Tag: Hope

Watch Out

Pope Francis concelebrated Mass last Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica with 11 of the 13 new cardinals he had created the day before. His homily was striking. Here are some excerpts:
“Advent is the season for remembering that closeness of God who came down to dwell in our midst…
“The first step of faith is to tell God that we need him, that we need him to be close to us…
“Let us make our own the traditional Advent prayer: ‘Come, Lord Jesus’…
“If we ask Jesus to come close to us, we will train ourselves to be watchful…It is important to remain watchful, because one great mistake in life is to get absorbed in a thousand things and not to notice God.
“Saint Augustine said: ‘I fear that Jesus will pass by me unnoticed’. Caught up in our own daily concerns (how well we know this!), and distracted by so many vain things, we risk losing sight of what is essential…Be watchful, attentive…
“Being watchful in expectation of his coming means not letting ourselves be overcome by discouragement. It is to live in hope. Just as before our birth, our loved ones expectantly awaited our coming into the world, so now Love in person awaits us.
“If we are awaited in Heaven, why should we be caught up with earthly concerns? Why should we be anxious about money, fame, success, all of which will pass away? Why should we waste time complaining about the night, when the light of day awaits us?…Be watchful, the Lord tells us.
   “Staying awake is not easy…Even Jesus’ disciples did not manage to stay awake…They did not keep watch, They fell asleep. But that same drowsiness can also overtake us…it is the slumber of mediocrity. It comes when we forget our first love and grow satisfied with indifference, concerned only for an untroubled existence.

“Without making an effort to love God daily and awaiting the newness he constantly brings, we become mediocre, lukewarm, worldly. And this slowly eats away at our faith, for faith is…an ardent desire for God, a bold effort to change, the courage to love, constant progress. Faith…is fire that burns; it is not a tranquilizer for people under stress, it is a love story for people in love!…
“How can we rouse ourselves from the slumber of mediocrity? With the vigilance of prayer…Prayer rouses us from the tepidity of a purely horizontal existence and makes us lift our gaze to higher things; it makes us attuned to the Lord…Prayer allows God to be close to us; it frees us from our solitude and gives us hope. Prayer is vital for life…
“There is also another kind of interior slumber: the slumber of indifference. Those who are indifferent see everything the same…they are unconcerned about those all around them. When everything revolves around us and our needs, and we are indifferent to the needs of others, night descends in our heart…
“How do we rouse ourselves from the slumber of indifference? With the watchfulness of charity. Charity is the beating heart of the Christian…being compassionate, helping and serving others…are the only things that win us the victory, since they are already aiming towards the future, the day of the Lord, when all else will pass away and love alone will remain.
“…praying and loving: that is what it means to be watchful…Come, Lord Jesus, take our distracted hearts and make them watchful. Awaken within us the desire to pray and the need to love.”


6 December 2020

Going Round in Circles

Usually when we say that somebody is “going round in circles” we mean that they keep coming back to the same place or problem where they started, that they’re not making progress or achieving anything.
Actually, in terms of motion, we’re all going round in circles all the time:
– Everyone on the surface of the rotating earth is constantly going around about 1,000 miles per hour, since the circumference of the earth is somewhat over 24,000 miles.
– The whole earth and everyone on it is spinning around the sun at a rate of about 67,000 miles per hour.
– The entire solar system is moving around the galaxy center at a speed well over 500,000 miles per hour.
We’re part of a very fast crowd!
In terms of the course of our lives, we tend also to be going round in circles much of the time, often living aimlessly with little or no sense of destination or destiny.
The older we are, the more conscious we become of the speed of each of our lives—and the imminence of their end, of death.
There’s a lovely—and striking—question in The Liturgy of the Hours (Week II, Monday, Morning Prayer, Antiphon 1): “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?”
It’s an interesting and challenging way of describing the course of one’s life—as a pilgrimage!
A pilgrimage usually means a demanding journey, usually a long trip, to a special place, often a foreign and/or sacred place—and, of course, the journey has a purpose.
We undertake a pilgrimage in spite of its hardships, difficulties, and dangers because of our keen desire to attain its goal, to reach our destination.
As wayfarers, travelers, pilgrims, we don’t fear the end of our journey, we don’t lament that the trip will be over—we yearn to reach it, to attain our goal.

