IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“We only live, only suspire, consumed by either fire or fire.”

T.S. Eliot wrote those words and, with them, suggests that our choice in this life is not between calm and storm, but between two kinds of storms.

He is right, of course, but sometimes it is good to vary the metaphor: We live in this world caught between two great gods, very different from each other: chaos and order.

Chaos is the god of fire, of fertility, of risk, of creativity, of novelty, of letting go. Chaos is the god of wildness, the god who brings disorder and mess. Most artists worship at his shrine. He is also the god of sleeplessness, of restlessness, and disintegration. In fact, chaos works precisely by disintegration of what is stable. Chaos is the god more worshipped by those of a liberal temperament.

Order is the god of water, of prudence, of chastity, of common sense, of stability, of hanging on. He is the god of pragma. He likes systems, clarity and a roof that doesn’t leak. He is more worshipped by those of a conservative temperament. Few artists pay him homage, but the corporate and ecclesiastical worlds more than compensate for this. By and large, he is their God. He can also be the god of boredom, timidity and rigidity. With him, you will never disintegrate, but you might suffocate. However, while he does not generate a lot of excitement, this god keeps a lot of people sane and alive.

Chaos and order, fire and water, don’t much like each other. However, both demand the respect accorded a deity. Unfortunately, like all one-sided deities, each wants all of us, but to give that submission is dangerous.

Allegiance to either, to the exclusion of the other, not infrequently leads to a self-destruction. When chaos reigns unchecked by order, moral and emotional disintegration soon enough unleash a darkness from which there is often no recovery. That’s what it means to fall apart, to become unglued. Conversely, when order totally dispels chaos, a certain self-annihilating virtue, posturing as God, begins to drain life of delight and possibility.

It is dangerous to worship at only the shrine. Both gods are needed. The soul, the church, practical life, the structures of society and love itself need the tempering that comes from both fire and water, order and chaos. Too much fire and things just burn up, disintegrate. Too much water and nothing ever changes, petrification sets in. Too much letting go and the sublimity of love lies prostituted; too much timidity and love shrivels up like a dried prune. No, both gods are needed – in practical life, in romantic life, in ecclesiology, in morality, in business and in government. Risk and prudence, rock music and Gregorian chant, both contain some whisperings of God. It is not by blind chance that we are caught between the two.

This should not be surprising because God, the God of Jesus Christ, is the God of both – fire and water, chaos, and order, liberal and conservative, chastity and prodigal love. God is the great stillpoint and God is also the principle of novelty, freshness, and resurrection.

Thomas Aquinas once defined the human soul as made up of two principles, the principle of energy and the principle of integration. One principle keeps us alive and the other keeps us glued together. These two principles, while in tension with each other, desperately need each other. A healthy soul keeps us energized, eager for life, but a healthy soul also keeps us solidly glued together, knowing who we are when we look at ourselves in a mirror. Our souls need to provide us with both energy and integrity, fire and glue.

God is love, and love wants and needs both order and chaos. Love wants always to build a home, to settle down, to create a calm, stable and chaste place. Something inside us wants the calm of paradise and thus love is about order. It wants to avoid emotional and moral disintegration. But love is also about chaos. There is something in love that wants to let go, that wants to be taken, that wants to surrender its boundaries, that wants the new, the foreign, and that wants to let go of its old self. That’s a fertile principle within love that has kept the human race going!

Our God hallows both of these gods, chaos and order, and that is why it is healthy that both be kept in a healthy tension. To be healthy, we need to bring them together within ourselves and we need to bring them together not as we would bring two parties to meet at a negotiating table, but as a high and a low-pressure system meet to produce a storm. After a storm, the weather is clear.

In the tempest there is life and there is God. In it we are initiated, initiated through immersion into the intense fires of desire and the ecstatic waters of surrender.

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

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle

Prior to moving to Mississippi in 1999 to serve as the campus minister at Mississippi State, I was a lay missioner with the Glenmary Sisters, headquartered in Owensboro, Kentucky. I was missioned in Providence, Kentucky from 1996-1999.

