Reflections shared at the RSCJ Associates Retreat Day, Oakwood, Atherton, California, March 8, 2003: and the Lenten Reflection for RSCJ Alumnae, Children of Mary, and RSCJ Associates, USD, San Diego, California, March 6, 2004.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Lent is not only an invitation to contemplate Christ’s pierced heart. It is also an opportunity to practice habits of heart that help us live the paschal mystery and an invitation to look for signs of his resurrection in our daily lives. This afternoon I want to reflect with you about being the heart of God, the heart of the risen Christ in our world today, this dynamic process of the Spirit present and powerful. As I give examples from those who have reflected on these habits of heart and from my own life, I encourage you to fill in examples from your own life.

1. GRATITUDE

            One sign of resurrection is gratitude. I can look at the glass half-empty or the glass half-full. I remember having been sent to another country and found everything about the situation difficult: the language, the food, the loneliness, the pressured way of life. But once I was drawn to look for the gift of God in the situation, and to thank for the many ways I was discovering and revealing Christ's love, I became deeply joyful. Resurrection! An RSCJ undergoing radiation for breast cancer sent me the following e-mail note. She wrote:

I had a real grace with the radiation. Was absolutely dreading it, given my last experience, and was bringing myself to the site dragging and kicking (so to speak). Knew I needed an attitude adjustment, but didn't quite know how to go about it. Then, the other evening, all of a sudden, I realized that I was very lucky to be receiving the treatment. Many people do not have it available and it will increase the time of non-recurrence. Wasn't that a gift?

After Sr. Tootsie Torian’s death, one person remembered something she had said to them:

 “Tootsie told us once that her prime relationship with God was one of gratitude. That opened up a whole new world . . . to me and I try to live that way now.”¹

            One dimension of gratitude is wonder. The child’s eye in each of us is full of wonder when we see a flower bloom or an animal frolic with abandon. The artist’s eye in each of us is full of wonder when we see the uniqueness of each sunset on the Pacific Ocean or the particular bouquet of tropical plants and flowers on a campus like this one. Reflecting on the liturgical act of paying attention at eucharist and the commitment we make to embodying God’s reign every time we say Amen, Sr. Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ, has observed:

Contemplative engagement seems to offer a way to begin the process of understanding, loving, participating and embracing. Contemplative engagement invites a way of seeing and hearing, of listening and loving. It helps us engage in liturgy as if for the first time and from the inside out. It helps us experience, however fleetingly, a new wonder and awe in God’s presence.²

            Another dimension of gratitude is praise. Seeing our daily tasks as opportunities for God’s presence, Kathleen Norris regrets that “Our busy schedules, and even urban architecture, which all too often deprives us of a sense of the sky, has diminished our capacity to marvel.”³ It is this capacity which opens us to all the expressions of God’s love for us and for all creation.

Question: For whom/for what do we feel grateful at this time?

2. EMPOWERMENT

            A second sign of resurrection is empowerment. We see this at work in groups and organizations of all types. In a kind of women’s live-in group that fosters empowerment, the focus is on “creating alternatives for women in crisis, even while the process of grieving continues, so that they can develop the skills to take charge of their lives.”⁴ Instead of being oppressed by a system of control and domination, the homeless and abused women at the Wellspring community in Massachusetts, live together in a family-style setting. They “are encouraged and helped to rebuild their confidence, to learn to communicate their feelings and needs appropriately, to confront their problems, and to establish patterns of responsibility and caring” (Ryan 171).

            Empowerment at the organizational level sets definite priorities and is notable for inclusive behavior. Joan Chittister has put it this way:

 The spirituality of empowerment . . . treats power as sacred trust and gives it away with holy abandon. It seeks always the growth of the other. It seeks always to make itself unnecessary. When executives concentrate too much on how a thing is done rather than on always teaching why a thing is being done, it is a sure sign that the capacities of people around them are being too little encouraged, too bridled for comfort. When an administrator begins to talk more in terms of my staff than of our team, there is a pyramid hiding in the psyche. When organizations set out to circumvent affirmative-action programs or hire men by choice and women for show, the patriarchal club is in full flower, regardless of the words they use to finesse the unbalanced situation.⁵

            Empowerment, as we all know, can happen through being taught. The emphasis of Sacred Heart education on the formation of the whole person is based on key gospel values of faith, justice, and community building. I think of Sr. Peggy Brown, RSCJ, who exercised an empowering leadership role in our schools, including the Sacred Heart Schools here at Menlo.

