FROM THE HERMITAGE
By Sister alies therese

Maybe he’d never heard this Psalm? “I love You, O Lord, my strength … and I am safe… The breakers of death surged around about me, the destroying floods overwhelmed me … in my distress I called upon the Lord … from God’s temple I was heard, my cry reached God’s ears…and set me free in the open and rescued me, because God loves me.” (Psalm 18:5-7, 20)

I also love the Peterson translation of 18:20, “God stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved – surprised to be loved.” This is the reality of the Job story – a love story – a story that challenges us to come to a deeper understanding of the awesomeness of God’s love for us, the heart of the truth, the place of union. “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him…” (Job 1:8) Yet God later questions Job: “Why do you confuse the issue? Why do you talk without knowing what you are talking about? Where were you when I created the universe? Tell me since you know so much.” (Peterson, Job 38:1ff)

This has been a weird year for me. From January when I ended up in hospital for many weeks with broken bones and infections, to July when our apartments, filled with swift moving rain, flooded, midst extreme heat. When was the last time you read Job? If not recently, I suggest it as part of your study, not because bad things happen but because Job discovers many things he’d never even considered.

The Job story is full of sadness and as C.S. Lewis points out in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, “If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.”

Some of our readers are suffering right now in the quiet … perhaps the loss of a child, a fire, in jail, abuse, or hunger, including darkness in prayer or even unbelief. Joan W. Blos, an American author wrote this: “This morning’s sermon reminded us that great though our grief and suffering be, others have suffered more.” Anguish may fill the pages of Job and yet if we stop there, we shall never heal, have hope or happiness and we shall never learn compassion.

Because of the surprise of love, Job moved from being an advice-giving, important, very rich fellow and helping the poor … to becoming poor himself. Job recognized a whole new life when he talked with God (screamed, complained and confessed). How shall I say, he got ‘real,’ unlike his previous life or that of his ‘friends.’

In his poverty Job learned something else surprising, only God unties knots of trauma, pain, disappointment or distress. “You told me, ‘Listen and let Me do the talking. Let Me ask the questions. You give the answers. Job said, I admit I once lived by rumors of You, now I have it all firsthand – from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry – forgive me. I’ll never do that again. I promise! I’ll never again live on the crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumors!” (Peterson, Job 42:6)

So, the surprise included this personal relationship with God as reality, not just an idea or a possibility. Job discovered he was known, not through an intellectual exercise, nor a simple acceptance of other people’s stories and experiences, no, his own experience welded him in joy to a God who loves beyond all telling.

Our lives contain many fears, and when they are the focus, obscure divine plans. Over the centuries our various cultures and peoples have enslaved, murdered and warred against one another, executed one another, nuked, gossiped, bad-mouthed and turned our backs on one another. We have done horrible things even in the church by ignoring one another. Why are there no Black US saints? For centuries we have lived through greed, stealth and power, and the funny thing is, we continue today. Slavery, where human beings are ‘owned,’ cannot be explained away with ‘slaves learning really helpful things.’ Job learned only in love can we thrive and obtain forgiveness by experiencing the humility of God, moving us beyond these things.

If you are obscuring the divine plan in your life because you are afraid, stuck in some sin or addiction needing release, do read Job and see how much you are loved. Find a way to pray that causes you to rejoice, to see beyond rumor or other people’s experiences, that you might be surprised by this love so extreme, expressed in Jesus’ love-giving sacrifice for you!

Chester Cricket, in George Selden’s The Cricket in Times Square, “began to chirp to ease his feelings. He found that it helped somehow if you sang your sadness.” Do chirp and sing so that others might be lifted from their anguish. Do learn to listen, as Job did, to the voice of God who desires us more than we can imagine. Do get out of the way, so God’s divine plan for your life might flourish, living anew as Job who disowned what he said and repented in dust and ashes. (Job 42:6)

BLESSINGS.

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

GUEST COLUMN
By Debbie Tubertini

I recently went to the movie theater to see “Sound of Freedom” which is based on a true story. It tells of an anti-child sex trafficking organization centered on Operation Underground Railroad by a former federal agent, Tim Ballard. Ballard is portrayed in the film by Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in “Passion of the Christ.”

I was hesitant at first about going to see this movie because I knew it was going to be heart breaking and make me angry. Yes, it was heart breaking and, yes it did make me angry; however, it provided information that made me feel more aware and informed about how this happens all over the world, even in Mississippi. It also made me appreciate how one person can make a difference if they know what to look for and what to do in the event you suspect someone is in this situation.

What is sex trafficking? Sex trafficking involves a wide range of activities where a trafficker uses force, fraud or coercion to compel another person to engage in a commercial sex act. Trafficked victims can be of any age, race, sex, culture, religion, economic class and any level of education.

