a people constituted by conversation, a community made different by that conversation.

You folks are saving your Synodal powders for your Lenten prayer. Yet even now, our God will teach us to hear and to speak, allowing our voices to be shaped and sustained by the Mercy – and the Justice – of our God.

So, let us pray that the author of these stories will similarly be the author of our hearing these words. Lord our God, speak to us, speak within us, speak between us. Make us your body. Make us your cry of joy, your cry of pain, your word spoken to your Father/Mother. We join our hopes with yours.

1^st Reading:        1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23

2^nd Reading:       1 Corinthians 15: 45-49         

Gospel:                 Luke 6: 27-38      

Homily:               Leon Hooper SJ

The word of the Lord – in the form of Hebrew history, the psalms, and the Good News proclaimed by Luke – has been spoken to the planning group, then to us as a community. What do we hear? What can we become in that word? What of the Lord’s becomes us if we listen closely?

First, some of the saints who have heard these combinations of 7^th Sunday texts have been seized by strong, if only incipient, calls to either civil or religious nonviolence. David was not non-violent, but there is in his dealings with Saul a notion of God granting sacred dignity to a human person, a dignity that, with development, can be extended to full strategies and commitments to nonviolence as worthy of pragmatic and, even, principled adherence. Some find here the beginning of human rights. God given rights, that can’t be taken away. But the possibility is still faint. Women’s rights, for example, are still very far away.

Secondly, others have questioned just how authentic are lines such as:

“Give and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap.” The whole second paragraph beginning with “be merciful as your heavenly father is merciful” seems to be a backing away from the self-giving of the call to turn the other cheek. What of mercy and our children’s turning the other cheek?

And, thirdly, if we planners were not overly impressed with absolute nonviolence derived from 1 Samuel, or with Luke’s absolute embracing of enemies, we planners did find something we liked in Samuel. That which did seem most to grab us planners was, strange to say, the humor of the 1 Samuel’s rendering of Saul’s with darkness.

As the book of Samuel has it, the camp was not the only meeting of Saul and David in the inky darkness – one scene caused by the setting sun and the other by entering a deep cave. In chapter 24, Saul and a few friends go deep within a cave to, as the texts insists, to “relieve” themselves. While thus relieving themselves, David and his supporters themselves enter that cave, and now have the opportunity to damage Saul and friends where, as they say, it hurts. David, however, chooses to cut away only a tassel from Saul’s shirt. Once again displaying non-violence, at least toward human body parts, if not toward clothing. But the challenge to Saul’s masculinity has been placed.

Now, of course, cutting away a tassel from Saul’s shirt was not a serious military strategy. It is a form of mockery, challenging Saul’s masculine power, highlighting the Davidic claim that bad, dumb spirits had control of Saul. But one can imagine millennia of 12-year-old Jewish lads wincingly trying to choke down laughter at their first hearing of Saul’s tasseled fate.

Over the next few months, we will hear some things that edify us, but also things that make us wince. Let us not forget to find the humor in some of it, the humor that opens up a bit of distance in us that allows us to see goodness in that which appears so alien (via Molly). 

Footnote: With our readings playing with the notion of vulnerability in darkness, I tried to work the following story into the Saul’s darken cave: At 1:14 in the early morning, on January 3, I woke up standing half into a darkened and dry bathtub, holding – just temporarily – onto a wall-mounted towel rack. ….. Vulnerability in love commands?

Meditation:         Whistling Swans, by Mary Oliver

Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look

up into that blue space?

Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions,

And don’t worry about what language you use,

God no doubt understands them all.

Even when the swans are flying north and making

such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening

         and understanding.

Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.

But isn’t the return of spring and how it

springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?

Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks, but is

         that really a problem?

There are thousands of voices, after all,

And furthermore, don’t you imagine (I just suggest it)

that the swans know about as much as we do about

         The whole business?

So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly.

Take from it what you can.

1^st Reading:        Jeremiah 17:5-8

2^nd Reading:       1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20   

Gospel:                 Luke 6:17, 20-26           

Homily:               Ted Keating SM

The hardest work of the Planning Committee was how to take with utter seriousness the Beatitudes and Woes of Luke in today’s Gospel (while) staying open to context of the reading and the Gospel of Luke.  As we say, “text without context creates pretext.”  If we are not being faithful to the context of the Gospels (and all Scripture), we may find (ourselves) “making up” an interpretation that is not so faithful to the Gospel as it is our own ideological hang up’s. 