Going round in circles isn’t necessarily wasteful. If we’re going up a spiral staircase, though we’re going round in circles we’re also making progress, getting higher every time around.
Going round in circles is a fundamental aspect of our lives. But, without a purpose, goal, or destination, without progress, achievement, or attainment, our lives can be empty and terrifyingly meaningless.
For some people, a question like, “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?,” is nothing more than senseless “religious talk.”
In reality, it’s a profound way of describing our lives. We may not fully realize its implications, but it does give some purpose, power, and fulfillment to us, we ever-circling, fast-moving human creatures.
Life isn’t a merry-go-round. We don’t just enjoy the ride until it’s over. In fact, the ride isn’t necessarily always enjoyable.
Life isn’t a boomerang journey. We’re not just thrown around, traveling long and far, and end up spent and exhausted pretty much not far from where we started.
Life isn’t a train ride that never ends; we’re not wanderers without a station where we get off; we have a place to go to and a hope for tomorrow.
If life’s a pilgrimage with its mysterious destination, “the presence of God,” then why we aren’t we preparing for the journey?
Why are we encumbered by useless things, why aren’t we traveling light, why aren’t we on our guard against detours and blockages?
It’s okay to be going round in circles so long as we’re spiraling, so long as, no matter how convoluted the route of our lives, we’re progressing towards our final destination.

(Available in Spanish translation)

9 August 2020

In Seventh Heaven

“In Seventh Heaven” probably doesn’t describe how we feel right now, even though we’re still celebrating Easter.
It usually means a state of perfect happiness, but, when you think about it, it’s literally a curious expression. It dates back a long, long time and refers to the highest level of heaven, the one where God and his highest angels are supposed to dwell.
In ancient times most people imagined the world to be almost endless but flat—its major divisions were the deep waters, the dry land, and the sky above. And, they had their subdivisions. The sky, the heavens above had seven levels, and the seventh level was the highest.
St. Paul the Apostle, presumably referencing a mystical experience he himself once had, wrote, “I know someone in Christ who, fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows), was caught up to the third heaven.” (2 Cor 12:2).
The non-canonical Second Book of Enoch imagines the third heaven as a location “between corruptibility and incorruptibility” that contained the Tree of Life and from which two springs flowed down into the Garden of Eden.
This notion of levels of heaven is found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to journey to outer space and orbit the earth. Allegedly, Nikita Khrushchev commented about his journey, “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any God there.”
That sarcastic statement has a very odd ring to it—it echoes the ancient concept of a flat world. We, too, sometimes still use very old, “directional” religious language:
God is “up” in heaven.
Jesus “ascends” (goes up) to the Father.
We sometimes exclaim, “Saints above!”

“Heaven” or “Hell” in the sense of a place of our ultimate destiny isn’t “up” or “down”; in fact it isn’t quite a “place” in the usual sense of the word at all—even though we imagine it that way.
What is Heaven then?
First of all, we really don’t “know” in the way we know something within our lived experience. Heaven names a state, a condition, a stage of life that is still relatively unknown to us and yet to be experienced.
In theological terms it is a “mystery”, part of the great mystery of God’s love and providence for each of his creatures.
All this is pertinent to how we describe and understand the last of Jesus’ earthly life, what we traditionally call his “Ascension”.
In the Bible, it’s depicted in various ways. For example, in the end of Luke’s Gospel (24:51) it says, “As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.”
However in the beginning of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles (Acts:1:9), there is a subtle but very important difference—it says, “When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”
The key word here is “cloud”. It’s not a description of the weather; it refers to Jesus’ final appearance before he was gathered into the luminous cloud of the divine presence which our eyes cannot penetrate.
The imagery may vary, but the underlying fact and faith are the same—the last stage of Jesus’ earthly life was to be gathered into the glory of God.
So, don’t worry about the “direction” of your life so long as it’s the same—Godward!