            As we also know, empowerment can also happen in one-to-one relationships as well. “In connected teaching, the standards of evaluation are constructed collaboratively.⁶ Beth Liebert, who teaches spirituality at San Francisco Theological Seminary, has written about effective spiritual guidance as a form of “connected learning” in which both parties share the teaching and learning, responsibility for inevitable differences in power is accepted, and efforts to become self-directed at each developmental level are supported (Liebert 168-169). 

            Question: By whom am I empowered? Whom am I empowering?

3. COMPASSIONATE SOLIDARITY

A third sign of resurrection is compassionate solidarity. There is a communal dimension of

 resurrection that is an unmistakable criterion of its authenticity.  Compassion includes the genuine acceptance and affirmation of others, knowing that their strengths and weaknesses are somehow are own.  Compassion also includes the ability to respond to another in pain when we ourselves are in pain.   And when I reach out to respond to another's need even when I myself am feeling needy, I feel a strange power to love, a rare compassion that sensitizes me quickly to that other and offers encouragement.

            In her book She Who Is, Beth Johnson highlighted the dimension of God suffering as compassion poured out when she wrote:

             This is one way the symbol of a suffering God can help: by signaling that the mystery of God is here in solidarity with those who suffer. In the midst of the isolation of suffering the presence of divine compassion as companion to the pain transforms suffering, not mitigating its evil but bringing an inexplicable consolation and comfort.⁷

Sr. Mickey McKay, RSCJ, comes to mind as someone whose heart went out to so many people in our world with whom she bonded in sisterly compassion.

            For Mexicans, Hispanic Americans, and Chicanos, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a powerful symbol of God’s compassion. Juan Diego claimed that when she asked him to have a church built in her honor,  she had said to him: “I want to have this church so the suffering will come to me. I will be their mother and take their suffering to myself. I will feel with them all their pain." Writing about her theological significance, Jeanette Rodriguez observed: “Our Lady of Guadalupe came to show forth her love, compassion, help, defense, and her presence among the people.”⁸

            Writing about liberating the divine energy, Rosemary Haughton reflected on several resources for social compassion, such as connectedness, friendship, feeding and being fed. Overlooking and even denying these simple forms of social bonding, “We have reduced Jesus to a source of moral guidelines but also to a source of moral blackmail similar to what was practiced by the religious establishment of his time. And we have made Eucharist a thing, a pill, or a community entertainment.”⁹ She went on to assert:

The vision of Jesus is necessarily social; it cannot be envisaged or borne by individuals. The new paradigm of resurrection can only be allowed to emerge if people begin (however timidly) to sense the flow of life between them, a giving and receiving of compassion socially that can gradually enlarge the channels of communicated being. In the end we may realize that our fears are unreal and imposed; our only reality is that life that knows no categories or limits(Living with Apocalypse 89).

            Once when I was taking a few days for leisure and prayer at Guelph, I kept thinking about a student who seems so broken and in need of healing. In this experience, I got in touch with how broken I am and in need of healing. I felt drawn to pray for my students, for each member of the faculty, and for my community that we may be healed in our brokenness.  It was a way of praying that got beyond hierarchical structures of "student" and "teacher," and got to the heart of the matter: that we all live at the mercy of one another, at the mercy of God. This openness to others is not only a hospitality of heart to every local visitor, but also a compassionate solidarity with others in the world which grows in solitude wherein we come to see that anything human is part of us.¹⁰

