IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
John Muir once asked: “Why are Christians so reluctant to let animals into their stingy heaven?”
Indeed, why? Especially since St. Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans that all creation (mineral, plant, animal) is groaning to be set free from its bondage to decay to enter eternal life with us. How? How will minerals, plants and animals go to heaven? That’s beyond our present imagination, just as we cannot imagine how we will enter heaven: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard. Nor has it entered the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him.” Eternal life is beyond our present imagination.
What John Muir asks concerning animals might be asked in a wider sense: are we too stingy about who gets to go to heaven?

What I mean by “stingy” here is how we are so often obsessed with purity, boundaries, dogma and religious practice that we exclude millions from our church doors, our church programs, our sacramental programs, our Eucharistic tables, and from our notion of who will be going to heaven. This is true across denominational lines. As Christians, we all tend to create a stingy heaven.
However, I can appreciate the instinct behind this. Following Jesus must mean something concrete. Christian discipleship makes real demands and churches need to have real boundaries in terms of dogma, sacraments, membership and practice. There is a legitimacy in creating a dividing line between who is in and who is out. The instinct behind this is healthy.
But its practice is often not healthy. We often make heaven stingy. Metaphorically, we are too often like that group in the Gospel who is blocking the paralytic from coming to Jesus, so that he can only get to Jesus by entering through a hole in the roof.
Our instinct may be right, but our practice is often wrong. We, those of us who are invested deeply in our churches, need to be strong enough in our own faith and practice to be anchors of a spirituality and ethos that welcomes in and dines with those who are not invested. How so? Here’s an analogy.
Imagine a family of ten, now all adults. Five of the children are deeply invested in the family. They come home regularly for visits, have meals together every weekend, check in with each other regularly, have regular rituals and celebrations to ensure that they stay connected, and make it their family business to see that their parents are always okay. They might aptly be called “practicing” members of the family.
Now, imagine that five of the children have drifted from the family. They no longer cultivate any regular meaningful connection with the family, are dissociated from its everyday life and ethos, aren’t particularly concerned with how their parents are doing, but still want to have some connection to the family to occasionally share an occasion, a celebration, or meal with them. They might aptly be described as “non-practicing” members of the family.
This poses the question: Do the “practicing members” of the family refuse them entry into their gatherings, believing that allowing them to come jeopardizes the family’s beliefs, values and ethos? Or do they allow them to come, but only on condition that they first make a series of practical commitments to regularize contact with the family?
My guess is that in most healthy families the “practicing” members would happily welcome the “non-practicing” members to a family event, gathering or meal – grateful they are there, graciously accepting them without initially asking for any practical promises or commitments. Nor would they feel threatened by them joining the celebration and taking a seat at the table, fearful that the family’s ethos might somehow be compromised.
As “practicing” members of the family they would have a steady confidence that their own commitment sufficiently anchors the family’s ethos, standards and rituals so that those who are present and uncommitted aren’t threatening anything but are making the celebration richer and more inclusive. That confidence would be grounded on knowing (in terms of this particular family) that they are the adults in the room and can welcome others without compromising anything. They would not be stingy with the gift and grace of family.
There’s a lesson here, I submit: We who are “practicing” Christians, responsible for proper church practice, proper doctrine, proper morals and the authentic continuation of preaching and Eucharist, should not be stingy with the gift and grace of Christian family.
Like Jesus, who welcomed everyone without first demanding conversion and commitment, we must be open in our welcome and wide in our embrace. Inclusion, not exclusion, should always be our first approach. Like Jesus we should not be threatened by what seems impure, and we should be prepared to occasionally scandalize others by whom we are seen with at table.
Let’s not be stingy in sharing God’s family, especially since the God we serve is a prodigal God who isn’t threatened by anything!

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By sister alies therese
A driver appeared in court charged with parking his car in a restricted area.
“Defense?” asked the judge.
“Yes, there shouldn’t be such misleading signs around … the sign clearly said, Fine for Parking Here.”
Oops – how things can get easily misunderstood! Still, it is a bit funny, isn’t it? What makes you laugh? What makes you hee hee hee or haw haw haw until your sides wiggle?
You know what I mean. What do you consider hilarious? Michael Dorris, the Native American author of Guests, once wrote, “I got dizzy from laughing, lost my breath from laughing. My stomach hurt from laughing. Tears ran from my eyes, everything was funny.”