17 May 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

This Little Light of Mine

It was a very discouraging time. The armies of the superpower of the Middle East, Assyria, were on the march. They swept through the kingdoms of Syria and Israel, killing or deporting the leaders of the people and settling foreigners in their places.
The relentless progress of the Assyrians — Gilead, Galilee, Megiddo, Samaria — brought them through the kingdom of Judah to the very gates of Jerusalem itself. That incorrigibly optimistic Jerusalemite, the “impossible dreamer,” the prophet Isaiah, refused to be overwhelmed by fear and discouragement.
He boldly counseled King Ahaz against seeking Egyptian alliances and clever political solutions to prevent the fall of the city. His unflinching advice was to trust in the power of God — only in the power of God.
Isaiah foresaw not only the salvation of Jerusalem but the redemption of all the afflicted and suffering people of the conquered lands:

Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness: for there is no gloom where but now there was distress.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone

Nowadays, our temptation is similar to that of the besieged Jerusalemites thousands of years ago — the world is becoming a terrible place, all is lost, there’s little or no hope for the future.

The night he was betrayed, the day before he was executed as a seditionist, the one who was hailed by old Simeon as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” said something bolder than Isaiah:

In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.

During Holy Week, after the blessing of the new fire, the Easter candle is lit, symbol of the light of Christ. Then every believer present lights a candle from the Christ candle and, lo, the church is bright.
At baptism there is a similar ceremony. A candle is lighted from the same Christ candle for the newly baptized person as a sign that he or she shares in the light of Christ, the invincible conqueror of sin and death.
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus told us. We’re the fighters against darkness and gloom. We’re the ones whose indomitable optimism, courageous lives, and confident goodness will help redeem the suffering of our day.
The poet William Blake wrote of “Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night.’’
Go, tiger, go! Lo, the world is bright.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 28:1, January 2002)

Sons and Daughters

God spared my mother until she was 90 years old. Even during her dying days, she found time to marvel that she had become the mother of a priest. Somehow this had exceeded her fondest imaginings.
After she died, I found a little “baby book” she had filled out about me while I was an infant. How many hopes and dreams she and my father had for me and my sister, their only children. How much they sacrificed for us, that we would have opportunities denied to them.
It was only after both my parents were gone that I realized how much we, their children, were the real fulfillment and lasting achievement of their lives.
Imagine the parents of a little six-year-old girl in Baghdad. As a new born infant, her sparkling black eyes were the joy of their young lives. What dreams they had for her—how she would grow into a comely young woman, the handsome young man she would wed, the grandchildren she would give them.
What indescribable anguish and pain for her parents to watch her stunted growth, because they could not find the food she needed. What an indescribable loss for them, to see her die of a curable childhood illness because no vaccine could be found for her.
In the lowlands of Eritrea, rural life goes on as centuries before. Simple farmers and herders live in their straw and mud cottages, scattered across the African savanna.
Maybe their hopes for their children are simple too, but still great expectations for their simple world. What satisfaction to see a son grow up straight, tall, strong and agile.

What pride to see him learn the work skills for survival, master the intricate songs and dances of their culture, and gain the respect of peers and elders.
What a crushing blow one day to have someone from the “government” come to induct him into its army and send him to fight a meaningless battle in a meaningless war from which he never returns.
Put yourself in the place of a Jewish youth who fled Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and who almost miraculously escaped the destruction that befell all his family.
Israel offered him new hope and new life. There he wed and, full of great expectations, raised children of his own. What pride mixed with dread must have been in his heart to see his sons and daughters drafted into the endless conflicts that are the lot of his new land.
“Killed in southern Lebanon” is the message that tells of his daughter’s death. What a brutal awakening from so many wondrous, hope-filled dreams.
See the tears streaming down the face of a Palestinian mother, as she tenderly washes the dead body of her young son. No soldier he, no daring youth, just a school boy who happened to be too near a place where stones and bullets were flying. Dead in an instant was his young life and the meaning of hers.
O Mary, remember all of us, you whose hopes, dreams, and great expectations—all the bright promise of Bethlehem—died with Him that day on Golgotha.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 25:1, January 1999)

