IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

As a Lutheran priest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would frequently offer this advice to a couple when he presided at their wedding: Today you are in love and believe your love will sustain your marriage, but it can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.

Wise words, but what exactly do they mean? Why can’t love sustain a marriage?

What Bonhoeffer is highlighting is that it is naïve to think that feelings will sustain us in love and commitment over the long haul. They can’t, and they wouldn’t. But ritual can. How? By creating a ritual container that can keep us steady inside the roller coaster of emotions and feelings that will beset us in any long-term relationship.

Simply put, we will never sustain a long-term relationship with another person, with God, with prayer, or in selfless service on the basis of good feelings and positive emotions. This side of eternity, our feelings and emotions mostly come and go according to their own dictates and are not given to consistency.

We know the inconsistency of our emotions. One day we feel affectionate toward someone and the next day we feel irritated. The same is true for prayer. One day we feel warm and focused and the next day we feel bored and distracted.

And so, Bonhoeffer suggests we need to sustain ourselves in love and prayer by ritual, that is, by habitual practices that keep us steady and committed within the flux of feelings and emotions.

For example, take a couple in a marriage. They fall in love and commit themselves to love each other and stay with each other for the rest of their lives, and at root they fully intend that. They respect each other, are good to each other, and would die for each other. However, that’s not always true of their emotions. Some days their emotions seemingly belie their love. They are irritated and angry with each other. Yet, their actions toward each other continue to express love and commitment and not their negative feelings. They ritually kiss each other as they leave the house in the morning with the words, “I love you!” Are those words a lie? Are they simply going through the motions? Or is this real love?

The same holds true for love and commitment inside a family. Imagine a mother and a father with two teenage children, a boy of sixteen and a girl of fourteen. As a family they have a rule that they will sit together at dinner for forty minutes every evening, without their cellphones or other such devices. Many evenings when the son or daughter or one of the parents comes to the table (without their cellphone) out of dram duty, bored, dreading the time together, wanting to be somewhere else. But they come because they have made that commitment. Are they simply going through the motions or showing real love?

If Bonhoeffer is right, and I submit he is, they are not just going through the motions, they are expressing mature love. It’s easy to express love and be committed when our feelings are taking us there and holding us there. But those good feelings will not sustain our love and commitment in the long-term. Only fidelity to a commitment and ritual actions that undergird that commitment will keep us from walking away when the good feelings go away.

In our culture today, at most every level, this is not understood. From the person caught up in a culture addicted to feelings, to a good number of therapists, ministers of religion, prayer leaders, spiritual directors, and friends of Job, we hear the line: If you aren’t feeling it, it’s not real; you’re just going through the motions! That’s empty ritual!

Indeed, it can be an empty ritual. As scripture says, we can honor with our lips even as our hearts are far away. However, more often than not it is a mature expression of love because it is now a love that is no longer fueled by self-interest and good feelings. It’s now a love that’s wise and mature enough to account for the human condition in all its inadequacy and complexity and how these color and complicate everything – including the one we love, our own selves, and the reality of human love itself.

The book we need on love will not be written by passionate lovers on their honeymoon, just as the book we need on prayer will not be written by a religious neophyte caught up in the first fervor of prayer (nor by most enthusiastic leaders of prayer). The book we need on love will be written by a married couple who, through ritual, have sustained a commitment through the ups and downs of many years. Just as the book we need on prayer will be written by someone who has sustained a life of prayer and church going through seasons and Sundays when sometimes the last thing he or she wanted to do was to pray or go to church.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese
I read this somewhere … truth without grace is mean, grace without truth is meaningless. Very similar to how Buddhist writer Pema Chodron cites it this way, “Without clarity and honesty, we don’t progress. We just stay stuck in the same vicious cycle. But honesty without kindness makes us feel grim and mean, and pretty soon we start looking like we’ve been sucking on lemons.” (When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Shambhala Classics, Boston, 2000).

The 8th commandment: you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Our CCC 2464 (pages 591-600) reminds us, “The 8th commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relation with others … offenses against the truth expressed by word or deed are a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and undermine the foundations of the covenant.”

Compendium to CCC:

521. every person is called to sincerity and truthfulness in acting and speaking
522. the 8th forbids false witness, perjury, and lying … the gravity of which is measured by the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims.
523. The 8th requires respect for the truth accompanied by the discretion of charity in the field of communication and the imparting of information…

We have it clearly … in these two sources, indeed in the Scriptures where we are challenged to believe that Jesus is the ‘way, truth, and life’. Yes, you say, but in political campaigns everybody lies in order to get voted in. No one is going to do what they say once they are in office. Really? One way to check that is to listen carefully not only to what they say … but how they say it. CCC 2505 reminds us, “…show oneself true in deeds and words guarding against duplicity, dissimulation and hypocrisy.”