Quite possibly, on the other hand, you do not laugh but a little he he hey … almost like a tiny sneeze? Or are you a giggler, one who guffaws, or one who hides behind your hands and lets no one know you found something amusing? Maybe laughter is not your thing – or so you say – and yet you laugh and laugh when hidden in the bathroom or away from people.
Henry Ward Beecher once said, “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs – jolted by every pebble in the road.” I have to say, I think a sense of humor is critical to the spiritual life. Where do we begin?
A good laugh at ourselves usually works. Not taking myself too seriously helps me get things into perspective. As Proverbs 17:22 reminds us, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Yes, go to the Scriptures and discover laughter mentioned more than once: “He will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” (Job 8:21) Check out the Psalms: “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy” (Psalm 126:2), and “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy.” (Psalm 28:7)
As with our driver who got it wrong, we can as well – by laughing at others. Not recommended. Nothing is more painful than being laughed at. Yes, we are called to laugh, but how about laughing with?
I marvel at those who have been badly treated, who teach me so much about laughter. W.E.B. Du Bois, the African American educator, once wrote in “My Soul Looks Back, ’Less I Forget”: “I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter; it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.”
Can you laugh in November? That’s a good test! Death, purgatory, people dying around us, wars, abortions, hunger, governmental challenges, the death penalty – darkness falling all around us. So what’s so funny?
It is more difficult to laugh or make decisions when the days are rainy, cold and lonely. Yet Norton Juster reminds us in “The Phantom Tollbooth” – “Ordinance 175389: It shall be unlawful, illegal and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate or speculate while in the doldrums.”
What comes, however, into our orbit near the end of the month? Thanksgiving, of course – and if you don’t laugh at that dinner table, you will cry! Maybe it will be an old story Uncle George tells, a funny accident by a 3-year-old or even a teenager venturing out to tell a joke. Who knows? It might be the food. It might be just anything.
Go prepared – or you might get caught in a bit of misery. Arguments are ugly. I love this little prayer: “Give me eyes to see what I would miss without you!” (anonymous)
Go to that kitchen to help, that table to eat, and take that opportunity to clear up – having asked the Lord to show you! You just might be the one to prevent a Thanksgiving Day disaster.
T. Hulbert of Rockaway, Oregon, once shared this in Guideposts (1999): “My 1998 resolution: With the help of God, I resolve to be a good witness to those around me by what I say and through what I do.”
David Saltzman wrote in “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” – “Laughter’s like a seedling, waiting patiently to sprout. All it takes is just a push to make it pop right out.”
Be careful at that table, in that kitchen or dining room. Things often pop out that we had no intention of saying! There is much left to heal.
“Laughter is God’s medicine; the most beautiful therapy God ever gave humanity,” says an anonymous author. Why in the world would laughter be medicine? What needs healing? We often don’t find out until someone pushes that little button we thought we had hidden so artfully away.
There is hope for most of us if we have learned anything this past year. When we join others at the table, watch the person you trust the most before you speak. He or she will give you the go-ahead or hold up a hand – like any good base coach.
I have that super picture of Jesus laughing in my prayer corner. He had to laugh now and then – look who he surrounded himself with!
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
Your laughter does not need to be outrageous or loudly offensive – just a good deep chuckle will get those endorphins working. It might even be as simple as a sweet smile to dispel the gloom.
As Sister Monique of Owatonna once said, “May this Thanksgiving help you give thanks for all the turkeys in your life.”
Blessings.

(sister alies therese is a canonical hermit who prays and writes.)

By Effie Caldarola

A few years ago, Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant, established a career by encouraging people to declutter.

“What gives me joy?” she told us to ask ourselves. If it doesn’t give you joy, out it goes.

I’ve repeated that little mantra, often with a touch of sarcasm, as I prepare our old house for a major interior paint job. Everything comes off the walls and shelves, nothing remains on the counters.

We’re stripping rooms to only the furniture the painters can easily cover. Everything else migrates to the attic, where I ask the inevitable question, “Where does all this stuff come from?” Photos, clothes, knick-knacks, piles of books, souvenirs. Gifts, family memorabilia.

Moving everything around has propelled me to want to declutter. Organize. Get rid of “stuff.” And deciding — what’s treasure and what’s “stuff?”

During this season leading up to Thanksgiving and Advent, this project becomes spiritual as well as material.

I have a spot by the window where I pray in the morning, and the approach of autumn — and now winter — stirs something within me.

Maybe in part it’s the turmoil in our country and world right now. It’s a time of seeing things pass, of letting go, of feeling a sense of uncertainty. I watch the lush green foliage that climbs up my neighbor’s garage. It turned bright red, then its leaves wilted and fell. Now only the naked stems remain.