So, let’s begin there. We are more used to the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount of Matthew.  There it is the “poor in Spirit” that are comforted and consoled.   Much of the Gospel of Matthew is directed and slanted to the Jews who have become Christians. He is trying to help them (understand) that their deep commitment to Judaism is not erased or weakened by their Christian commitment—as a matter of fact, their Jewish commitment is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Scholars think he was writing to a more Jewish community. The whole Sermon on the Mount in Luke is a universalizing sermon that from Judaism and Christianity a call to all humanity is being proclaimed not unlike the Letter to the Ephesians with its emphasis that it was always God’s purposes since the beginning of the World to reconcile Jew and non-Jew—all humanity.

The Gospel of Luke is directed to a fairly well-off Christian Greek community in the Gentile world.  Luke himself is reputed to be a medical doctor and artist whose Gospel is beautiful Greek with some of the most striking parables/ stories in all the Gospels.  Luke seems to be concerned that for all their Christian fervor and generosity, they may have been weakening on identification with the poor, the powerless, and even the sinners.  The parables he has presented in his Gospel consistently (repeats) these concerns to the community he is addressing.  Would it be fair to compare the community of Luke with PAX?  Many in the PAX community have done what they need to for a basic sense of security in American life—health insurance, pension programs, ownership of a home, funds gathered to help the young get a good education, etc.  But No one here is flying around in a private Jet or tearing bridges down to fit their yachts into city harbors.  I leave that to you for further discussion.

For Luke it is the poor who are blessed and the rich who evoke a “Woe” from him.  It is not the “poor in Spirit” that are presented but the real, honest to God “poor”.  Much of his Gospel in many ways is attempting to awaken a devoted Christian community to constantly remember, honor, weep for the poor and forgotten, and the supposed sinners who gradually turn into all of us in his Gospel.  So, awareness, mindfulness, heart break, and even grief for the life of the poor in our world is the center of the call of Luke through many parables and sermons like the one in today’s Gospel.  Security for even (the) best of us can lead to a gradual anesthetic of forgetfulness of those who have no security and who our world and society often find ways to hide, and finding the call to journey with the poor and do all in our power to soften their suffering and help their inclusion into Society.

But we are not finished with this task of “uncovering” and bringing forward the deep context of this challenging Gospel so we can hear it in all of its power for us.  This powerful reading can be heard as a call to some kind of Marxist revolution on behalf of the poor and holding the “rich” to accountability for their callous and tragic oppression of the poor.  It also could call us to a judgementalness against the wealthy that sours the mouth and does not sound like the way of the Gospel of Luke and its call for following the non-violence, and non-judgementalness of Jesus.  There are other Beatitudes here that would make that sound mindless.  But a mindful listening would certainly call us to reflection and analysis of the situation of the rich and poor in our world, and how we can prophetically awaken a sleeping society that often can’t see its cruelty and lack of sympathy and love for the oppressed poor.  We discern in faith where we need to go from there with this ever-deepening awareness, still staying within the guard rails of an authentic Gospel life.

But We need to take another step even deeper into the context of today’s Gospel in order to be faithful to its authentic reading.  The world of Israel in the time of Jesus was not a capitalist free market society.  The rich talked about so much in the Gospel of Luke were not entrepreneurs who had gambled and played the market and became wealthy. They were wealthy because they were powerful. They were not powerful because they were wealthy as in our social system; they (had) simply taken their wealth from those with less power or no power at all.  Think the Soviet State after the “wall” came down and the ruthless rush of the brutal to capture and steal the wealth that had piled up in the Communist State, and taken it for themselves.  It rings hollow to use the words of the Beatitudes and Woes to condemn wealth when it was originally directed to the wholesale abuse of power by those who had used that power to steal what they could from others, especially the poorest in the parables of Luke.  It lets many in our social system out of the challenge of corruption and over-focuses on the economically wealth-whether or not they responsibly share their wealth.

Pope Francis had a special audience in which Martin Scorsese was present.  It was an open mic type of audience and Scorsese very honestly shared with the Pope the horror of the neighborhood in which he grew up in the lower West Side of New York city riddled with a culture of violence, gangs, and killings.  He talked to the Pope how little the parish Church has to offer the neighborhood.  It might have been a peaceful and safe place to go for a few minutes but little else.  It was obvious that Scorsese was still feeling deeply the effect of it.  The Pope said that we have to learn to “grieve”, to grieve deeply the sorrows of the world and to let that grief grip us and lead us to do what we can with the suffering, knowing that all we will do will not change the suffering of the world.  That will only come with the final Reign of God.  But we have to pour our hearts and minds into the world anyhow, not necessarily expecting success.  We will die grieving as well.

Our second reading helps.  We live in the light of the Resurrection full of hope and trust in God, but still in the light of the cross when even the innocence and tenderness of God is murdered by the civil and religious leaders.  Let me close with a poem by a famous Guatemalan poet who lived through the horrors of that country’s tragic violence and racism.

