I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

If you are Catholic, you are saying these words at mass on a regular basis. You may read them off of a page, you may mumble along, you may say nothing at all.

So what do you believe?

I’m kind of stuck on that last bit – “who has spoken through the prophets.”  Prophets – they are so annoying, aren’t they?

If you immediately want to say “No! They’re great!” that might be because you, if you are like me, feel that way about your prophets. You know the ones, the ones that you like. By extension, if they are challenging to those “other” people, but comforting to you, I might suggest this…

Listen to those prophets.

Even when you want to bop them in the head.

Trust me when I tell you that I want to listen to “my” prophets. And I do listen to them, and I am comforted by them, as well. The hard part is, and I am not so good about this, is listening to the “prophets” who completely annoy me.

Those prophets are the one that challenge you at every turn. They say things that you vehemently disagree with, things that you believe turn the meaning of Church on its head. Those prophets are comforting someone else. And to those folks I say, listen to the prophets that annoy you.

You see, the Holy Spirit speaks through the prophets. God afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. Here’s the rub, if you ask me, we are all comfortable and we are all afflicted.

The very moment that we start to rest on the idea that “we,” whoever we means to you, are God’s special ones, we are in trouble. The idea, especially if we have been paying attention to John’s Gospel in these recent weeks, is that “all might be one.”

Um yeah – that means… all. How annoying is that?!

Read these words from Corinthians, from the possible mass readings for this weekend, and see what you think and feel:

Brothers and sisters:
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.

As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Now, if there was ever a ragtag group of people struggling to believe, obey and be as one, it was those Corinthians. Yet, here we see St. Paul reminding them that… all may be One.

How different are we? And why should I expect you to be like me? And why would you expect me to be like you?

I don’t know about you, but I know that I am often surprised when someone that I “like” expresses an opinion that is not my own. What-the-what, I think; how could they actually say that? Think that? Believe that?

Can we be as St. Paul indicates, many people with One Spirit?

Quite often those people are my prophets, the ones that I need to listen to. Not necessarily to take what they are saying and make it my own, but rather to open my heart and my mind, to try to understand what God is saying.

I like to think about how the image of the Holy Spirit as dove is so pervasive and so beloved. Did you see the image above, earlier in the week? I thought “oh, how wonderful!” and saved the photo. But what happens when that bird flies off and defacates on your head? What about THAT Holy Spirit? Don’t think that is not the same Holy Spirit… it is. Like with a prophet, annoyance is part of the package.

Prophets are generally reviled in their own time, so if you like someone who feels prophetic to you, I simply ask you to balance it out by finding someone who feels completely annoying, and who stands in contradistinction to “your prophet.”

The Holy Spirit lives in those spaces, challenging, annoying, and persistently getting in the way of the great “I,” as opposed to the very great, “I AM,” which is God. If nothing else, getting up close and personal to the most annoying “prophet” you can find, may help you to know and understand what you do believe. It is not just about changing our mind, it is about how we are transformed by God.

Oh yes, I truly do believe in the Holy Spirit and am annoyed by Her on a persistently regular schedule.

Go find someone who annoys you, near or far. And when you do, experience that flame that wants to flicker upon your head, like that of the Apostles on Pentecost. That flame will shape us all, so that we may be One.

How annoying!

I am grateful for the support I received both practically and spiritually from my home parish of St. Edward the Confessor, Clifton Park, and my work parish, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Glenville.

There were my professors, all of whom offered great and generous gifts of both challenge and knowledge. The staff also gave without reservation – both the Albany staff, and the Rochester staff. My classmates and peers cannot be left out here, either.

And then there are the many, many, many people who generously prayed, talked, suggested, cajoled and so much more. Thank you one and all.

So today, I who never thought I would ever return to school, have a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies from St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry.

What will I do with it? Frame it and hang it on the wall, silly!

“May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call…” – Ephesians 1:18

A little lectio divina led me to savor this particular line of today’s Scripture, for Ascension Thursday. While I’m a little wistful that Easter draws to an end, I also find myself hopeful. Now I’ve been floundering around for something to say about my hope, and wouldn’t you know it, God pointed me to some words on the topic. Just yesterday, in the throes of my final floundering, I came across a post written by Bridget at Women in Theology, where she, among other things, reminds us of something very important:

“…hope is not optimism. In fact, in certain cases (I suspect most of the cases where it actually matters) optimism can be a vice opposed to hope. An optimist can discount and ignore evidence against her conviction that things will right themselves. An optimist is threatened by others’ pain. But someone acting in hope—the conviction not that things will right themselves, nor that we’ll be able to right them, but that God’s power will work to overturn whatever wrongs our systems can devise—that person can face pain. Without denying pain or being swept away by it, she can face her own and others’ suffering.”