This is the cycle of life, I remind myself. Things pass away. I feel that cycle now more clearly as I get older. I don’t say that in a gloomy way; I see opportunity in the paring down, the digging through the junk to the essentials, whether in my overburdened attic or in my overburdened soul.

And my faith teaches me to remember that seeds are falling into the dormant soil, seeds of rebirth.
Lately, I have begun praying each morning with the day’s Scripture. I read slowly, and I stop when something touches me specifically. Some days, I find the readings less inspiring or more difficult than other days, but I dig for the nuggets, and I let the prayer follow.

St. Paul tells me, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

I sense that groaning as the darkness encroaches and the air grows colder. I sense it as I peruse my attic room. How can I connect my morning prayer to this room, this collection of my life? How can I know what to let go?

Just this morning, I gave a friend some old issues of a Catholic magazine. I still had them tucked away as I was going to “finish” them — someday. She was delighted. Move on, I remind myself. The next issue will be in the mailbox soon.

Simplify, my prayer tells me. As Christmas beckons, I face the inevitable shopping list, and I pray about how to pare down, to simplify, to make gifting more about experiences than about more plastic and more stuff. This is an environmental and moral issue.

Sort, throw, save, give away. Make room for those things valued most. As I write these words, I see how they pertain both to the clutter and detritus of my material goods, but also to the clutter of my interior life, my soul.

Buy less. Give more. Worry less. Pray more.

There’s peace in sitting in the morning silence, seeing the naked stems of a once flourishing plant and realizing this, too, brings me joy.

(Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral studies from Seattle University.)

By Marcellino D’Ambrosio

(OSV News) — For Americans, the term “Thanksgiving” conjures up images of turkey and cranberry sauce, parades and football games. These are “traditions” that have come to mark an event made a perpetual institution of American life by President Abraham Lincoln.

But why did Lincoln proclaim the last Thursday in November as a national holiday? Because it was clear to him that the blessings of food, land, family and freedom enjoyed by Americans are all gifts from the Creator. But Americans, he realized, had forgotten this. A special day was needed for us to forget our differences and remember our blessings. And from remembering naturally follows giving thanks to the source of those blessings.

The Israelites had an annual thanksgiving feast, as well. It was really a combination of two feasts, Passover and Unleavened Bread, and occurred in early spring. This is when the first crop, barley, began to be harvested and when the ewes gave birth to their lambs. The pagan Canaanites had already celebrated the feast of unleavened bread at this time to thank the gods for the harvest and offer them the first fruits as a sacrifice of gratitude. The pagan bedouins — wandering from place to place with their flocks — celebrated the spring gift of lambs by sacrificing some of them to the gods in gratitude for the gift of fertility.

The ancients did not need divine revelation to know that divine forces brought about the world and all its creatures. That’s just plain common sense. That we owe these divinities a debt of gratitude is justice, pure and simple.

But for the Jews, Passover was not just giving thanks for the blessings of creation. For them, God was not just the author of nature, with its seasons and life cycles. No, God was also the master of history. Among all ancient peoples, only the Jews believed that God entered into human history, manifested his love and power, and acted decisively to save his chosen people.

So while the pagans thanked their gods for the blessings each spring for food and fertility, the Israelites thanked the Lord for food, but even more, for freedom. They remembered not only that creation comes from him, but that salvation from slavery comes from him as well. This remembering happens each year in a solemn way at a special Passover meal that is the climax of the Jewish year.

On the night before he died, Jesus celebrated this solemn memorial by deepening its meaning yet further. Liberation from Pharaoh’s oppression was certainly something to celebrate. But there was a crueler slavery that a change of geography and regime could not alter. This slavery to Satan was kept in force through the shackles of sin. Just as he acted through Moses to free his people from Pharaoh, God was now about to act decisively to liberate his people from the ancient curse. He would act personally, not through proxies.

But this liberation would be costly. The only way that it could be won would be if God were to give not only his blessings, but his very self. To do this, God had become man, capable of offering the supreme sacrifice. And before he did it in actual fact, he did it in sacrament by offering himself under the unassuming forms of bread and wine. Before delivering himself into the hands of the Romans to be their victim, he delivered himself into our hands to be our nourishment.

For his aim was not just to open the way to future bliss in heaven. His aim was to pour into our wounds the balm of Gilead that would begin the healing process here and now. The bite of the serpent had injected venom. His body and blood would be the antidote, the “medicine of immortality,” in the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch.

Blood brings nourishment and life to every cell of our bodies. It also carries away impurities that poison our system. The Eucharist offers us a transfusion — we put aside our old life and receive his ever-new life, his divine vitality for our tired, toxic blood.

