IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

In a book, The Book of Hope, which he co-authored with Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams makes this statement: Creating the human race may be the single biggest mistake evolution ever made.

He says this tongue-in-cheek since he recognizes that the emergence of the human race was clearly intended by the evolutionary process and that rather than being a colossal mistake it is the apex of the process. Nonetheless, today, the human race is a huge threat to planet earth. Simply put, there are now over seven billion people on the planet and already in many places we have used up nature’s limited resources faster than nature can replace them. By the year 2050 there will probably be 10 billion of us. If we carry on with business as usual, the planet simply cannot sustain us, at least if we continue in our present lifestyle.

And the lifestyle referred to here is not, first of all, the lavish lifestyle of the rich who can be reckless and consume more than their share of resources. They, of course, contribute to the problem and unduly influence the rest us in our own habits of consumption; but the lifestyle referred to here is what you and I, conscientious consumers, are living, even as we conserve, recycle, compost, drive electric cars and try to live simply.

I can take myself as an example. I’m trying to be sensitive to what my own consumption is doing to mother earth. By comparison to those who have a luxurious lifestyle, I can claim to live pretty simply. I don’t buy what I don’t need, have a very small wardrobe, and am cautious about the amount of electricity and water I use. I drive a second-hand compact car and try to drive it only when necessary. I help assure that the thermostat in our house is set so as to ensure the minimal use of electrical energy, and I live in a relatively small house, recycle and try to use as little plastic as possible.

But, on the other hand, I have two computers, a desktop in my office and a laptop at home. I have a cellphone which, through the years, has had to be updated four different times in terms of buying a new model and junking the old one. I shower daily and, depending upon physical work and exercise, sometimes take a second shower. I drive a car. I get on an airplane at least once a month for conferences and meetings and I fly internationally several times a year to visit family. I don’t have a lot of clothes, but my ministry and work require a certain standard of dress (which I meet minimally).

I think I can claim a simple lifestyle, given where I live and the work I do. However, realistically, if all seven (plus) billion people in the world lived as I do, there wouldn’t be enough resources to sustain us. Bottomline, the world cannot support eight billion people if everyone lives as I do, and as most of us do in the more affluent parts of our world. What’s the answer?

We can lay a guilt trip on ourselves and on others, though this isn’t necessarily helpful. What can be helpful? There’s no easy answer. Those of us living in the more affluent parts of our world can make changes, but can we simply stop using computers and mobile phones? We can conserve water, but can we abandon our present standards of hygiene? We can conserve electricity, but can we simply stop driving our cars and darken all our city buildings at night? We can be more scrupulous on how much we travel on airplanes, but can we live without airplane travel? We can cut back on what we buy in terms of excess food, excess clothing, and excess luxuries and entertainment. We can recycle, compost and not use plastic bags – and all of this, cumulatively, will make a difference. Indeed, all of this needs to be done. However, helpful though this is, it alone will not solve the problem.

For Jane Goodall, beyond these individual things, we need to do some collective things to solve the existential threat to this planet. Goodall names three: First, we must alleviate poverty. If there are people living in crippling poverty, it is understandable that they will cut down the last tree to grow food or catch the last fish because they are desperate to feed their families. Second, we must eliminate government corruption and corporate greed. Without good government and concern for the common good in business, it is impossible to solve our enormous social and environmental problems. Moreover, those who for their own benefit refuse to face the problem will go on unchallenged. Finally, collectively too, we must realistically face up to the tension between our lifestyle and the ever-growing population on this planet.
Thoughtless consumers are part of the problem – but so are the rest of us, me included, who fancy ourselves as living simply.

(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

In 1986, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the amazing basketball player said, “I try to do the right thing at the right time. They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and losing.” That’s what he worships.

We just celebrated St. Therese on Oct. 1 (her 150th birthday), the sister of sweet toughness … the manufacturer of ‘little things matter.’ We also celebrated St. Teresa of Avila, who many years earlier, carved out for women a firm line of hope. Whom did they worship?

Everyone worships something … someone. What you worship is important, especially today. What comes first in your life? May I ask? Do you worship food, gaming or TV? Or clothes, cars, dogs or cats? Who worships sex? Or only family or friends? Who worships sports? Who worships lies and ‘fake’ news? Do you worship wealth and money? Or maybe you worship God?

