IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

More than a half century ago, Flannery O’Connor wrote a short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. One of the main characters in the story is an elderly woman who is a difficult, stubborn and not a particularly happy person. Traveling to Florida with her family, she is constantly whining and complaining. Then, thanks to some carelessness on her part, they get in a traffic accident and while their car is stalled, an escaped convict (the Misfit) chances on them and executes the whole family. Just before she is shot, the unhappy elderly woman, fearing for her life, reaches out and touches the Misfit and has a gentle moment with him. After killing her, he says, she would have been a good woman, if there had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.

I suspect we would all be better persons if there were someone there to shoot us every minute of our lives. At least I know that I would because I once had someone there to shoot me and it made me a better person at least during the time when the threat was there. Here’s my story.

Twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. The initial prognosis was good (surgery and chemotherapy and the cancer should be stopped). For a while it was. However, three years later it again made an unwelcome reappearance. This time the prognosis was not good. My oncologist, whom I trust, shared that situation was grave. Chemotherapy would be tried again; but he assured me, that barring the exceptional, this treatment would not be effective for long and would be more for palliative purposes than for any real hope of remission or cure. He felt it his duty to deliver that message clearly. I was facing the shooter. You have about thirty months to live!
As you can guess, this wasn’t easy to accept and process. I struggled mightily to make peace with it. Eventually, through prayer, I wrote a creed for myself as to how I would try to live out those two years. Here’s the creed:

I am going to strive to be as healthy as I can for as long as I can.
I am going to strive to be as productive for as long as I can.
I am going to make every day and every activity as precious and enjoyable as possible.
I am going to strive to be as gracious, warm, and charitable as possible.
I am going to strive to accept others’ love in a deeper way than I have up to now.
I am going to strive to live a more-fully “reconciled life.” No room for past hurts anymore.
I am going to strive to keep my sense of humor intact.
I am going to strive to be as courageous and brave as I can.
I am going to strive, always, to never look on what I am losing, but rather to look at how wonderful and full my life has been and is.
And, I am going to, daily, lay all of this at God’s feet through prayer.

For some months I prayed that creed intensely every day, trying to live out its every tenet. However, the chemotherapy treatments were, surprisingly, very effective. After five months of treatment, all the indications of cancer were gone, I was healthy again, and my oncologist was optimistic that, perhaps, his diagnosis had been too dire and that with some maintenance chemo, I might enjoy many more years of life. And, indeed I did for the next seven years.

However, during those seven years of remission, feeling healthy and optimistic, with no one there to shoot me every day, I now prayed my creed less frequently and with less intensity. And even though its challenges were now more ingrained in me, my old habits of taking life for granted, of praying St. Augustine’s prayer (Make me a better Christian, Lord, but not yet!), of losing perspective, of impatience, of self-pity, of nursing grievances, and of not appreciating fully the richness of life, began to seep back into my life.

The “shooter” reappeared two years ago with another reoccurrence of the cancer. Initially the prognosis was dire (thirty months and chemotherapy for the rest of my life) and the creed again took a central place in my life. However, a new treatment unexpectedly offered a much longer future and, with no one there to shoot me every day, the creed again began to lose its power and my old habits of impatience, ingratitude and self-pity began again to mark my days.

I am deeply grateful for all the post-cancer years that God and modern medicine have given me. Cancer has been a gift that has taught me a lot. Having my life parceled out in six months chunks has me appreciating life, others, health, nature, the simple joys of life and my work like never before. I’m a better person when there is someone there to shoot me every day!

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

ON ORDINARY TIMES
By Lucia A. Silecchia

Several weeks ago, I was visiting a parish not my own for Mass on a Sunday morning. I sat about a third of the way back – on the left had side as I usually do. When I came in, I noticed some young children sitting a few rows behind me. I did not pay too much attention to them during Mass because they were remarkably quiet.

But then … we reached the sacred moment of the Consecration. The bells rang and the Blessed Sacrament was elevated in that holy moment I so often take for granted. At that exact instant, there was a small voice from a young child who said, clearly and simply, “wow.”