Hope is not optimism. Do a little lectio with those words – they are most powerful!  I find this so helpful – and so hopeful, as I return to those words from Ephesians that open this post. I also appreciate that Bridget reminds us of the importance of language and of depth of reflection, something we can easily forget in the land of status updates and tweets, in the land of “optimistic opinionating” that social media can represent. (This is not a swipe at social media, without which there would be post today, but rather a call to reflection. Add to that a reminder that God uses all things for good – including social media, which provided the incubator for both this post and the WIT post that ultimately inspired it.)

Today my reflection, along with it my prayer, is to be anchored in hope and free from optimism. This does not make me a hopeful pessimist, any more than the opposite would be a hopeless optimist… although I can see the allure of the latter. No, it is the banality of optimism that I was reminded of at the last minute, and the power of great hope that grows out of faith.

Pentecost will arrive on Sunday, May 19. In these days in between, we await the Holy Spirit. What will your prayer be during this powerful time? Suddenly, my own prayer which was centered around the ways that I “hoped” that God would shape my life, has shifted. Today – at least just today, just this moment – pray that hope grows more deeply in my heart. If I am able to string my prayer of hope from moment to moment, and day to day, between now and Pentecost, who knows what will happen? Maybe, just maybe, the “eyes of my heart will be enlightened.” And to that I say, amen, and amen, and amen.

In the meantime, don’t just go staring at the sky, waiting for Jesus to come back down. Open your heart and notice Jesus all around you, especially in the most pessimistic of places and in the people you would never imagine finding Jesus is, but where Jesus might be found with the open eyes of a willing heart.

There were a lot more words here, but I did not save them and something funky happened and they went away. *sigh* Oh well. Here are some photos of the trip.

Then when I came home I just wanted to go walking with the dog. So I did. This is what we see when we walk around our ‘hood. It is not NYC, but this is my home now. I love it! That’s what I’m doing. What are you doing?

As a direct result of reading, today I will write, as the blog tour for Random MOMents of Grace (from Loyola Press),by Ginny Kubitz Moyer stops here, which I am very excited about!

When I discovered Ginny’s blog, Random Acts of Momness, I was hooked, and I’ve been a near daily visitor for a couple of years now.  She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s very insightful, and I think what I love best is how she reveals such small-s-sacrament moments of grace with such beauty and ease.

Anyway, let me offer this very short review… I loved the book. Rather than tell you why I loved it, I simply recommend it very highly. If you read this book, or take a look at Ginny’s blog, you will understand. While the blog, and the book flow forth from Ginny’s Catholic motherhood, I can promise you, neither the blog nor the book exclude anyone. So don’t let that keep you from this treasure.

I would like you to know Ginny a bit better, so take a look right here…
You describe parenting as the “ultimate spiritual workout.” What are some “training tips” that you might offer expectant moms about to begin this journey?

Most pregnancy books give you lots of advice about what to expect, post-baby. They tell you that your body will change, your sleep patterns will change, your love life will change – but they don’t tell you that your spiritual life will change, too. Those changes can be challenging (less time for prayer/meditation, noisy plastic toys constantly underfoot), and yet parenting has deepened my faith life in ways I could not have anticipated. Since having kids, I understand the love of God better than ever before. I’ve gained an entirely new appreciation for what it means to be part of a community. Formerly fuzzy concepts like grace are much more concrete to me now.

Any time we leave our comfort zones, we grow. Motherhood is all about leaving one’s comfort zones. It puts you into situations that are not exactly enjoyable (being stuck overnight in the airport with a nine-month-old baby is not anyone’s idea of a good time – don’t ask me how I know this), but it also brings you moments of astonishing joy and beauty. I’m not sure you can prepare for all this, exactly; you can only embrace it. And so I’d tell an expectant mother that she’s in for a wild ride … but a transformative one.

In a chapter called “The Good and The Bad,” you write beautifully about how both exist in our lives. Do you typically feel aware of the necessity of both as you live through those moments? (I can’t help but think of the short span between Matthew telling you that he loves you, and his journey to the time out place that almost immediately followed, as I ask this.)

