Pages from the Past: Good Friday

“Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me to drink?” There is a whole revelation in that question, above all how it shows that in the “cup” Jesus saw the Father; in drinking it, as if from the Father’s own hand, he was commending his spirit to the Father. It was his trust in the Father that enabled him to drink it at all.

So it is my hope to receive this disposition (and the “mind of Christ”) and to acquire that spirit of trust and faith that does not focus on the external circumstance, but on the present One behind the externals, that he will live that trust “to the end” in me.




"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share.

Time to Say Goodbye(s)

We are about to enter the Paschal Triduum, revisiting the final hours of Our Lord's earthly life and the beginning of that mysterious new risen life that was announced at the empty tomb. John's Gospel uses this as the stage for Jesus' "Farewell Discourse," a three-chapter long summation of the Gospel, rich with promises (promises that are mysterious as the empty tomb,  until the Spirit comes). And just as in these days, Jesus is saying "Farewell," so is our community.

Last year, we experienced two deaths within two months, one anticipated and prepared for with vigils kept in turn, and one that, while not entirely unexpected, came rapidly, in a decline that lasted only a matter of hours. And likewise this year, within about the same time frame, we kept watch with Sr Charitas for weeks until the Master came, while on the Feast of St Joseph, he came at night for Sr Mary Philomena shortly after the initial signs of any distress. The especially beautiful thing about the "order" of these departures is that Sr Charitas and Sr M Philomena had been roommates on the
infirmary floor and sat next to each other in the dining room. When Sr Charitas seemed unresponsive to invitations to eat, it was Sr M Philomena who, perceiving her distress through the deep fog of dementia that had marked her final years, would pat Sr Charitas' hand and encourage her. Sometimes she would just stroke Sr Charitas' hand and say to her, "You are my friend." How lovely that Sr Charitas would precede Sr M Philomena in death, but that her friend would be the next sister called to eternal life!

Sr Mary Philomena was another of our intrepid missionary sisters, from a family in northern Italy that had already produced a Franciscan missionary priest. Another sibling also became a Daughter of St Paul, assigned for many years to our hospital community outside of Rome. (You can imagine how close the two sisters were!) Both of these siblings predeceased Sr M Philomena (and in recent years, it was heartbreaking when she again realized that her sister had died); she still has many relatives in the Verona area. She was a simple, straightforward person. "Without guile," Jesus would say. Like Sr Charitas, Sr M Philomena loved life and she loved people. She also loved flowers, and as long as she was able she tended the garden plots (or plants) where she was stationed.

We said our final goodbyes this morning at her funeral Mass. And just after the provincial superior had offered her own words of remembrance, as we were preparing to sing the last invocations, word came from the infirmary: at 102, Sr Mary Augusta (the oldest Daughter of St Paul in the world) had taken her last breath.

You might remember that we did a small fundraiser before Sr M Augusta's 100th birthday to help equip the infirmary floor with a TV room. In these last months (but really, only since turning 101), Sr M Augusta had been slowing down; it was the flu that hurried her to the gates of Heaven. A beautiful soul with a winning smile and a willingness to cooperate in any way she could: we are going to put her to work full time, especially for her dearest intention of vocations!

So here at the motherhouse we are quite immersed in the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection (as am I as my recovery with Ramsey-Hunt Syndrome continues one nanometer at a time). May that grace truly fill our minds and transform us inside and out, mind, will and heart!

Apostle of Ireland (with a wink of the Irish eye)

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Last year the History Channel released an accurate (if tongue-in-cheek) video short about one of my favorite saints (I call him "the Saint Paul of Ireland"). Enjoy!

Pages from the Past: Where is Love?

Written halfway into Pope Francis' first year on the Chair of Peter. (His anniversary date is March 13.)

Photo of Pope Francis by Fr Michael Makri, SDB

Not to self: God wants his love to be real to people; he wants people to “know” his love “in the biblical sense.” Truths about that love, truths about God, etc., are a second step. The truths have no context apart from the reality of a love that is known first of all as something personal. 

This is what makes Pope Francis’ magisterium so unique; it is also what characterized Good Pope John. People can tell that they are “recognized” by him in a personal sort of way, in a real relationship, even if the Pope only has a second to touch or shake their hand. They know they are more than a “hand” to him, and that, given more time, the Pope cares enough that he would listen to all they had to say. Everybody is looking for that. (Isn’t that why I check to see if anyone responded to my Facebook posts?)

"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share. 

Pages from the Past: the Woman at the Well

Where there are catechumens, the story of the woman at the well of Samaria is the Gospel for the third Sunday of Lent. That may have been when I wrote this.

John 4: “Jesus had to pass through Samaria.” When I am in “Samaria” (where the fulness of the faith has been compromised), I tend to be super on my guard, defensive, worried. But Jesus was completely unguarded, even vulnerable. No sense of his eternal superiority or authority. But he did not hide the Gift of God, either—he allowed the woman herself to come to desire and ask for it.. in her own time, after he had allowed her to investigate further.

What I don’t get is that he was there at the well with the same…need: thirst. And yet he is the source of all we need. Anyway, it was through is thirst that he was there to be met. But just as his food is to do the will of the Heavenly Father, his thirst is not quite the one we know, either. His thirst was only partly for H2O.

So there he was at the well, with an analogous, if not identical, thirst to that which drew the Samaritan there; that is the commonality that allowed her to feel safe enough to enter into conversation. This is also what we need in terms of the New Evangelization: to meet people where they are, because we are in touch with that aspect of our own vulnerability, not from a perspective of self-assured superiority. In this new cultural situation, we need to be convinced of and comfortable with (or at least at peace with) what Jesus and Paul taught: “Power is made perfect in weakness.”

We, too, are or “have to” “pass through Samaria”—a landscape that used to be “ours” as a Christian culture, but which is now overrun with every form of error and unbelief. Jesus teaches us how to relate to the human beings who are under the sway of those false or inadequate or dehumanizing ideologies. But we are strangers in the land that was once “home.” Anyway, Jesus shows us how to conduct ourselves in relating with those who dwell in the territory, starting with the human weakness, experience of vulnerability.

At the well, Jesus put himself at the woman’s mercy, so to speak. He put her in charge of the conversation. She opened it up; he did not really initiate a conversation.

What if Jesus had been there at the well, dying of thirst, and the woman had studiously avoided him? Resisted any eye contact, etc? Didn’t “get” what he was saying? Would he then have pantomimed, “I’m dying of thirst! Water, please! For the love of God, water!” But the Preface says, “You had already prepared for her the gift of Faith.” So that “give me a drink” was a come-on; it was a “line” meant to start a conversation with her. (Jesus! I’m shocked! You resort to such devices?!)

John 4 is pretty close to John 2 (the miracle at Cana) and the well narrative is closely followed by a second Cana miracle, so John seems to be deliberately drawing our attention to the wedding “where he had made the water [subject of the first part of John 4] wine.” All that water/wine, and he was asking for a drink at the well? 

Was he offering to turn that water into wine as well? In a way, yes: “If you only knew the gift of God, you would ask…”

"Pages from the Past" are randomish excerpts from my old journals. I process things in writing, so there were a lot of volumes, but here and there I found notes that were still pertinent or helpful. I got rid of the books (hello, shredder!) and typed up the things I wanted to save, whether for myself (mostly) or to share.