The traffickers’ aim is to profit from the exploitation of their victims using a multitude of coercive and deceptive practices. Traffickers can be strangers, acquaintances, or even family members who prey on the most vulnerable in our society. They frequently target victims who are looking for a brighter future, those hesitant to call the police, or those who feel excluded or ostracized from family or their community.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing international crime network the world has experienced. It is a $150 billion-dollar annual industry. The United States is considered one of the top destinations for victims of child trafficking and exploitation. The top recruitment location is the internet. Traffickers also use online dating platforms to identify victims. Traffickers will present themselves as recruiters or modeling agents on these dating platforms luring victims with attractive career opportunities. According to UNODC (United Nations Office on Drug and Crime) female victims continue to be primary targets, however there is a huge increase in male targets.

The following statistics are from Angel Studios Fight Against Child Trafficking website.

• The United States is #1 in the world for sex trafficking.
• Over 500,000 children go missing each year in the United States.
• Greater than 50% of victims are between the ages of 12-15.
• 25% of child pornography is created by a neighbor or family member.
• Over 500,000 online sexual predators are active each day.
• Over 80% of child sex crimes begin on social media.
• As of 2021, there were 250,000 websites containing images or videos of children sexually abused and that number continues to rise.
• Globally, 27% of human trafficking victims are children.
  Items to note:
• “Sound of Freedom” was filmed in 2018 and has just now been made available in the theatres in 2023. According to Jim Caveziel they ran into one roadblock after another with this movie. The movie was first bought by 21st Century Fox but shelved when Disney purchased the studio. The movie was finally acquired by Angel Studios.
• A common misconception is that human trafficking requires crossing state lines or national borders. The correct term for this is human smuggling. Human trafficking requires no movement. Victims are trafficked in their own states, towns and even in their own homes. In many cases these children are “groomed” by adults they know.

So, what can we do?

• Pray for the victims who are in this horrible situation.
• Educate ourselves and our children on the specifics of child trafficking.
• If you are a parent, educate your children on ways to stay safe on the internet. They need to know how to protect themselves from online exploitation. Also, monitor their social media activity.
• Make sure your state legislators are putting laws in place to increase accountability for human traffickers in our state.
• Make sure this topic is kept in the forefront of our national security.
• For those who feel called to do even more, investigate ways you can educate and help in your own community. A step further, reach out to organizations within your community that are working to rescue and restore trafficked children.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888. Anti–Trafficking Hotline Advocates are available 24/7 to take reports of potential human trafficking situations.

(Debbie Tubertini is the Office of Family Life coordinator for the Diocese of Jackson.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

A number of years ago, I attended the funeral of a man who died at the age of ninety. From every indication, he had been a good man, solidly religious, the father of a large family, a man respected in the community, and a man with a generous heart. However, he had also been a strong man, a gifted man, a natural leader, someone to whom a group would naturally look to take the reins and lead. Hence, he held a number of prominent positions in the community. He was a man very much in charge.

One of his sons, a Catholic priest, gave the homily at his funeral. He began with these words: Scripture tells us that the sum of a man’s life is seventy years, eighty for those who are strong. Now our dad lived for ninety years. Why the extra twenty years? Well, it’s no mystery. He was too strong and too much in charge of things to die at seventy or eighty. It took God an extra twenty years to mellow him out. And it worked. The last ten years his life were years of massive diminishment. His wife died, and he never got over that. He had a stroke which put him into assisted living and that was a massive blow to him. Then he spent the last years of his life with others having to help him take care of his basic bodily needs. For a man like him, that was humbling.

But this was the effect of all that. It mellowed him. In those last years, whenever you visited him, he would take your hand and say, “help me.” He hadn’t been able to say those words since he was five years old and able to tie his own shoelaces. By the time he died, he was ready. When he met Jesus and St. Peter on the other side, I’m sure he simply reached for a hand and said, “help me.” Ten and twenty years ago, he would, I’m sure, have given Jesus and Peter some advice as to how they might run the pearly gates more efficiently.

That’s a parable that speaks deeply and directly about a place we must all eventually come to, either through proactive choice or by submission to circumstance; we all must eventually come to a place where we accept that we are not self-sufficient, that we need help, that we need others, that we need community, that we need grace, that we need God.

Why is that so important? Because we are not God and we become wise and more loving when we realize and accept that. Classical Christian theologians defined God as self-sufficient being, and highlight that only God is self-sufficient. God alone has no need of anything beyond Himself. Everything else, everything that is not God, is defined as contingent, as not self-sufficient, as needing something beyond itself to bring it into existence and to keep it in existence every second of its being.

That can sound like abstract theology, but ironically it’s little children who get it, who have an awareness of this. They know that they cannot provide for themselves and that all comes to us as gifts. They know they need help. However, not long after they learn to tie their own shoelaces this awareness begins to fade and as they grow into adolescence and then adulthood, particularly if they are healthy, strong and successful, they begin to live with the illusion of self-sufficiency. I provide for myself!