            One form of compassionate solidarity is intercessory prayer. I connect Sr. Connie Campbell, RSCJ, with this aspect. I remember years ago when we lived together in Broadway and prayed together in our community chapel which had a globe in it, Connie told me that whenever she was in there, she prayed for various people around the world! In her book on faith, Sharon Salzberg reminds us of the scientific studies that explored the relationship between prayer and distant healing. Even though people are unaware of being prayed for, the intervention has an effect:

For example, in a study at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, AIDS patients who, without their knowledge, were prayed for had significantly fewer new AIDS-related diseases, less severe illness, fewer doctor visits, and fewer and shorter hospitalizations than patients in the control group who were not prayed for by those in the study.¹¹

            When I first learned about how women in Afghanistan were treated by the Taliban, I felt compassionate solidarity with them, not because I have to cover most of my body when I go out, but because most of us women have felt some form of oppression or suppression by patriarchal male figures. It was instinctive to reach out to them and want them to be able to enjoy the freedoms that we may take for granted regarding flexible roles in society, career options, and dress. I understand that while some of their conditions have changed, others have not. 

            In her lecture on womanist ways of being in the world, Diana Hayes said: “The spirituality of Black women has been bathed in blood, nurtured by tears, held up and bound together by sweat.”¹² She then asked: “What did God have in mind? Perhaps a witness, a witness to the cruelty and lust of the world but also of the endurance and perseverance that emerged from it – a people forged in pain and suffering who, yet, carried song and dance, prayer and exaltation of the Lord with them wherever they went.”¹³ Is this not the compassionate solidarity that is a sign of resurrection among the African-American people in our country?

            Another form of solidarity is shared silence. I think of the Hug-a-tree movement in India. Women in a neighborhood each hugged a tree preventing bulldozers from coming in and raising a bunch of trees to the ground to make room for something like a highway. In the end, the trees remained! I also think of the Zen Center in San Diego. A small group of us gather in silence  on a weeknight to sit for two blocks, two half-hours with ten minutes of walking meditation in between. Sometimes I feel there as if I am in a chapel, the silence is so deep and dense.

                        Question: With what person or group of suffering people do we feel ourselves in

compassionate solidarity?

4. PEACEMAKING

             Still another way of being the heart of God, the heart of the risen Christ in our world today,  is peacemaking. Here we experience an invitation to enlarge our contemplative gaze on the world and engage in local, national, and global concerns. As Elizabeth Dreyer has put it so aptly:

Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world is a constitutive element of the gospel message. This does not mean that one puts aside a personal spirituality. But an authentic spirituality will lead from personal conversion, to loving attention to those near and dear to us, and on to a profound concern for all peoples and for the cosmos itself. This loving care cannot be forced or called forth on demand. Rather, it emerges at different rates for different people, surely and confidently opening hearts to embrace ever wider horizons with the love of God in Christ Jesus.¹⁴

            The December 1 RSCJ day of prayer for peace and the national and international peace demonstrations on October 26, January 18,  February 15-16 were an invitation to communion with many people across the country, even though the marchers may have different motives, some with a deep desire for peacemaking, others with the sense that this is the wrong war or the wrong time for this war. At USD a group of us are meeting every Wednesday for half-an-hour at the fountain at noon to pray silently for peace, at Sr. Barb Quinn’s initiative. As U.S. troops continue to be deployed to Kuwait, Pakistan, Turkey, and other places, a common and deep desire for peacemaking is bringing many of us into communion with one another and more deeply into the mystery of the communion of saints who are friends of God and prophets.¹⁵  Sr. Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, stands out as someone who recognizes the value of traveling to Iraq and Israel to be a presence of peace. We hold in our hearts Kristi Laughlin, one of our associates from this area, who is in Washington, DC, helping to plan peace marches at this time.  

            One aspect of peacemaking is forgiveness. Forgiving another person implies forgiving ourselves. Louise Hay, author of the best-seller You Can Heal Your Life who moved here to California, has observed that all of us suffer from self-hatred and guilt based on a sense that we are not good enough.¹⁶ Her  invitation is for us to accept and forgive ourselves, to love and approve of ourselves.  Her claim is that we are 100% responsible for all the circumstances of our lives (Hay 5). The thoughts we think today shape our future.  If we continue to think negative thoughts, then we will continue to berate ourselves, to punish ourselves, and to suffer from resentment, criticism, guilt, and fears (Hay 12-13).  If we choose to think positive thoughts, then our lives will reflect this change of view.