I recently found out that one of the Glenmary Sisters, Sister Kathleen Mulchrone passed away. She was born in Ireland but came to the States in the 1950s. She served in active ministry as a Glenmary Sister for 61 years and retired in 2019. She was in her 90s.

I was reflecting on my time in Kentucky and in particular the influence Sister Kathleen had on my ministry and my life. During my orientation one of the things the sisters underscored repeatedly was the importance of the ministry of presence. That is that no matter where you are or what you are doing you are called to be present to the people surrounding you and environment you are in. A good Glenmarian always came back from the post office with more than mail. Not only would they be present to the people who were in the post office, but they would pick up the news of the day from postal workers as well. This is especially effective in rural communities. More often than not they would hear of someone in the community who was sick, or someone who lost their job, and good news like the birth of a baby or engagement. The post office is not the only place where a ministry of presence can happen. It happens anywhere and everywhere. It is an intentional disposition. It is the art of listening and hearing what is happening to the people around you. Sister Kathleen was masterful at the ministry of presence.

I remember my days in youth ministry, the most challenging but privileged time during our time together was at the end of the night when the kids voiced their prayer petitions. One can learn a lot about what’s going on in the lives of the people around them when they are present and listen. In his 2016 book, The Name of God Is Mercy, Pope Francis opines, “People are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. This is what I call the ‘apostolate of the ear,’ and it is important.” What we vocalize in prayer speaks of our hopes and dreams and also our grief and worries.

Listening and presence are greatly missing in the public forum today. More often than not people listen to respond or do not listen at all. We all can recall a time when someone was speaking to us and the whole time, we were having our own conversation in our head about what we needed from the grocery store. In the church, especially today, a lack of intentional listening and presence is deadly. People, especially young people want to be seen, valued and heard. For Jesus, intentional listening and a ministry of presence sum up the whole praxis of accompaniment. We have all heard the saying, “Meet people where they are.” It can be a bit slogan-ish, but in practice is the very place where meaningful ministry begins. How can we help people grow in their faith if we do not understand where they are with their faith?

Amelia Rizor is the coordinator for the Office of Young Adults and Campus Ministry for the diocese. She has put together two men’s basketball teams for a Jackson area young adult basketball league. On the occasion of the two Catholic teams competing against one another Amelia invited Bishop Kopacz and I to attend the game with her. We did. It was loads of fun. But, perhaps the most impactful part of the evening was at the end of the game a player on another team recognized Bishop Kopacz and spoke to him. In that brief encounter he told us that he was not Catholic but had been to Mass on several occasions. He also said that he has been thinking about becoming Catholic. That brief exchange was an example of the ministry of presence and why it’s so important. We cannot be present to others if we remain behind our desks or on our phones. We cannot share the apostolate of the ear if we are not in places where people need to be heard.

This Easter season I encourage you to slow your pace and look around you for opportunities to exercise the ministry of presence and the apostolate of the ear. Take in a local sporting event or go out for coffee after Mass. In listening to the needs of others, you just might discover something about yourself.

(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

LIGHT ONE CANDLE
By Father Ed Dougherty, M.M., The Christophers’ board of directors

Have you ever wondered what it was like for the Apostles and followers of Christ during the period of time we now call Eastertide, which begins with the Resurrection and concludes with Pentecost? First, they were struck by the most astounding event in human history in discovering that Christ had risen from the dead. It must have been such an extremely jubilant time, yet they were also left with the traumatizing memory of the Crucifixion and the fear of what might be done to them as news of the Resurrection spread and panic set in among those who wanted that news silenced.

Amid this mix of jubilation and fear was a lingering question about what they should do, and that question would not be fully answered until Pentecost, when they were commissioned by God to evangelize the world. The roller coaster of emotions the Apostles and followers of Christ must have experienced during that time is probably something most of us can relate to as we attempt to walk in their footsteps today.

One of the most beautiful moments that occurred after the Resurrection was when Jesus appeared to the Apostles on a beach at the Sea of Galilee. The scene points to answers for questions we all have amid our own mix of emotions over the triumphs, failures, and fears that life throws our way. The Apostles had been fishing all night and caught nothing until daybreak, when a man called to them from the beach telling them to cast their net to the other side of the boat, at which point they caught so many fish they couldn’t haul it all in. Upon realizing the man on the beach was Jesus, Peter jumped out of the boat to hurry towards Him.