The life of a thing was in its blood. It was poured out at the foot of the altar and could never be consumed, for it belonged to God alone. But here God pours out his own blood at the altar of the cross and gives it to us as our drink, for the transformation of our lives.

“Do this in memory of me.” We are commanded to remember the supreme love of Christ for us that holds nothing back, that gives everything for our freedom. So naturally the sacrificial banquet of remembrance is called the Eucharist, or “thanksgiving.” The priest introduces the great central prayer of the celebration with these words: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” And we respond, “It is right and just.”

During the Eucharistic Prayer, I always silently add in thanks for my personal blessings. I think of the natural blessings of home and work, of food on the table and the health of my family. I also thank God for my own salvation history, especially for plucking me out of danger as a teenager, running with a wild crowd. I thank God for bringing me together with a woman who loves him and loves me, and for having kept us faithful to him and each other for many years. I thank him for our own family’s salvation history.

If you haven’t already established the habit of adding your personalized thank-yous to the priest’s Eucharistic Prayer, try it next time you’re at Mass. It’s a very appropriate mode of participating in that part of the Eucharist.

But true thanksgiving is not just a matter of words and warm sentiments. Gratitude for a gift means offering a gift in return. He gave his whole, entire self to us — his body, blood, soul and divinity. The only adequate response would be to offer ourselves.

Note what Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1).

So thanksgiving cannot be separated from sacrifice. The Mass is a celebration of his love and the freedom it won for us through his sacrifice. Through it, the love of God is poured into our hearts and enables us to love with his love. In the power of that love, we offer ourselves back to him and enter into that sacrifice which we celebrate. True thanksgiving means self-giving. This is the meaning of Eucharist.

(Marcellino D’Ambrosio is a speaker, author, pilgrimage director and theologian who directs the Crossroads Initiative.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
“God behaves in the psalms in ways he is not allowed to behave in systemic theology.”

That quip from Sebastian Moore might be highlighted at a time when fewer people want to use the psalms as a form of prayer because they feel offended that the psalms speak of murder, revenge, anger, violence, war-making and patriarchy.

Yet for centuries the psalms have been central to both Jewish and Christian prayer. They form the very heart of the Divine Office (the church’s prayer for the world), are sung in Vespers’ services, are prayed daily by millions of men and women, and have been chanted by monks for centuries as a central part of their prayer.

Why the objection to the psalms? Some ask: “How can I pray with words that are sometimes full of hatred, anger, violence, and speak of the glories of war and of crushing one’s enemies in the name of God?” For others, the objection is to the patriarchal nature of the psalms. For yet others, the offense is aesthetic: “They’re terrible poetry!” they say.

Perhaps the psalms aren’t great poetry and they do, undeniably, smack of violence, war, hatred of one’s enemies in the name of God, and the desire for vengeance. They’re also patriarchal in character. But does that make them poor language for prayer? No, to the contrary.

One of the classical definitions of prayer suggests that “prayer is lifting mind and heart to God.” Simple, clear, accurate. Our problem is that we too seldom actually do this when we pray. Rather than lifting to God what’s actually on our minds and in our hearts, we treat God as someone from whom we need to hide the real truth of our thoughts and feelings. Instead of pouring out mind and heart, we tell God what we think God wants to hear – not murderous thoughts, desire for vengeance, or our disappointment with him.

But expressing those feelings is the whole point. What makes the psalms so apt for prayer is that they do not hide the truth from God and they express the whole gamut of our actual feelings. They give honest voice to what’s actually going on in our minds and hearts.

Sometimes we feel good and our spontaneous impulse is to speak words of praise and gratitude. The psalms give us that voice. They speak of God’s goodness – love, friends, faith, health, food, wine, enjoyment. But we don’t always feel that way. Our lives also have their cold, lonely seasons when disappointment and bitterness smolder under the surface. The psalms then give us honest voice and we can open all those angry feelings to God.

At other times, we fill with the sense of our own inadequacy, with the fact that we cannot measure up to the trust and love that’s given us. The psalms give us voice for this, asking God to have mercy, to soften our hearts, to wash us clean, to give us a fresh start. And then still there are times when we feel disappointed with God himself and need in some way to express this. The psalms give us this voice (“Why are you so silent? Why are you so far from me?”) even as they make us aware that God is not afraid of our anger and bitterness but, like a loving parent, only wants us to come and talk about it.

The psalms are a privileged vehicle for prayer because they lift the full range of our thoughts and feelings to God.