            She has continued to engage herself in this process and has invited us to do likewise:

                        We need to choose to release the past and forgive

            everyone, ourselves included. We may not know how to

            forgive, and we may not want to forgive; but the very

            fact we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing

            process. It is imperative for our own healing that "we"

            release the past and forgive everyone.

                        "I forgive you for not being the way I wanted you to

            be. I forgive you and I set you free."

                        This affirmation sets us free (Hay 13-14).

            Convinced that a state of unforgiveness is behind all disease, she wrote: "Whenever we are ill, we need to search our hearts and see who it is we need to forgive" (Hay 14).  She realized that people's problems with money, health, relationships, or unexpressed creativity are all the one problem of not loving the self.  For her, the key to healing in every dimension of our lives is self-approval and self-acceptance (Hay 15).

            Forgiving an institution might mean holding that institution accountable for wrongdoing. In her book on forgiveness and peacemaking, Doris Donnelly listed several elements for this process:

putting emotions on a back burner, seeking and speaking the truth, seeking to change the injustice, and focusing on healing.¹⁷

            Another dimension of peacemaking is nonviolence. In her book Love Beyond Measure, the Benedictine sister Mary Lou Kownacki insisted that peacemaking begins with making peace with all the parts of ourselves. She confessed:

After I read my first Gandhi, and marched in my first anti-war demonstration, I steeled myself for a heroic lifestyle of long fasts, solidarity with the poor and civil disobedience. I spent long hours worrying that I wouldn’t have the mettle to meet this self-spun scenario. I could have spared myself the agony. Bread and water fasts, rubbing shoulders with the poor, prison cells are easy. A spirituality of nonviolence makes tougher demands. It forces you to stand in front of a mirror and look. And that’s not always a pleasant experience.¹⁸

            Questions: Whom do we feel drawn to forgive at this time– a member of our family or our community, a friend, someone in our past, ourselves?

            With what parts of ourselves to we choose to make peace?

5. LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

            Another way of being the heart of God in the world today is living in the present moment.

            Sr. Lucy Lamy, RSCJ,  helped people to meet God: “She believed and taught that if one were to find God in this life, one had to live wholly in the present moment.”¹⁹

            One aspect of living in the present moment is awareness. In one of her talks, Charlotte Joko Beck, one of the teachers at the San Diego Zen Center, mentioned that in her teens she liked to play Bach chorales on the piano, and one of her favorites was: “In Thine Arms I Rest Me.” Reflecting on coming to our senses, she said the following:

READER #1: As the chorale said, there is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. that place is nothing but this present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we’re stuck in our thoughts. We’re out of touch with the open space that is always right here. Only after years of practice are we able to live in an open, aware space most of the time.²⁰    

Another aspect of living in the present moment is slowing down gently. Sometimes it helps

me to walk very slowly in the corridor at home as a form of walking meditation and recollection. It also helps me to prepare food very slowly and deliberately, taking a recipe step by step. When I am slowed down, I am able to notice signs of resurrection in my life and in our world.

            Question: What helps me to live in the present moment?

6. HOLY LEISURE

            Lastly, I want to talk about holy leisure as a sign of resurrection.  What do I mean by holy leisure?  I mean creative leisure that refreshes and renews us to accept and integrate our mistakes and successes, our commitments and hobbies, our anxieties and goals, in the presence of God. Maybe for some of us, it's taking some time to read a novel. For others, it's painting or writing poetry or practicing a favorite musical instrument, not so that we exhibit our painting or read our poems in public or perform in concert, but simply for the enjoyment.  For others, it's creative dance or yoga or some form of exercise. Some forms of play get pretty messy, don't they? Like working with clay or gardening. At first, we may bemoan the time wasted.  But we may discover that we feel more energy for the task at hand. In fact, we may find playful ways to do our work.  Margaret Farley calls one dimension of this "relaxation of heart."²¹ Others can benefit from our solitude, but we do not have pragmatic ends for being alone.  It is not selfish.  If anything, it can be our gift to others, being in touch with and living out of the truth of our being. I think that today more than ever, in a world where the work week is getting shorter and shorter, we need to explore and exercise the discipline of holy leisure.