“Liars are not believed even when they tell the truth.” So says Aesop.

In an African proverb we hear, “A lie comes back sooner or later.”

How are you going to decide who has lied? Or maybe just expanded the truth? CCC 2489: “Charity and respect for the truth should dictate the response to every request for information or communication. The good and safety of others, respect for privacy, and the common good are sufficient reasons …” What are the offenses against truth? Well, begin with false witness and perjury. Move on to respect for the reputation of another, rash judgment, detraction (tells another’s faults), and calumny. CCC 2480 goes on to say, “Every word or attitude which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance, encourages and confirms another in malicious and perverse conduct.” What about those lies?

US author Bertrand Brinley says, “That’s one of the troubles with a lie. You’ve got to keep adding to it to make it believable.”

“A good many lies, there are at least two sides to them and you can take a point of view. But this was a flat lie. You couldn’t get around it”. Joseph Krumgold, US author, in Onion John.

St. Augustine, “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.” Is that the game of politics…deception? Or is there some responsibility for candidates to tell the truth and leave it up to the voter to select? Who will serve the people? Who will govern? To lie is to purposefully lead a neighbor into error … failures of justice and charity, to allow others to become unsafe. In Elfsong by Ann Turner, a US author, “Elves cannot lie. A lie stinks on our skin, like rotten meat. Anyone can smell it.

”What is stinky around this election? As citizens, we have to find it and then decide. I appreciate FDR, past President, who remarked on a radio show in 1939, “repetition does not transform a lie into truth.” It’s that old story … even if you sit in your garage by the hour … it does not make you a car!

Finally, Peterson (The Message, 2003), “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse, … God who makes everything work together, will work you into His most excellent harmonies.” (Phil 2:8-9)

DO VOTE.

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)

LIGHT ONE CANDLE
By Father Ed Dougherty, M.M

October 28 marks the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles. Tradition holds they were martyred together in the first century while preaching the Gospel in Persia and that their remains were later moved to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where a single tomb commemorates them to this day.

St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Bernard of Clairvaux both had visions where God identified St. Jude as the Patron St. of the Impossible, and for centuries, pilgrims to his grave have reported powerful intercessions. Today, Catholics throughout the world invoke the intercession of St. Jude in the most desperate circumstances, and the Prayer to St. Jude is credited with bringing much relief in times of trial.

As for St. Simon, history tells us little about him other than the story of his mission of evangelization with St. Jude that led to martyrdom for them both. But he is named as one of the twelve Apostles in all three Synoptic Gospels and in the Book of Acts.

St. Simon is referred to as “Simon called Zelotes” in the Synoptic Gospels to distinguish him from Simon Peter, which led to his being called “Simon the Zealot” as it is believed he was a former member of the Zealots, a revolutionary political party of the time. However, these fragments of information bring into focus the life of a man who underwent a profound conversion. The Zealots were committed to overthrowing the Roman occupation through violent revolution. So, if Simon was a member of the Zealots, then following Christ would have affected within him a radical change of heart.

The very fact of being one of the twelve, and then later an evangelist, traveling from town to town and through the nations of the region speaks to this conversion. And his path in many ways represents the universal Christian conversion to turn from worldly power to the power found only in the love of Christ.
As for the life of St. Jude, we hear only a bit more about him in the New Testament than we hear about St. Simon. He was the disciple who asked Christ at the Last Supper, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Christ’s answer to this question was, “If a man loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.”

It’s an interesting exchange considering St. Jude’s role as patron of the impossible because our prayers for help must contain the same kind of faith Christ speaks of here. We must have faith even when we don’t see Him, and even when the things we ask for aren’t answered in exactly the way we expect.

St. Jude also wrote an epistle, which is the second to last book of the New Testament, where he encourages the faithful to persevere through trying circumstances. This is yet another interesting consideration in light of Jude’s role as intercessor for the impossible because sometimes the first help God gives us is strength to persevere through that which seems impossible to face. So, we might see in these two key parts of the bible why St. Jude is such a powerful intercessor, and also why it is so fitting that he is paired with St. Simon for a single feast day, because they both point us towards renunciation as the ultimate way to follow Christ.

(For a free copy of The Christophers’ Lift Up Your Hearts, e-mail: mail@christophers.org)

FAITH IN EDUCATION
By Karla Luke

On Sept. 3, the Diocese gathered for the annual day of worship and professional development hosted by the Office of Catholic Education. This much-anticipated event brought together over 400 faculty, staff and administrators from across the diocese to celebrate Catholic education and renew their mission in

nurturing faith and academic success among students. Held on the Tuesday after Labor Day, the day began with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Joseph Kopacz in the Fine Arts Building at St. Joseph School in Madison, coinciding with the Memorial of St. Gregory the Great – one of the patron saints of educators.