But we tend to struggle with that. First, because our age often fails to grasp metaphor and taken literally, some of the images within the psalms are offensive. Second, we are often in denial about our true feelings. It’s hard to admit that we feel some of the things we sometimes feel: grandiosity, sexual obsessions, jealousies, desire for revenge, murderous thoughts. Too often our prayer belies our actual thoughts and feelings and tells God what we think God wants to hear. The psalms have more honesty.

As Kathleen Norris puts it: If you pray regularly “there is no way you can do it right. You are not always going to sit up straight, let alone think holy thoughts. You’re not going to wear your best clothes but whatever isn’t in the dirty clothes basket. You come to the Bible’s great book of praises through all the moods and conditions of life, and while you feel like hell, you sing anyway. To your surprise, you find that the psalms do not deny your true feelings but allow you to reflect them, right in front of God and everyone.”

Feel good aphorisms that express how we think we ought to feel are no substitute for the earthy realism of the psalms which express how we actually do feel at times. Anyone who would lift mind and heart to God without ever mentioning feelings of bitterness, jealousy, vengeance, hatred and war, is better suited to write greeting cards than to give out spiritual counsel.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a professor of spirituality at Oblate School of Theology and award-winning author.)

FAITH ALIVE
By Cecilia A. Moore
From the 1920s through the 1960s more than 300,000 African-Americans across the country chose to enter into communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Their choices to become Catholic set them apart from most African-American Christians who were members of Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal and Holiness traditions.

However, in choosing Catholicism, African-Americans were returning to the earliest Christian traditions of their ancestors. African Christians figured prominently in shaping the Catholic tradition, making their imprint on Catholic theology, doctrine and religious practices.

St. Augustine’s teachings on grace and sin, monasticism and traditions related to intercessory prayer are just three examples of African influence on Catholicism. Christian kingdoms flourished for more than four centuries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan before Christianity had durable roots in Western Europe.

And, although Muslims were successful in establishing their faith throughout North Africa and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa by the ninth century, Christianity did preserve in parts of Africa and by the beginning of the 16th century, Catholicism was reintroduced to Africa by way of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Twentieth-century African-Americans who chose to become Catholic were rich, poor, middle-class, famous, infamous, ordinary, eccentric, well-educated, poorly educated, Southern, Northern, Midwestern, Western, raised as Christian, religiously unaffiliated, politically engaged, apolitical and so much more.

No matter their individual characteristics, they had their own reasons for choosing Catholicism. Some did so to answer a call to religious life. Some felt an internal spiritual call to Catholicism. Some joined the Catholic Church because they were married to Catholics, and others were attracted to the faith because they had Catholic friends.

There were women and men who found Catholicism to be the truest expression of Christian faith, finding themselves deeply attracted to the rituals and theology of Catholicism. Many were children who learned about Catholicism while attending Catholic schools. It was not uncommon for these children to bring their entire families into the church with them.

Some became Catholic because the church reached out to them when they were in need. The Catholic stance on political and social issues drew others in. There were also 20th-century African-Americans who converted who said they experienced a sense of equality in the church that they didn’t experience in other aspects of their lives.

Whatever their reasons for were for choosing Catholicism, African-Americans changed the look and the experience of American Catholicism in the 20th century.

November is Black Catholic History Month. Use this month to learn about some of these 20th-century African-Americans who chose Catholicism and made great contributions to the American Catholic experience. Here are three that you might consider.

African-American children’s book author, Ellen Tarry, became a Catholic when she attended St. Francis de Sales, a Catholic boarding school for African-American girls run by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in the early 20th century. As a young woman she got involved in the Harlem Renaissance and in Catholic interracial justice work.

Tarry’s books for children featured aspects of Catholicism and African-American life. She also published frequently in Catholic publications on issues that pertained to African-Americans. Her autobiography “The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman” is a fine way to begin learning about her and her contributions to American Catholicism.

Several of the more famous African-Americans who joined the Catholic Church in the 20th century were in the performing arts. Mary Lou Williams is one of the most famous and interesting. Williams was a renowned jazz pianist and composer. Becoming a Catholic in 1957, Williams came to regard jazz as a gift that God gave her to give the church. Jazz inspired her composition of dozens of hymns.

Finally, an especially fitting way to celebrate Black Catholic History Month would be to read “The History of Black Catholics in the United States” by the late Benedictine Father Cyprian Davis. Father Davis’ work was integral to bringing attention nationally and internationally to the ways that people of African descent helped to develop Catholicism from the earliest days up through the middle of the 20th century.

Though trained in monastic history, Father Davis is most well-known for developing black Catholic history as a distinctive field study and scholarship around the country, but especially at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana.

(Cecilia A. Moore is associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton.)