In any bad moment of life as a parent (the stomach flu, the tantrum, the cross-country-flight-with-rambunctious-kids) I think we all just want to get past it as quickly as possible. But at the end of the day, when I think back over the day’s experiences, I can often see that the bad moments fit into a larger narrative, so to speak. I can see how they are a part of life as a mom, but they are not the sum total of my parenting experiences. That makes them easier to accept, somehow.

I think this is why an evening’s moment of reflection is so useful. When we step back and look at the day, we can see not just the icky parts, but also the moments of grace that were present. And the more you identify these moments of grace after the fact, the more it trains you to become aware of them in real time, as they are happening. I can’t do that all the time, but I am getting better.

Maintaining a life of faith that includes attendance at church is one of the most difficult things for young families to do. What would you say to a mom of young kids who would love to be able to live that way, but feels too time and stress challenged to do so?

I’d say just pack up the kids and go, and let yourself be open to whatever you are able to absorb of the service, even if it doesn’t feel like much. Honestly, it’s hard to recall the last time I could focus on the entire Gospel. The moment the priest starts the homily, one of the boys invariably has to use the potty; it’s like a Pavlovian response. But even when I miss what feels like ninety percent of the service, it’s not a wasted experience. Certain words or phrases will leap out at me, even while trying to contain two squirrelly kids, and sometimes that word or phrase is just what I need.

Also, as a Catholic, I love the fact that even when I am utterly distracted by the boys and miss the readings and the Gospel and the homily and the creed, I still have the Eucharist. Walking down that aisle and tasting the body of Christ is a moment of total, pure involvement. That action breaks through all the distraction and focuses me on the relationship that is the very heart of my faith. Because of that, every Mass – even the ones where the kids are so active that I wonder why I came in the first place – is utterly worth it.

Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr has said that faith has to be “caught and not taught.” How do you think that a life of faith is transmitted to the next generation?

Well, I’m a teacher by trade, so I can’t not teach my kids. ☺ But I do think that so much of faith is about the example you see around you, in your own family. If someone asked your child, “Does your mom like being Catholic?” (or Presbyterian, or Jewish, or Mormon, or whatever), what would your child say? And if you think your child might not be able to answer “yes,” what can you do to change that? I think this is a very useful question to ponder.

You love to garden; how is gardening a mirror of grace in your journey as a mother, a writer, a woman of faith?

Gardening is so elemental, isn’t it? – it’s about connecting with what is most basic and important in life. In our technology-driven world, I think this is more necessary than ever. I remember one summer afternoon when I was feeling foggy and edgy from being online too much. I stopped and went outside and began to deadhead the lavender bushes, and it was like instant renewal. It was fabulous.

Also, gardening is not something that most of us instinctively know how to do. There’s a learning curve of figuring out which plants can’t do well in the shade, how much watering is enough, etc. Often, we can’t do it without the advice of someone who is more experienced than we are (in my case, my garden-loving mom and grandma.)

If you ask me, that makes it a pretty good metaphor for parenting. Maybe some women take their first baby home from the hospital and feel totally confident about their new role. I was petrified. Enter my mom, who was a lifesaver during those first few confusing and exhausting weeks.

And gardening is all about nurturing new life, helping it flourish, and making the world more beautiful by your efforts. When you stop to think about it, parenting is, too. They both require creativity, faith, and perseverance … and they show us that grace is all around us, if we take a moment to look for it.

Ginny is a very talented and truly wonderful person, so I am glad that you got to know her a little.  Her words really come from the heart. That to me makes this book a very special one.

If my words and that endorsement still have not influenced you, then our last stop is the excerpt.You just click on that little PDF file below and you will get a real treat – Mom does always come back after a nap and a snack, that is for certain!

random-moments-22-28

I hope that you have enjoyed what you’ve heard about here, whether or not, you don’t always feel like you “fit” into the category. Like any good journey of faith, in the end, all are truly and beautifully welcome. Love and grace are present for all if we find them in life all around us, as Ginny has so richly done in this book.

And there is nothing random about that!

I. Can’t. Write. A. Word.

There is no real reason that I can tell. I’m pretty happy, school has come to an end, and graduation is almost here. The other day I filled out a form and it asked for my level of education, and for the first time ever, I checked the box for having a masters degree. That felt good. But, no real writing has come forth. Who knows why? Not me!

