Homily for the December 12, 1999 Telex

As if this day were not already full enough – Gaudete Sunday! The Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, the birthday of St. Madeleine Sophie, the continuation of our year of prayer with focus on our identity as women of communion and reconciliation, as if that weren’t enough, I am going to bring another image into the mix from our experience at the School of the Americas.

The whole experience of that pilgrimage was profound and as Clare Pratt wrote, it will probably come to mind unexpectedly many times in the next months. But for now I have a particular image that speaks to me of this phase of our year of prayer and the call to reconciliation and communion. Despite my close working with Kathleen Hughes, who has edited a book on the subject, I usually have a certain reluctance about the reconciliation word. I think I, we, use it a bit too easily at times forgetting that it is difficult. Reconciliation requires acknowledgement of wrong or difference and willingness to rebuild relationship. But the journey to the School of the Americas has put new light on what it means or could mean. Also when I look at the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe it seems to me to be a most powerful feast of reconciliation, the joining of compassion and power, the presence of gentle tenderness in a world of harsh and unkind reality, the freedom of all from any oppression and subjugation.

But first back to Fort Benning. The protest vigil at the School of the Americas took place on a residential street just outside the gate to the School. We five team members, joined by Sakiko Yamaji RSCJ from Japan who had come with students from Loyola in New Orleans, stood on a hillock holding the "Religious of the Sacred Heart for Peace" banner. From our spot we could see the stage where prayers and testimony and song were offered and we could see "the line," the crossing of which marked an act of civil disobedience to protest the activities of the School of the Americas.

During the morning we stood participating in prayer and song and testimony. The 5000 + who had trained to cross the line assembled carrying white crosses or white Stars of David. At noon a great silence descended on us all and the 5000 walking 5 abreast started the funeral pace procession across the line. Two cantors began a litany of the names of the murdered and disappeared, each name accompanied by a single drumbeat and the response from the crowd "Presente," with hands reached toward the heavens. In that chorus of "presente" we acknowleged our presence to the murdered and disappeared and their presence to us. It was as though the communion of earth and the communion of saints and eternity mingled - we were all present and one. "Presente."

The litany went on for about an hour and a half. As we stood listening and responding, a young man, who appeared to be Latino, wearing a shawl and a woven belt like those from Guatamala, took his place near us. He communicated a certain serenity by his bearing, a kind of groundedness in his being that drew my gaze. Very soon another young man, who appeared to be Native American, came through the crowd proferring a blessing with the smoke of burning sweet grass in a ceramic dish. It is a simple, earlier version of our more elaborate incense, and as the smoke wafts toward them, people lift their hands to receive it to themselves and then left it go freely into the atmosphere. When the Latino man saw the offering, he fell to his knees, folded his hands and awaited his blessing. The other young man came to him and in an act different from all the other blessings he had given, walked around the kneeling figure, blessing him from head to foot, all of his senses – eyes, ears, hands, nose, mouth – and then stood before him letting the holy smoke fall upon the supplicant. It was a wordless communion in a ritual both men clearly knew and understood. Their presence to one another and the presence of the holy filled the moment and the space. "Presente."

While I stood apart and outside their immediate realm, I was drawn into this moment of communion. Toward the end of the blessing, the kneeling supplicant put his face in his hands and wept. With him I felt tears stream down my face in a wordless communion with the purifying, cleansing relationship I witnessed. I think I was touched by the utterly ordinary setting, and at the same time by the profound beauty of holiness offered and received. The image has stayed with me. It brings to mind what the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth must have been like – two people sharing a common experience of the presence of the holy, finding in their encounter the voice to cry out in praise and courage beyond what either had alone. It reminds me as well of Juan Diego and the beautiful lady who brought a message of comfort and dignity that saved a people. I saw before me the awesome power of the holy – the way the human heart is touched in the presence of one who is recognized as bearer of God, of the holy mystery. In a moment when the effects of evil and hatred were being proclaimed in the calling out of the names of murdered and missing men, women and children, goodness and beauty were equally and gently proclaimed and hearts, at least it seems, were moved.

This year we are engaged in just such an encounter. In the midst of all that is difficult, uncertain, stressing in our lives we dare to stand together as the Society of the Sacred Heart asking to meet and be blessed by continual encounters with the holy. We have been looking at the blessing of our original call. We were invited to be present to the early inspirations and sources which drew us and sustained us. Many people have told us that they are able to be present with other RSCJ using the reflection journal or choosing among the suggestions from "our spiritual journey" book, for some in community gatherings or prayer groups, or in phone calls or email messages or in their own personal prayer.

Now we are asked to open our eyes, to look courageously at our own dark side and the dark side of our world so that we might more honestly know the mercy of God and the blessing of God’s love that is for us and given to us to offer to our world. Juan Diego and his people were at the lowest ebb of their cultural life in 1531. They had been overpowered and lived in a time without hope. Political and religious power had stripped a people of meaning. In the midst of that darkness, a strong woman, the beautiful lady of Guadalupe , came to turn the existing order upside down, to empower the weak and the poor. We are invited during this segment of the year of prayer to get to know what needs to be turned upside down and to be present to God’s empowering of weakness and poverty so that we can participate in the changing of hearts.

During this phase of the year of prayer the whole world is on the alert for the coming of the new century – studies suggest there will be all kinds of acting out as we reach the 2000 mark . Perhaps we could act out in our own way by our commitment to healing our ruptured relationships, by our pledge together to seek a deeper relationship with God, by our actions to increase justice and compassion in our world. Maybe the eve of the new century could be a day of special prayer for us, a time when we could count on one another’s intentional presence to the holy and say with and for one another "Presente"to our vocation and to God’s transforming grace.

And in the days to follow may God’s blessings continue to draw us to communion and reconciliation with ourselves, with one another, with our world, with all of creation. "Presente."