Imagine the emotions Peter must have had rushing out of the water towards Christ on that beach. It must have been a bittersweet moment of joy mixed with the sorrow he probably still carried over his three denials before the Crucifixion. Later, walking along the beach together, Christ asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each time, Peter answers that he does, until finally saying the third time, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.”

We’re told that Peter felt hurt to be asked a third time, and maybe that was partly because it reminded him of his previous denials. But it seems Jesus was also providing him with an opportunity to understand the Redemption. Perhaps this was even Jesus’ way of emphasizing for Peter that He knows he loves Him despite those previous denials because He gives him the chance to answer “yes” three times, almost as though to wash away the mistakes of the past. That conversation must have lingered with Peter as a stark reminder of the love of God and the confidence we must have that opportunities will always be provided for redemption.

This then is the ultimate message of the Resurrection, that we are redeemed every time we run to Christ with a spirit of reconciliation and hope in sharing His joy. This also answers the commission the Apostles were awaiting and received at Pentecost and that we have inherited as followers of Christ. We must constantly be at work healing the wounds of others through a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, providing opportunities wherever we can to open hearts to the transformative power of God’s love and having confidence those opportunities will always find us.

(For a free copy of The Christophers’ LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS, e-mail: mail@christophers.org)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

The night before he died, Jesus struggled mightily to accept his Father’s will. The Gospels describe him in the Garden of Gethsemane, prostrate on the ground, “sweating blood,” and begging his Father to save him from the brutal death that awaited him. Then, after he finally surrenders his will to his Father, an angel comes and strengthens him.

This begs a question: where was the angel when, seemingly, he most needed it? Why didn’t the angel come earlier to strengthen him?

Two stories, I believe, can be helpful in answering this.

The first comes from Martin Luther King, Jr. In the days leading up to his assassination, he met angry resistance and began to receive death threats. He was courageous, but he was also human. At a point, those threats got to him. Here is one of his diary entries.

“One night towards the end of January, I settled into bed late, after a strenuous day. Coretta had already fallen asleep and just as I was about to doze off the telephone rang. An angry voice said, ‘Listen, nig.., we’ve taken all we want from you; before next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.’ I hung up, but I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached a saturation point.

“I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally, I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward.

“In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory.

“‘I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. Now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’ At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before.” (Strive Toward Freedom)

Notice at what point in his struggle the angel appears.

In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy shares this story. As a young woman, along with the man she loved, she had been somewhat militant in her unbelief. Indeed, their reluctance to enter the institution of marriage was meant as a statement of their non-acceptance of traditional Christian values. Then she conceived a child and its birth was the beginning of a radical conversion for her. The joy she felt holding her baby convinced her that there was a God and that life had a loving purpose. She became a Roman Catholic, much to the chagrin of the man she loved, the father of her child: he gave her an ultimatum: if you have this child baptized, our relationship is ended. She had the child baptized and lost that relationship (though they continued as friends). However, she now found herself a single mother with no job and no real vision or plan as to where to go now in life.

At one point, she became desperate. She left the child in the care of others and took a train from New York City to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. In her autobiography, she describes how she prayed that day, how desperate her prayer was. Like Jesus in Gethsemane and Martin Luther King in Montgomery, her prayer was one of raw need and helplessness, of an admission that she no longer had the strength to go on. Essentially, she said this to God: I have given up everything for you and now I am alone and afraid. I don’t know what to do and am lacking strength to carry on in this commitment.

She prayed this prayer of helplessness, took the train back to New York, and not long after found Peter Maurin sitting on her doorstep, telling her that he had heard about her and that he had a vision of what she should now do, namely, to start the Catholic Worker. That set the path for the rest of her life. The angel had come and strengthened her.

Notice at what point in these stories the angel makes its appearance – when human strength is fully exhausted. Why not earlier? Because up to the point of exhaustion, we don’t really let the angel in, relying instead on our own strength. But, as Trevor Herriot says, “Only after we have let the desert do its full work in us will angels finally come and minister to us.”

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