            In her book about living the rule of St. Benedict today, Joan Chittister writes about holy leisure by which she means “leisure that makes the human more human by engaging the heart and broadening the vision and deepening the insight and stretching the soul. . . It is one thing to pray prayers; it is another thing to be prayerful.”²²

            One dimension of holy leisure is sharing a common table. Meg Funk, another American Benedictine, is convinced of this spiritual practice. She has written the following:

READER #2: The spiritual life can spin into unreality if we eat mindlessly, work incessantly, sleep fitfully, and talk at each other. To reverse this kind of living, we should use the tool of the common table: eat mindfully, slowly, with poise and manners. We wait for food to be served, take what is given, and are grateful. Eating at a designated time is part of our tool of fasting. We stop our work to eat, so food and others have our full and undivided attention. We eat much like we prefer to sleep, that is, to take whatever time is required to be rested and balanced. The most challenging aspect in the practice of the common table is facing another. When we face one another, others reflect to us what they need and how we can be helpful. They want to be heard and welcomed at table. They want to know that part of your day will always be shared with them and they can count on your presence.²³

During our probation long retreat, Sr. Urs McAghon, RSCJ, invited us to look at how the risen Christ used the very human moment of taking nourishment together, the ritual of a meal, to introduce a new moment and new life: he prepared breakfast for his disciples.²⁴

            Another dimension of holy leisure is communal celebration. Three RSCJ examples come to mind. Once when Sr. Nancy Kehoe visited Oakwood on Mater’s feast, she heard Sr. Mary Bernstein announce over the loud speaker: “Please wear something pink for goûter!” What a fun way to celebrate a favorite feast, all donning Mater’s garb! Several years ago,  the Carmelo community, that is, Srs. Betty Boyter, Mary Ann Foy, Fran Tobin, and Irma Mota, invited the San Diego area over to celebrate Hallowe’en together. We were to wear the costume of a saint and explain why when we got there. The evening became a form of faith-sharing that was delightful and instructive, teaching us a lot about the saints and about those who donned their garb! This area retreat day for RSCJ and associates is another wonderful example of celebrating Lent together.  As Charlotte Sophia Kasl has put it in her book, A Home for the Heart:

However we choose to celebrate in our communities, we find the greatest power when our gatherings are inclusive, creative, and include some form of spiritual consciousness– a sense of being tied to something bigger, an awareness that our community is a wheel in a bigger wheel.  This is not contrary to having a good time, rather, it keeps us mindful that the joy of celebration comes from opening to a wider consciousness and connecting to the hearts of each other. . . we observe, intensify, feel bliss, and as our joy overflows, we send our prayers and warm wishes out into the world.²⁵

            Questions: How do we enjoy holy leisure--alone? with others? some of both? celebrating the Eucharist? sharing at our common table? during spiritual reading? reading the newspaper?  With music or in silence? working with our hands? Petting a cat or listening to the birds? Watching a student on this campus or watching a sunset?

INVITATION TO QUIET TIME

            I have chosen to reflect with you on the mystery of being the heart of God, the heart of the risen Christ, in our world today by exploring with you some habits of heart for living the paschal mystery during Lent, some signs of resurrection. They are ways we mediate the risen Christ’s love, as our Constitutions put it: “by their conversations and dealings with those whom they meet they communicate to them the living presence of Jesus Christ” (RSCJ Constitutions of 1815, #242.XVIII). Perhaps there are other dimensions which we can discuss later on this afternoon.

            For the next half-hour I invite you to reflect on the question for our faith-sharing that is indicated on the bottom of the handout for this session: What/where are the signs of resurrection in my life? After half an hour of silence for prayer and reflection, let’s gather in small groups, those of us who wish, for another half hour and then return here for a closing prayer together at 2:40 pm.