They Have Threatened Us with Resurrection, Julia Esquivel

It is something within us that doesn’t sleep,

that doesn’t let us rest,

that won’t stop pounding

deep inside

it is the silent, warm weeping

of Indian women without their husbands

it is the sad gaze of children

fixed somewhere beyond memory, . . .

What keeps us from sleeping

is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!

Because every evening

though weary of killings,

an endless inventory since 1954,

yet we go on loving life

and do not accept their death.

. . . because in the marathon of Hope,

there are always others to relieve us

who carry the strength

to reach the finish line

which lies beyond death.

Join us in this vigil

and you will know what it is to dream!

Then you will know how marvelous it is

to live threatened with Resurrection!

To dream awake

to keep watch asleep,

to live while dying,

and to know ourselves already resurrected.

Valentine Meditation: 

Shall I Compare Thee to A Summer’s Day? Shakespeare      
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Community Sharing: (paraphrased)

Various members shared how they sit with the World’s woes:

Nellie Ohr suggested a practice of breathing in grief and breathing out light and hope;

Marilu MacCarthy learned to “absorb” grief from Abbot Aidan Shea, take it into ourselves – which lightens it somehow;

Sylvia Diss recommends the work & practice of Joanna Macy, a Buddhist scholar (https://www.joannamacy.net/main), and believes grief can spur us into action;

Bob Merrill shared how Buddhists deal with grief and death by buying and burning prayers – sending their smoke into the sky and onward to heaven;

Sally Galiani recommends Maria Shrivers’ Sunday paper which this week quoted Leonard Cohen, “I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.” (https://mariashriver.com/the-sundaypaper/);

Kathleen Keenan recommends “Teach us to care and not to care, Teach us to sit still.” from T.S. Elliot’s “The Four Quartets,”;

Stephanie Niedringhaus offered the word “anguish” and how it enlightens our passion and perhaps action;

Mike Messinger shared the example of a Florida parish of 3,000 which welcomed 500 Guatemalan Indians with the help of the Catholic Church, Quaker Movement, and the Federal Government;

Ted Keating suggested the power of empathy may lead to non-violent action;

Charles Schehl shared his belief everyone would be poorer if we all shared the world’s wealth, until he read a book that argued everyone would live comfortably if the world’s wealth was shared equally.

1^st Reading:        Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19

2^nd Reading:       1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

Gospel:                 Luke 4:21-30

Homily:               Ted Keating SM (his notes)

Death of Thich Nhat Hanh—Vietnam, Exile. Refused permission to enter the States so settled in France at what became Plum Farm.  2 Evening workshops for PAX on the occasion of Pope Francis’ letter on Non-violence.  Dramatic influence in the USA.  The Miracle of Mindfulness was transformative even into psychology and health circles. Dr. Weil.  The miracle of the breath—respiration, inspiration, aspiration, perspiration, the Holy Spirit.  The method has tremendously influenced catholic practice.  Nuns and other religions.  As old as the Axial age from Hinduism and Buddhism.  Perfect for today but let us begin with the Word of God.

Context of Jeremiah. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and Consecrated you.  You are to be a prophet to the Nations—the shocking revelation of the Prophetic tradition.  Story of Jonah.  The enemy is at the gate and the King and his court prophets are preparing to stir up the army and their swords to ward them off.  Yahweh says that you will lose and you can’t defend yourselves.  Sue for Peace.  He enrages the King and the Generals and the court Prophets and they set out to kill him.  They do lose and Jeremiah apparently is marched off with them to exile and enslavement.

Context of Jesus.  Baptism in the Spirit and the Voice of God declaring Jesus His Son. The Spirit leads him into the desert for the three great temptations to power and glory, a permanent source of food for hunger from the Stones, and presumption of a right to abuse his obvious powers.  He rejects all these and heads out for the beginning of his ministry in Galilee and his hometown.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
          because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
          and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
          and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

         Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus is the fulfillment of all prophecy as the Messiah but the effect of His Words and Deeds will be prophetic as God among us—embracing lepers, healing in the sabbath in Synagogues, struggles with the religious and civil leaders that will lead to his death and the manifestation of the Resurrection.  To live a life rooted in God will inevitably lead to the prophetic voice.

We didn’t use this phrase in our planning but it did occur to me afterward that we have a sandwich here today with the agape love of the Corinthian reading, sandwiched between two pieces of bread that are the consequences of accepting and acting out a life of the agape love in an often cruel and violent world more interested in the power dynamics of worldliness—who’s up, who’s down, who’s in, who’s out, who is to be written off a sinner, who’s richer, who’s poorer, who’s weak, who’s strong.  The four loves—agape, sturgos/affection, philia/friendship, eros/beauty—all reduced to one terribly overburdened word love in English.  No wonder our culture and society end up in so much confusion with love.  All love will wear thin and weaken without a dose of Agape.