Dr. Timothy Hogan, a licensed clinical psychologist, speaker and author, was the keynote speaker for the day. Known for his expertise in the impact of technology and culture on spirituality, Dr. Hogan delivered a powerful and engaging presentation based on the diocesan theme of “Faith, Hope and Love.” His talk, “Faith, Hope and Love: Proven, Practical Ways to Cultivate Love,” inspired educators to deepen their own spiritual lives while guiding students to do the same. Drawing from his latest book, The Gift of Cultural Hurricanes: Tools to Rebuild Authentic Spirituality, Dr. Hogan shared insights on how educators can positively influence the faith of their students through their own authentic example.

Dr. Hogan emphasized the importance of strong attachment and connection between teachers, caregivers, and students, highlighting the role of educators in modeling faith and empathy. He discussed the challenges faced by young people today, particularly the pervasive impact of technology on their ability to process emotions and develop spiritually. Referencing data from 2013, when average smartphone usage was 18 minutes per day, compared to today’s staggering 6.5–8.5 hours per day, Dr. Hogan made clear the need for educators to be present, empathetic, and engaged in helping students navigate these challenges.

His message also spoke to the well-being of educators, encouraging them to slow down and be present in the moment, quoting St. Teresa of Avila: “Whoever possesses the present moment possesses God.” Dr. Hogan offered practical advice for fostering mindfulness in the classroom, such as beginning with a check-in to help students connect with their feelings and modeling emotional awareness in an age-appropriate manner. He urged educators to maintain a positive mindset, treat themselves with grace, and find solace in prayerful, rhythmic breathing.

After a shared meal, attendees broke into groups based on their roles in their schools to discuss how they could implement these ideas in their work. The day concluded with group sharing, where educators reflected on the insights gained and ways to support each other.

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. Many appreciated Dr. Hogan’s engaging style and the practical tools he offered for the classroom and beyond. Comments included: “My favorite thing about today was the speaker. He was amazing. He really engaged everyone in his presentation,” and “Not only telling us the issues we are seeing but helping us find ways to do something about it!” Educators also valued the opportunity to collaborate with their counterparts from other schools across the diocese.

The Office of Catholic Education extends its gratitude to Dr. Dena Kinsey and the staff of St. Joseph School for hosting, and to the Chancery staff for their ongoing support. A special appreciation goes to Rachel Patterson and Virginia Hollingsworth, for their dedication in organizing the event.

Finally, we honor all our teachers who, day in and day out, dedicate themselves to ensuring that our children are not only prepared for academic success but also develop a deep and lasting relationship with Christ. Their commitment to our mission is extraordinary, and they are truly our heroes.

(Karla Luke is the executive director of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Jackson)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Several years ago, at a time when the national news was much fixated on a high-profile case of sexual harassment, I asked three women colleagues: “what constitutes sexual harassment? What’s the line here that may not be crossed? What’s innocent behavior and what’s harassment?” They answered to this effect. It’s not so much a question of a clear line, a certain remark or behavior that goes too far. Rather, we know what is innocent and what is not. We can read the energy beneath the behavior. We know when it’s harassment and when it’s not.

I have no doubt that in most instances this is true. All of us have very perceptive inner radar screens. We naturally feel and read the energy in a room – tension, ease, jealousy, affirmation, innocence, aggression. You see this already in very young children, even babies, who can sense ease or tension in a room.

It is interesting that the great Carmelite mystic John of the Cross, draws on this notion when he writes on discernment in spiritual direction. How, he asks, do you discern if a person is in a genuine dark night of the soul (a healthy thing) or whether he is sad and down because of an emotional depression or because of bad moral behavior? John elaborates a number of criteria for discerning this, but ultimately they all come down to reading the energy that the person is radiating. Are they bringing oxygen into the room or are they sucking the oxygen out of the room? Are they depressing you as you listen to them? If yes, then their issue is not spiritual nor healthy. People who are in an authentic dark night of the soul, irrespective of their personal interior struggle, bring positive energy into a room and leave you inspired rather than depressed.

My purpose in sharing is not for us to become more critical and start judging others by trying to consciously read the energy they are radiating. (We are already unconsciously doing that.) What I want to highlight rather, as a challenge, is for each of us to more consciously examine ourselves vis-à-vis what energy we are bringing into a room and leaving behind.

Each of us needs to courageously ask: what energy do I bring into a room? What energy do I bring to the family table? To a community gathering? To those with whom I discuss politics and religion? To my colleagues and fellow workers? To the social circles within which I move? And more deeply, as a parent or as an elder, what energy am I habitually bringing to my children and to the young? As someone teaching or doing ministry, what energy am I radiating as I try to lead others?