Today I read this post, entitled Keep Speaking Like a Woman, which talks about women writing for the academy, but has elements that apply to any of us who write for any reason. If you are a writer and/or a woman, I think you will want to read the link; it is a big, big wow.

In the meantime, keep my place for me, I will return. Enjoy the silence. And this very favorite Depeche Mode song of mine!

When I work with teenagers for confirmation preparation, they often tell me that science is the challenge between them, or one of the challenges, a belief in God. That is when I play the Teilhard de Chardin card, because when I tell them that he was a paleontologist, they are often surprised.

When I work with myself, at times frustrated with Church, I play the Teilhard de Chardin card for myself. He was silenced, I remind myself – and he was doing really important work. I am reminded of something I once read that said that turning up the oven does not result in a cake baked more quickly. Would Teilhard de Chardin be the giant that he is today, if not for the timing of how his work became known to the world?

Yes skeptics, I hear you thinking that this is a huge rationalization on my part. Maybe, but maybe not. Over 50 now, I have become more aware of how my own timing ins not usually in the best interest of anyone but me. And at this point in my life, I have lost most  of the interest in the supremacy of my own timing and interest. (Note: most of…)

Yesterday I had a good cry born out of frustration over a church related matter. Today I am still upset, but tempered by this as-yet-uncanonized patron saint of mine.

I love the words along with the picture above. It is good science, but it is great theology, great eucharistic theology. Such things are not incompatible – they never were, and they never will be.

God is very patient with us, may we be so patient with one another – and with our selves. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, pray for us!

Postscript: I have one final paper due for school; it is to be delivered at a colloquium on Saturday. Needless to say, I have not completed it, so it seems unlikely that any blogging will come from between now and then. Since I have to go out of town for said colloquium, it is unlikely that I will post anything else before Monday. I graduate, one month from today!

Is our faith more about making leaps of doubt, rather than leaps of faith alone? Can one exist without the other?

Somewhere around 2005 I heard a radio program on the topic of doubt and I was hooked on doubt as a topic to explore. “A History of Doubt” first aired on what was then called “Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett,” in 2003.  Tippett’s program, and now podcast, is know known as “On Being,” and  “A History of Doubt” continues to find an audience. The program features Jennifer Michael Hecht, who has made doubt a field of study and exploration.

Today’s Gospel, one of the most familiar, even to those who do not follow the Gospel, is about “doubting Thomas.”  When I was a kid, I used to think badly of Thomas. Was my point of view informed by my faith education? Probably. I don’t have any specific recollection of hearing this – or any other Gospel – as a child, but my “religious instruction” classes, I do remember. Please know that I was spared any “mean” priests or nuns, so none of this is couched in that. What I do remember is that we were instructed that is that doubt was the opposite of faith. It seemed reasonable enough to me, so I went along with it… when I was 10.

Today I have no such vision. What about you? I can only speak for myself when I say that my faith, something that is so real, so powerful, at the heart of my being, is infused with the on-going scent of doubt. Are you shocked or scandalized to hear this?

Not too long ago, I wrote about our new Holy Father, Pope Francis, calling him a dangerous man. One of the images that I was holding at that point, was that of the certitude of some of the Pharisees who not only doubted Jesus, but who used that doubt to plot the death of Jesus.

This is one of the challenges of doubt, at least from where I am. Perhaps it is not doubt that comes first, but what comes first is a certain “knowing.” Doesn’t such certitude, such absolutism, say that there is little room for God?  What does such certainty do, when God in fact, can never conform to our limited capacity for knowing God?

So what does this have to do with today’s Gospel? Thomas certainly knew Jesus, didn’t he? But did Thomas know Christ? No – not until that moment of encounter. Go ahead, says Jesus, stick your hand in there, this is for real.

Here is something that I have no doubt of… If Jesus were standing before me, I might faint before I stuck my hand inside of his wound! And perhaps this is where this Gospel leads us to…

What are we so sure of? Do we really love Jesus as much as we say that we do? I mean really, think about it… are you ready to thrust your hand deep into the wound of anyone, even those you love most? Isn’t that what Jesus is asking us to do?

Loving Jesus with such hard-core certitude and thinking about how that smarty pants Thomas should have thought twice before questioning God is one thing. It would seem that another way of seeing this is that Thomas offers us a gift… Jesus asks us to enter into the wounds of all. I’m sorry, but that makes me queasy when I think of physical wounds, and overwhelmed when I think of all the other wounds, the ones we can’t see, but that are present in all of us. Thomas, seemingly undaunted, leads the way.