And, that in fact serves them well in terms of making their way in this world. But it doesn’t serve truth, community, love or the soul. It’s an illusion, the greatest of all illusions. None of us will enter deeply into community as long as we nurse the illusion of self-sufficiency, when we are still saying, I don’t need others! I choose who and what I let into my life!

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that familiarity is the greatest of all illusions. He’s right, and what we are most familiar with is taking care of ourselves and believing that we are sufficient onto ourselves. As we know, this serves us well in terms of getting ahead in this life. However, fortunate for us, though painful, God and nature are always conspiring together to teach us that we are not self-sufficient. The process of maturing, aging and eventually dying is calibrated to teach us, whether we welcome the lesson or not; that we are not in charge, that self-sufficiency is an illusion. Eventually for all of us there will come a day when, as it was with us before we could tie our own shoelaces, we will have to reach out for a hand and say, “help me.”

The philosopher Eric Mascall has an axiom that says we are neither wise nor mature as long as we take life for granted. We become wise and mature precisely when we take it as granted – by God, by others, by love.

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

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Scripture tells us that in this life we have no lasting city. True enough. But, it seems, we also don’t have a lasting house, school, neighborhood, town, zip code address, or most anything else. Eventually nothing lasts.

Perhaps my case isn’t typical, but a lot of things in my life haven’t lasted. My grandparents were immigrants, Russian-Germans, moving to the Canadian prairies and being among the first farmers to break the soil there at the beginning of the 1900s. They were young, so too was life then on the prairies, and their generation planted new farms, schools, towns and cities across the great plains of Canada and the USA. I was born into the second generation of all that – but just as urbanization and other changes were already beginning to cause the disappearance of a lot of what they had built.

So, here’s my story of having no lasting city. The elementary school I went to closed after I’d finished the sixth grade. We were bused to a bigger centralized school and our old school building was carted away. Nothing remains today to indicate there once was a school there. The new school I attended closed several years after I’d graduated. The building itself was razed and today the entire former campus is part of a farmer’s field with only a small plaque to indicate there once was vibrant life there, with hundreds of young voices filling the air with energy. That school was a couple of miles out of a small town and that town itself has now completely disappeared, without a single building left.

I went from high school to an Oblate novitiate house situated in the heart of the Qu’Appelle valley, a beautiful stately building on a lake. Several years after I’d graduated from there, the building was sold and soon afterwards was destroyed in a fire. Only an empty stretch of prairie sits there now. From there, I moved to another seminary, a magnificent old building (formerly the Government House for the Northwest Territories) and spent six wonderful years there. Again, several years after I’d graduated, the building was abandoned, and it too was eventually destroyed by a fire.

From there I moved to Newman Theological College in Edmonton where I spent the next fifteen years. Newman College had a beautiful campus on the outskirts of the city, but several years after I’d left, the campus was expropriated by the city to build a ring road and all its buildings were razed. From there, I moved to a wonderfully homey building, the Oblate Provincial residence in Saskatoon. Several years later, after I’d moved out, that building too was razed and nothing remains where it once stood. And, while all this was happening, the little town to which our family was connected (for mail, for groceries, for services, for identity) became a ghost town with no inhabitants, all its buildings shuttered.
Eventually, I moved to Oblate School of Theology in Texas to live in a welcoming little house designated for the president of the school. However, after a few years, the land it was on was needed for a new seminary and that house too was razed. Finally, most painful of all, two years ago, our family house, our home for more than 70 years, was sold and the new owners (sensitive enough to ask our family’s permission to do so) burned the old house to the ground.

That’s a lot of roots disappearing: my elementary school, my high school, the town our family was connected to, both seminaries from which I graduated, the college where I first taught, both Oblate houses I’d spent wonderful years within, and the family house – all gone, razed to the ground, nothing left to go back to.

What does that do to you? Well, there’s nostalgia, yes. How I would again love to walk into any of those buildings, feel what they once meant to me and bask in memories. None of that can happen. Each of these is a mini death, leaving a part of my soul rootless. On the other hand, more positively, all that unwanted letting go is helping prepare me for an ultimate letting go, when I will be facing my own death, and not just some haunting nostalgia.

As well, this has taught me something else of substance. Buildings and houses may disappear, but home is not contingent on them. Rene Fumoleau, a poet among the Dene tribes, shares how he once visited a family the day after their house had been destroyed by fire and had this conversation with a young girl:

The next day I visited the burned out family.
What could I say after such a tragedy?
I tried with the ten-year old daughter: ‘Joan, you must feel terrible without home.’
The young girl knew better: ‘Oh, we still have our home,
But we have no house to put on it.” (Home – Here I Sit)
Yes, we can still have a home even without our former house on it.

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