The synod is a practical and historical forum, a place where representatives of this world, broken and at war as it is, might speak in peace and attend to what might seem to be the little things. It also reveals what we worship. Are we no different from the rest of the world … hungry for power, greedy for wealth, selfish? No doubt all these and many more things will be revealed in the rest of this process. Pope Francis said, in the opening synod Mass, “This is the primary task of the synod: to refocus our gaze on God, the be a church that looks mercifully at humanity.”

If I worship so many other things, how can I worship God? Well, the synod is supposed to investigate that and invite us to ‘refocus our gaze.’ If you return to Kareem, Therese or Teresa you might discover their gaze. In their understanding of ‘little things’ (see also St. David of Wales) they focus on the poorest and littlest, mercifully at humanity. They look away from themselves.

Worship and prayer go hand in hand, but worship usually is with others … I may pray alone (and that can be worship too) but usually I worship with others … office, devotions/rosary/chaplet/stations … and certainly Mass. Both prayer and worship take a long gaze and a little practice.

Consider Alice and the Queen …” Alice laughed, ‘there’s no use trying, one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice … when I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six things before breakfast,’ said the Queen.” (L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass). How have you worshipped or prayed before breakfast?

Sometimes prayers in unison get mixed up. For example, Dr. Clifford at a Methodist church in Texas, “We find our world a clod and cheerless place without Your love.” Or in the church bulletin prayer at the Congregational United in Missouri, “O Loving God, who reaches out to restore our soles, touch us now with Your word of truth…”

Or maybe it is actually perfection we worship … that we search for … that we value?

I like Marilyn Meberg’s insights, “my intent in life is to remind you that nothing in life is perfect … if we can accept that, we can quit looking for it, blaming ourselves or others, … and even come to a place of peace. That gives me the energy to settle down to a platter of pasta that is a trifle overdone with a touch of too little garlic – and not lose my joy!” (Bolton, Heavenly Humor for the Woman’s Soul, Barbour, 2008)
How have you refocused your gaze on God? What things do you worship that you need to let go of in order to put Jesus first? How has your worship of such an awesome God brought you joy?

Consider this with Thoms A. Kempis (1380-1471): “O everlasting Light, surpassing all created luminaries, flash forth Thy lightning from above, piercing all the most inward parts of my heart. Make clean, make glad, make bright and make alive my spirit, with all the powers thereof, that I may cleave unto Thee in ecstasies of joy.”

Let’s uplift our communal worship and fill our private prayer with joy.

BLESSINGS.

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

On Ordinary times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

I miss shopping for clothes with my mom.

Some of that stems from that too-familiar ache known to all those who have loved and lost. The desire to run an ordinary errand, exchange a quick phone call or share a cup of coffee together just one more time is a deep longing with a permanent home in my heart – and the hearts of so many I know.

But there was something unique about shopping for clothes with my mom. She was an accomplished seamstress. When we shopped together, she had an eye for salvaging clothes that I, in my quick judgement, was so often inclined to reject.

I could look at a dress and, after a passing glance, reject it because the sleeves were too long, the buttons were the wrong color, the collar was awkward, or an otherwise tailored skirt had an inexplicable, oversized bow at the waist. I could look at a jacket and move along quickly because it had bulky shoulders, an awkward pleat or a flimsy zipper.

But, my mom did not see the forlorn inhabitants of the clearance racks the same way I did. In her mind’s eye, she could see what they would look like if she tailored the sleeves, found better new buttons, replaced a collar, turned a bow to a belt, streamlined shoulders, sewed up a pleat and switched a flimsy zipper for a classier closure. More often than I can recall, I would come home with something new to wear – and my mother would come home with a sewing project.

I miss that.

I miss the example of someone who could, in something as trivial as clothing, see not merely what was, but what could be. Someone who could see not merely what was wrong, but what could be right. Someone who could see that a quick judgement may mean missing out on something very good.

I wonder if there is something in those ordinary shopping trips to teach about life and the way in which it can be all too easy to see in others – and in ourselves – only what is and not what could be.