Our certainties and absolutes of our tribal life as human beings are evident in those willing to murder Jeremiah and Jesus in our readings.  In the face of the Word of God, the King, his court prophets, and generals are sure of the effect of their arms and warriors even though Yahweh has been revealing to them forever that not by arms and horses and arrieros will they triumph but only in the strength of God among them—the God of steadfast love, boundless mercy, everlasting loyalty will they succeed and endure.  But they know better.  Are there any resonances to this in our own world today about the ease with which war can settle all conflicts and international difficulties?  Does the horror of Afghanistan come to mind with 20 years of certainties and proclamations of our government?

Jesus already has a reputation that elicits admiration, wonder over His words and miracles but “Hey, c’mon.  We know this guy.  Isn’t Mary his mother, Joseph His Father, isn’t he the carpenter.   Too much ordinariness, too close by, too known to us.  What arrogance that he would identify Himself with the Messiah, the return of David who will restore our national story and international power that we had in our past.  Don’t try to tell us you are the Messiah—the fulfillment of all the prophecies.  You act like you are here for all humanity and not just us Jews.

Jesus reminds them that Elias was not sent to any Jew to liberate the widow and her young child from famine.  It was a pagan in pagan territory.  He did not mention the story of Jonah and all of his crocodile tears when Yahweh sent him to save the Ninevites in Iraq.

They are infuriated and seem to throw him over a cliff.  So much for the cost of prophecy

A few words on Thich Nhat Hanh in this context.  “Be Peace” and you will know what to do because God will start directing your life towards universal compassion and empathy—just like God.  But you too could be exiled from Vietnam never again to find a home as his last book indicates.  But then you will know that you really have no home except in God and then all the other homes in our lives will integrate into one great wholeness. The intense desire for home leads us finally to know the home of our own heart for the first time.

Meditation:

We are the Body of Christ, called together into this community. We offer our gifts, our lives, our commitment in loving service to each other, the dedicated and joyful service that Jesus gave us, saying “Do this in memory of me.”  We pray that our gifts and our energies be transformed into the true Bread of Life for our world in these difficult and troubled times. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who is always present for us. We are Christ for one another, through the power of the Holy Spirit where we live now and forever.

1^st Reading:        Isaiah 62:1-5

2^nd Reading:       Corinthians 12: 4–11

Gospel:                 John 2: 1–11

Homily:               Vince Cushing OFM (from notes taken)

Today is the first day I am free from quarantining for 2-3 weeks and it’s a pleasure to be with you today.

While the Feast at Canaan is important, we don’t usually pay much attention to it. If understood correctly, it speaks strongly to us. It’s important to note the wedding feast itself is not just a one-hour ceremony, but one lasting 8 days.  It was a great opportunity for a community to celebrate marriage and family, to gather, to enjoy a time of song, dance, a communal meal, and fellowship.

There are 6 stone jars and each holds about 30 gallons for a total of 180 gallons which translates into 900 bottles of wine today.  On the third day, they ran out of wine with 5 days to go.  Mary informs Jesus there is no more wine and despite his response, he goes ahead and performs the miracle his mother asks for.  The servers take the jugs to the Master of Ceremony who tastes the wine and then says to the bridegroom, “at a wedding like them, the best wine is normally served first….”  It is a wonderful experience of the immense love of Jesus and of God.

The wine is a symbol of the immense generosity of God.  More important than the miracle of changing water to wine is the notion of transformation.  Jesus has done something important here, something new and transformative.  He brings the new wine of his message and ministry: the immense generosity of God.

Looked at symbolically, Jesus is the new wine of the New Covenant – a message of extraordinary transformation of the past into his (new) message. Jesus offers the wine of himself bringing about our transformation so we might help transform the difficult world we live in.

This transformation is given to us at baptism which we received as infants.  We are then nourished by the sacrament of Communion. Jesus blesses human life through the sacraments of marriage and family.

Our second reading is a catechism of gifts: what the Holy Spirit has given to us. The gifts are practical and real in the life of a community. Jesus is creating a new community rooted in himself and gifted by the Holy Spirit.

Over the years, I have experienced PAX as both an insider and outsider; I have marveled at the structure PAX has created.  The idea of the immensity of God’s gifts and love and making this practical in the life of our community is why I think PAX has endured.

The verse that follows the reading we heard reminds us all these gifts of the Holy Spirit are wonderful, but the greatest gift is love.

The marriage feast at Canaan is not just a simple miracle, but a transformational experience.  This is the gift we are given at the beginning of this church year.  Let our prayer be of joy, thankfulness, and celebration and may it bring about the transformation of Jesus Christ.

Meditation:         Kindness Boomerang: One Day