Suddenly certainty has dispersed like fog in the midday sun. We can be so “certain” of so many things, but can we place ourselves inside of the bloody wound? And how can we live Christian lives of sacrifice and service unless we do precisely that – literally and figuratively?

This is where Thomas leads me, and I am grateful to him, and to God, for bringing me to this place where I shrink back, recoiling perhaps in utter horror. Listen, I am VERY squeamish, the thought of such things sends me reeling. Now I can castigate myself for this, or I can see it as an invitation to change.

And is that not what our faith really is, our belief in the Risen Lord? This faith centers around a Triune God, always inviting us, always challenging us, but always welcoming us, to a kind of transformation. That transformation also means moving from doubt to faith, and the constant criss-cross of that territory, for the whole of our lives.

Doubt is nothing to be feared; I believe that doubt is to be befriended. In fact, maybe what we are called to are not only “leaps of faith,” but also of the aforementioned, “leaps of doubt.” Doubt can act as our greatest guide, the very force that leads us into the wounds of Christ and the on-going transformation that follows.  I never doubt that is the way of the Lord, and I never doubt how hard it is to follow and believe in God, living as a Christian. This is no one-time decision, made in certitude and lived in certitude; it is an invitation into the mystery of our faith, a life lived in Christ Jesus.  To do that we must follow and follow and follow…

Every day, in one fashion or another, propelled by my doubts, I seek to live more deeply in my faith.  Yes, a good leap of doubt, taken with a heart of faith, can bring us, like it brought Thomas, closer to the Lord, without a doubt.

In today’s Gospel, we hear the familiar story of the road to Emmaus. In this story, two disciples, leave Jerusalem full of disappointment over Jesus’ death. They encounter a stranger, who turns out to be… well either you know, or you don’t, and if you don’t this would be a spoiler. Go ahead, read the passage, it is right here.  This may be familiar, but let me tell you, every year I hear about the road to Emmaus, or read it, I feel such excitement. Sort of like my heart burning within me, but in a good way, not an antacid way!

This story always reminds me of the many ways and times that I have unexpectedly encountered Jesus. No, regrettably I do not always realize that it is Jesus I am speaking with, but somehow my heart starts to burn within. And this has happened with every sort of person, which gratefully, IMHO anyway, is a gift. Jesus has the potential to be in all of us, especially in the most unlikely places.

What are some of your “Emmaus” moments, when your heart was burning within you and then you realized that you had just spent time with Jesus? I hope that some of you will take the time to share your experiences in the comments.

One place where I have trod that road to Emmaus, has been graduate school. During the summer of 2008, I began a conversation with Katherine Hanley, CSJ, PhD, known to most of us as Sister Kitty, about studying at the Albany extension of St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry. A few short weeks later, I walked into my first class, and my heart has been burning within me ever since. Tonight I will walk into the final session of my last class, heart burning, of course!

Burning hearts aside, it should not be a surprise that I love this Gospel, especially if you read the last line.

Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

There will be bread, and in this way, we come to know Christ, always.

Please share your own Emmaus moments in the comments!

Rich, poor, black, white, Catholic, atheist, Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative. We all suffer, we all die. And most likely, we are all betrayed at some point in our lives; generally more than once, and in ways that shock and astound us.

What kind of God would want to come to be one of us and experience all of these things? I can’t imagine, but I am deeply grateful for a God who has done this for us. This is not about the hairshirt, making ourselves suffer, and other self-inflicted atonement related choices. I actually am not down with that, if you pardon my choice of phrase. Remember, we did discuss that at the beginning of Lent.

The two photos are from the blog, Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo, where Dina serves up photos, information, and wisdom. You can read more about what these photos are by going over there. Hint: only evidence of crucifixion. Not Jesus’ crucifixion though.)

Given that we are all faced with such things, I am grateful for a God that unites with us in suffering and death, and then offers the gift of eternal life. That all sounds nice, but the reality is that there is so much pain out there, I see it everywhere. And then I wonder , is there hope also? I can’t help but hold onto it, like a piece of styrofoam keeping me afloat on a tumultuous sea.

This day makes no sense in so many ways, no matter what I have just said. And yet, conversely, without this day, life as I understand it makes no sense at all either.