Yes, there is a real danger in relationships and friendships when we see others merely as works-in-progress, not accepted for who they are but only for who they might be if they could only change to our liking. But I learned on those long-ago shopping trips that it is also dangerous to see only that which is before us without also seeing potential and optimism about all that could lie ahead if we seek out the good that is so often hidden away.

Maybe I also learned something about God. I like to think that the God who loves us “as we are” is also a God who sees our best selves – not just the flaws and failures that makes those who love less perfectly turn away. I like to think that the God who made us is also a God who sees not only the way we are today, but all we can be tomorrow. I like to think, too, that with God’s help we might also be able to see ourselves and others with eyes a bit more like His.
There are still days when I wear a favorite outfit and see my mother’s small stiches tucked away. When I see these relics of repairs and remodels of yesteryear, I am grateful.

Yes, I am grateful that awkward bows and tacky buttons have been replaced with something better. But I am more grateful for that subtle example of one who could say “yes” when a quick “no” may have been the easier, first reaction. This is the blessed, better vision that can brighten our ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Perhaps all of Jesus’ invitations to us can be summarized in one word – surrender. We need to surrender to love.

But why is that difficult? Shouldn’t it be the most natural thing in the world? Isn’t our deepest desire a longing to find love and surrender to it?

True, our deepest longing is to surrender to love, but we have some deep innate resistances to give ourselves over in surrender. Here are a couple of examples:

At the Last Supper in John’s Gospel when Jesus tries to wash Peter’s feet, he meets a stiff resistance from Peter – Never! I will never let you wash my feet! What’s ironic here is that, perhaps more than anything else, Peter yearned precisely for that kind of intimacy with Jesus. Yet, when it’s offered, he resists.
Another example might be seen in the struggles of Henri Nouwen. Nouwen, one of the most gifted spiritual writers of our generation, enjoyed immense popularity. He published more than 50 books, was a much sought-after professor (tenured at both Harvard and Yale), received invitations daily to give talks and lectures around the world, and had many close friends.

And yet, inside all that popularity and adulation, surrounded by many friends who loved him, he was unable to let that love give him any real sense of being loved or of being lovable. Instead, through most of his life he labored inside a deep anxiety which had him believe that he wasn’t lovable. On occasion this even landed him in clinical depression. And so, through most of his adult life, surrounded by so much love, he was haunted by a sense that he wasn’t loved, nor worthy of being loved. Moreover, he was a deeply sensitive person who more than anything else wanted to surrender to love. What held him back?

In his own words, he was crippled by a deep wound he couldn’t quite name and whose grip he couldn’t shake. This was true for most of his adult life. Eventually, he was able to free himself from his deep wound and surrender to love. However, it took a traumatic “death” experience for that to happen. Standing too close to the highway at a bus-stop one morning, he was struck by the mirror of a passing van which sent him flying. Rushed to a hospital, for some hours he hovered between life and death. While in that state, he had a very deep experience of God’s love for him. He returned to full consciousness and normal life as a profoundly changed man. Now, after experiencing God’s love for him, he could finally also surrender to human love in a way he had been incapable of previous to his “death” experience. All his subsequent books are marked by this conversion in love.

Why do we fight love? Why don’t we surrender more easily? The reasons are unique to each of us. Sometimes we are dealing with a deep wound that leaves us feeling unlovable. But sometimes our resistance has less to do with any wound than it has to do with how we are unconsciously fighting the very love we so painfully seek. Sometimes, like Jacob in the Bible, we are unconsciously wrestling with God (who is Love) and consequently unconsciously fighting love.

In the Bible story where Jacob wrestles all night with a man, we see that in this struggle he has no idea that he is wrestling with God and with love. In his mind, he is wrestling with a foe he needs to conquer. Eventually, when the darkness of the night gives way to more light, he sees what he is wrestling with – and it is a surprise and shock to him. He realizes he is fighting love itself. With that realization, he gives up struggling and instead clings to the very force he had been previously fighting, with the plea: “I will not let you go, until you bless me!”

This is the final lesson we need to learn in love: We wrestle for love with every talent, cunning and strength inside us. Eventually, if we are fortunate, we have an awakening. Some light, often a crippling defeat, shows us the true face of what we have been wrestling with and we realize that it’s not something to be conquered, but it’s the very love to which we have been longing to surrender.