Triage

I arrived at the emergency room of the hospital with my sick friend. “He needs to see a doctor right away,” I said. But, before we could see the doctor, he had to be screened by the triage nurse.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, the French word triage means “picking”, “sorting”, “choice”, or “selection”. It has come to be used in English to describe a difficult and critical pre-selection process.
In this case, since there were too many patients to be seen by the doctor that afternoon, the triage nurse had to set the priorities and decide which cases were the more urgent.
As one who shares primary responsibility for making funding decisions at Catholic Near East Welfare Association, I often feel like a triage nurse.
Regretfully, there are too many needs and too many worthy requests for our aid for us to be able to respond positively to them all. We’re forced to pick and choose among them.
In order to make informed and responsible decisions, we have to set clear priorities and criteria — which is easier said than done.
For example, should our first priority be helping Catholics? In this case, of the countries we serve, Ukraine should get the lion’s share of our attention, with its population of over 4,000,000 Catholics
Most of them are Catholic by tradition, but, after generations of Marxism, not what we in the West would consider “practicing”.
If practicing Catholics are the norm, then India with its dynamic Eastern Catholic Churches numbering 3,400,000 should take first place.

Ironically, by this standard, the Holy Land should get the least of our attention with only 90,000 Catholics.
Should our first priority be the total number of Christians? Then, among the countries we serve, our concern should be for Russia, followed by Ethiopia, Ukraine, India, and Egypt.
Should our prime criterion be poverty and suffering? From this point of view, Ethiopia heads the list. Armenia is in dire straits. Iraq, which normally is considered a wealthy country, now is in great need.
Are humanitarian or pastoral needs more important? Is food or medicine or clothing more important? Is emergency relief more important than long-term development? Which comes first, formation of persons or construction of buildings?
Our agency’s challenge is the same one that each of us faces in our personal lives. The media overwhelm us with knowledge of human needs all over the world. Whom are we to help? And, how much?
In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus gives us some of the answer:
Whom do I help? Whoever, in the providence of God, crosses my path, whomever in need I personally encounter in my life’s journey.
How much do I help? As much as the other needs and I can.
Alas, there may need for triage as regards our material resources, but may there never be a limit to our love!


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 19:5, September 1993)

Providence and Peace

When Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, captured Babylon in 539 B.C., he initiated two centuries of Persian rule of the ancient Near East. As a matter of policy, he tolerated and even promoted the religions of his subject peoples.
The Bible testifies that he issued a decree that allowed Jewish exiles in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and to resume the worship of the Lord there.
They saw in Cyrus a providential answer to their prayers. “The Lord inspired King Cyrus,” the Chronicler soberly affirms. The prophet-poet, Isaiah, declares Cyrus a “champion of justice.” He boldly claims that God called Cyrus “friend”, “shepherd”, and “anointed”, ancient titles reserved for Abraham and the house of David.
Isaiah’s reflection on Cyrus witnesses to the workings of divine providence:

For the sake of Jacob, my servant,
of Israel my chosen one,
I have called you by your name,
giving you a title, though you knew me not.
I am the Lord and there is no other,
there is no God besides me.
It is I who arm you, though you know me not,
so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun
men may know that there is none besides me.

Twenty-six hundred years ago, the region that we now call the Middle East looked grim and hopeless. No political solution presented itself. Yet God made a way where there was none.

People of faith trust in God that solutions are possible in situations which, humanly speaking, seem hopeless. Such confidence doesn’t justify inaction — for God expects us to do all that we possible can — but frees us from paralysis and despair.
In geology the theory of plate tectonics holds that large segments of the earth’s crust are moving, even colliding. The scale of these colossal motions usually exceeds our perceptions — except for an earthquake or volcanic eruption — yet they really are taking place.
God’s interventions in the lives of individuals, families, and nations have a certain similarity. The movings of His Spirit exceed our immediate perceptions, yet they are the most fundamental of realities.
We often speak of praying to God for peace. This is no pious platitude. Though human peacemakers have their role, and blessed may they be, peace comes as a work and a gift of God in history.
May the troubled world CNEWA serves – Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Ethiopia – be blessed with peace, “God’s own peace, which is beyond all understanding.”


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 15:4, October 1989)