                                                             NOTES

25. Charlotte Sophie Kasl, A Home for the Heart: A Practical Guide to Intimate and Social Relationships (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998), 372.

           BEING THE HEART OF GOD, THE HEART OF THE RISEN CHRIST,

                         IN OUR WORLD TODAY: SIGNS OF RESURRECTION

                                                                                                Annice Callahan, RSCJ

1. GRATITUDE

            Question:  For whom/for what do I feel grateful at this time?

2. EMPOWERMENT

            Question: By whom am I empowered? Whom am I empowering?

3. COMPASSIONATE SOLIDARITY

            Questions:  Toward whom have I felt genuine compassion? Toward whom do I find it hard to feel genuine compassion? What grace do I beg of the risen Christ?

             With what person or group of suffering people do I feel myself in compassionate solidarity?

4. PEACEMAKING

            Questions: Whom do we feel drawn to forgive at this time– a member of our family or our community, a friend, ourselves?

            With what parts of ourselves to we choose to make peace?

5. LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

            Question: What helps me to live in the present moment?

6. HOLY LEISURE

            Questions: How do we enjoy holy leisure--alone? with others? some of both? celebrating the Eucharist? sharing at our common table? during spiritual reading? reading the newspaper?  With music or in silence? working with our hands? Petting a cat or listening to the birds? Watching a student on this campus or watching a sunset?           

QUESTION FOR REFLECTION AND FAITH-SHARING: What/where are the signs of resurrection in my life?

                                    SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Annice Callahan, RSCJ

Beck, Charlotte Joko. Nothing Special: Living Zen. Ed. Steve Smith. HarperSan Francisco, 1993.

Chittister, Joan, OSB. Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

----------. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1990.

Donnelly, Doris. Seventy Times Seven: Forgiveness and Peacemaking. Erie, Pa.: Pax Christi USA, Benet Press, 1993.

Dreyer, Elizabeth A.  Earth Crammed with Heaven: A Spirituality of Everyday Life. New York: Paulist, 1994.

Farley, Margaret A. Personal Commitments: Beginning, Keeping, Changing. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986, pp. 58-66.

Funk, Mary Margaret, OSB. Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life. New York: Continuum, 2001.

Haughton, Rosemary. “Liberating the Divine Energy.” In Living with Apocalypse: Spiritual Resources for Social Compassion. Ed. Tilden H. Edwards. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984.

Hay, Louise. You Can Heal Your Life. Santa Monica: Hay House,1987.

Hayes, Diana L., Hagar’s Daughters: Womanist Ways of Being in the World. NY: Paulist, 1995.

Hughes, Kathleen, RSCJ. Saying Amen: A Mystagogy of Sacrament. Chicago, Ill.: Liturgy Training Pub., 1999.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints. New York: Continuum, 1998.

----------. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad,1992.

Kasl, Charlotte Sophia. A Home for the Heart: A Practical Guide to Intimate and Social Relationships. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.

Kownacki, Mary Lou, OSB. Love Beyond Measure: A Spirituality of Nonviolence. Erie, Pa.: Pax Christi USA, Benet Press, 1993.

Liebert, Elizabeth, SNJM. Changing Life Patterns: Adult Development in Spiritual Direction. St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2000.

Norris, Kathleen. The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”. New York: Paulist, 1998.

Obituary for Lucy Caroline Lamy, RSCJ, 1903-1997. St. Louis: Provincial House, 2003.

Obituary for Sr. Elia Marie “Tootsie” Torian, RSCJ, March 12, 1932-January 18, 2002.St. Louis: Provincial House, 2003.

Rodriguez, Jeanette. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Austin, Tx.: Univ. of Texas Press, 1994.

RSCJ Constitutions of 1815, #242.XVIII.

Ryan, Eilish. Rosemary Haughton. Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed & Ward, 1997.           

Salzberg, Sharon. Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience. New York: Penguin Putnam, Riverhead Books, 2002.