For many of us, this will be the great awakening in our lives, a waking up to the fact that in all our ambitions and schemes to show the world how worthwhile and lovable we are, we are in unconscious ways fighting the very love to which we ultimately want to surrender. And, usually, as with Jacob in the biblical story, it will take the defeat of our own strength and a permanent limp before we realize what we are fighting against is really that to which we most want to surrender.

And this is surrender, not resignation, something we give ourselves over to rather than something that defeats us.

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

Things Old and New
By Ruth Powers

This year Oct. 13 is the 106th anniversary of the final apparition of the Blessed Mother at Fatima, Portugal. Our Lady of Fatima is possibly one of the best-known titles of Our Lady in the modern era because of the urgency of her message and the signs that accompanied her final appearance on Oct. 13, 1917 during the fury of World War I.

Beginning on May 13, 1917, and continuing for six months, Lucia de los Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Martos were visited by the Blessed Mother as they watched their sheep at the Cova de Iria in Fatima. At first the children did not understand who she was. They described her as “a Lady more brilliant than the sun” wearing a white mantle edged in gold, a gold crown and holding a rosary. At her first appearance, she asked the children to return on the thirteenth of each month for six months and to pray the rosary every day for peace.

Lucia told the other children to keep the Lady a secret, but Jacinta told her mother, who did not believe, but who spread the story to the neighbors; word soon spread throughout the village and into nearby towns. Lucia’s mother, also doubting what the children reported, consulted the parish priest. This priest questioned Lucia after the second apparition in June but could not get her to retract her story. It was at this apparition that Our Lady asked that the Fatima Prayer be added to the Rosary.

As the months went by, more and more pilgrims came to the Cova de Iria in the hope of experiencing the apparition. Local civil authorities became alarmed that the children were being used in a plot to incite the poor people of the country to topple the newly formed Republican government of Portugal. It got so bad that the local provincial administrator took the children into custody and used threats to try to get them to admit that they had been lying. The children, however, refused to take back their story. Even in the face of disbelief by their family and friends and persecution by the secular authorities, they held firm.

Perhaps the most widely discussed aspect of the apparitions are the revelations that have become known as the Three Secrets of Fatima. The secrets were given to the children during the third apparition. First, they were given a vision of Hell and told that many people were going there because of lack of prayer and acts of reparation for sins. Second, Our Lady of Fatima predicted the end of World War I but predicted the Second World War “if people do not stop offending God.” At this point the Bolshevik Revolution was coming to a boil in Russia, and she requested prayers for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart or else Russia will “scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the church.” The final secret involved a vision of the Pope, along with many bishops, priests, and lay people, being killed by soldiers.

On Oct. 13, as Our Lady promised, she revealed her identity as “Our Lady of the Rosary.” She said, “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord anymore for He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men. People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it every day. I would like a chapel built here in my honor.”

After this, the apparition ended with a spectacular sign which has come to be known as “The Miracle of the Sun.” According to eyewitness accounts reported in The Sun Danced at Fatima by Joseph Pelletier, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal and to cast multicolored lights across the landscape and the people. The sun was then reported to have dropped suddenly towards the Earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes and the sodden ground suddenly became completely dry. This was witnessed by believers and non-believers alike, and by some as far away as 10 miles from the Cova de Iria.

Francisco and Jacinta died soon after these events during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920. Lucia, however, later entered religious life first as a Dorothean Sister and later as a Discalced Carmelite. She lived until 2005. Over the course of the 1920’s, Our Lady appeared to Lucia several times. In December of 1925 she established the First Saturday Devotions, and in February 1926 requested that the devotion be spread throughout the world. In June 1929 she once again requested that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart. Between 1976 and 1993 Sister Lucia published a series of memoires describing the events of Fatima in her own words.

There has been some controversy over whether the so-called “Third Secret” has been completely disclosed and whether the Consecration to Russia has been performed correctly. Sister Lucia verified both before her death. The main message of Fatima, however, has been consistent with the messages from every other Marian apparition: repent and turn toward Christ; and pray always. For two excellent resources on the events of 1917 at Fatima you can read The Sun Danced at Fatima or watch the 2009 film “The 13th Day.”

(Ruth Powers is the program coordinator for The Basilica of St. Mary in Natchez.)