That’s a critical question. What energy am I habitually bringing into a room and leaving behind? Frustration? Anger? Chaos? Jealousy? Paranoia? Bitterness? Depression? Instability? Or am I bringing and leaving behind some stability, some sanity, some joy of heart, some energy that blesses rather than curses others? Ultimately, what am I leaving behind?

When Jesus is giving his farewell speech in John’s Gospel, he tells us that it is better for us that he is going away because otherwise we will not be able to receive his spirit; and that his spirit, his final gift to us, is the gift of peace. Two things should be noted here: first, that the disciples couldn’t fully receive what Jesus was giving them until he had gone away; and second, that ultimately his real gift to them, his real legacy, was the peace he left behind with them.

What may seem strange at first glance is that his followers could only fully inhale his energy after he had gone away and left them his spirit. That is also true for each of us. It is only after we leave a room that the energy we left behind is most clear. Thus, it is after we die that the energy we have left behind will constitute our real legacy. If we live in anger and bitterness, in jealousy and unwillingness to affirm others, and if our lives sow chaos and instability, that will be what we ultimately leave behind and will always be part of our legacy. Conversely, if we are trustworthy and live unselfishly, morally, at peace with others, bringing sanity and affirmation into a room, then, like Jesus, we will leave behind a gift of peace. That will be our legacy, the oxygen we leave on the planet after we are gone.

And this is not a question of who can best light up a room with humor and banter, good as these can be. It is rather a question of who has enough personal integrity so as to bring trust and stability into a room?
Given all this, it’s good to ask oneself: when I enter a room am I bringing some oxygen into that room or am I sucking some oxygen out of that room?

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese

Take a peek at Psalm 77 where the psalmist spends the first half lamenting his (and the community’s) miserable situation (1-10). A translation I like in The Message (Peterson, 2003) says, “I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal … Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again…? ‘Just my luck,’ I said, ‘The High God goes out of business just the moment I need Him.’” What could bring something good out of this? “You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have,” Corrie ten Boom reminds us.

Later the psalmist brings another point of view … something beautiful happens beginning at 11 to the end, when he changes his focus, ceases the lamentation and focus on himself, and turns to God. In Exodus language, he prays, “Once again I’ll go over what God has done, I’ll ponder all the things You’ve accomplished and give a long, loving look at Your acts … You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble…” I think this is something about salvation … and the saving job is God’s. That’s right where God wants you.

How does that salvation look? What is one practical aspect? Well, Pope Francis on Holy Thursday in 2014 said, “Am I really willing to serve and help others? This sign is a caress of Jesus.” This psalmist and his community in turning to God not only to themselves, discovered what Paul was trying to get over to the Ephesians. While pondering the darkness and the sinfulness of humanity, Paul also wants them to learn that God has us right where we belong … because that is where He wants to ‘shower us with grace and kindness’ and to teach us that this saving business is His gift. The fact that it is God’s gift is traced back to the covenants of the past and the promises to Israel … God created ‘a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.’ And that’s how we are to act toward one another. We are to be that caress of Jesus in the lives of friends and foes.

Catherine of Siena adds, “To the servant of God every place is the right place, and every time is the right time.” Every opportunity that comes our way ‘works out’ this salvation we’ve been given. Our learning to share allows us challenges and opportunities to gift others with those precious gifts of God. They often look like fruits of the spirit … patience, kindness, joy, gentleness, etc.

My experience of these fruits is usually where I am the weakest, or when we are most challenged, where we fear. In the April 4, 2014, Collect, we hear: “O God, who has prepared fitting helps for us in our weakness, grant we pray that we may receive their healing effects with joy and reflect them in a holy way of life.” This holy way of life is mirrored in the blessed life of Jesus, where we use the gift of salvation He has given, for others. Psalm 77 also reminds us, “O God, your way is holy, no god is great like God.”

God has us right where He wants us and comments further in Ephesians: “You are no longer wandering exiles … the kingdom of faith is your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here.” (Peterson, 2003) “For it is the will of our courteous Lord that we should be as much at home with Jesus as heart may think or soul desire. Julian of Norwich writes in Revelations. Our salvation, our saving, is about the grace that changes us into what God has in mind. We say to become the best version of ourselves … well, yes but what we want is to be the version God has in mind right where we are! Look at some of our October saints … Therese, Francis and Teresa.

“Christ wills that where He is we should be also, not only for eternity but already in time, which is eternity begun and still in progress,” so says Elizabeth of the Trinity. There is only one place to be … right where we belong in God. This means we belong in love and are motivated from that core to act as such.

Pope St. John Paul II clarifies, “Love is the constructive force for humanity’s every positive road … the future does not gather hope from violence, hatred or selfishness.” Our world and our country are full of the latter and it is our job to change things right where we are.
Blessings.

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)