Maybe he was reacting to the bells. Maybe he was impressed by something entirely unrelated to Mass. Maybe one of his siblings had done something that caught his attention. Maybe his parents were embarrassed by his exuberance. Maybe I should have been critical of the way he broke the sacred silence.
But I was grateful.

I was grateful for that tiny voice that said “wow.” He drew my attention to the fact that I had just witnessed something awesome for which “wow” seems to be the only right reaction. It was a reaction that recognized that what he, and I, and we had just seen was a miracle far beyond our comprehension, and yet within our grasp.

We had just seen the miracle that, through God’s lavish generosity, happens every moment of every day in grand cathedrals and silent chapels in every corner of the globe. It is the miracle that has happened for nearly two millennia.

As an adult, I know with my mind what happens at Mass. Sometimes, though, the heart and soul can lag behind. They can fail to see how glorious that miraculous, sacrificial gift is. Sometimes, the heart and soul need to hear “wow” to remember what awe really means.

The Catholic Church in the United States is in the first year of the National Eucharistic Revival. The Revival’s aim is “to restore understanding and devotion to this great mystery.” As the years of the Revival unfold, the invitation to delve more deeply into the heart of this “great mystery” will take many forms in our dioceses and in our parishes.

Certainly, the aim of restoring understanding is a critical first step in bringing about a fuller appreciation for the great gift of the Eucharist and the reality that it is, truly, Christ Himself. If this understanding leads to greater devotion, the Revival will have been a great gift to the church in our time.

Yet, my tiny friend’s “wow” leads me to think that understanding and devotion are but the first two steps on the journey to awe.

My tiny friend’s “wow” was the invitation to stop taking this daily miracle for granted and really notice what happens.

My tiny friend’s “wow” expressed the grateful reverence and reverent gratitude that should not belong solely to the young. It belongs to all who rejoice in this great miracle of ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

FOR THE JOURNEY
By Effie Caldarola

My friend Sister Mary Hogan told me that what she remembers most vividly about her experience in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 was the “hate stare.”

Sister Hogan was a young religious sister in Detroit when then Archbishop (later Cardinal) John Dearden permitted his priests to respond to the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King’s request for clergy and religious leaders to come to Selma. The day before, peaceful marchers had been met by violence from police and bystanders on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Her community’s superior asked who wanted to go to Selma in response to Dr. King’s plea.
“I jumped up and said, ‘I do,’” Sister Hogan told me in an interview in 2015. “I thought she was kidding.”

But the next day, Sister Hogan found herself on a plane, and if you see pictures of sisters in long, traditional black serge habits sitting in the grass near that famous bridge, you may spot her.

Later, she recalled the eyes full of contempt watching her along the march and following her at the airport. Decades later, Sister Hogan said she had never again experienced the level of hatred conveyed in those eyes.

Much has changed for the better since 1965. But Black Americans still face powerful struggles and inequality in housing, employment, health care, incarceration and education.

And how about Black Catholics?

A recent Pew research study reveals 6% of Black Americans are Catholic. That translates into about 3 million people.

Do they sense the same commitment from their church and its leadership as evidenced by Archbishop Dearden in 1965? Or do they sometimes feel invisible?

Over the recent Martin Luther King weekend, I attended a local parish. I intentionally scanned the crowd and found not one Black face. The homily did not mention our national observance and the bulletin made no reference to the holiday or to the day of service it engendered.

King’s long-ago observation rang true: The 11 o’clock hour on Sunday is the most segregated in America.
But did not we, a church full of Catholics regardless of color, have a deep need to be reminded of the ongoing struggle for justice and the legacy of a great American?

Later, I went online and found that Sunday’s bulletin for Gesu Parish in Detroit, where my friend Jesuit Father Lorn Snow is pastor. His parish, in a neighborhood that used to be mostly Jewish and Irish, is predominantly Black. But that, too, is changing, as young and suburban white Catholics come seeking the parish’s diversity.

In pastoring a Black community, said Father Snow, who is white, “the most important thing is to listen.”
Enculturating people’s experience into the liturgy is also important, he said. Gesu’s music ministry incorporates a lively African-American vibe.

Gesu’s bulletin for MLK week contained a full page of events relative to social and racial justice – an archdiocesan Mass at the cathedral, a parish event, an invitation to the National Black Catholic Congress in July. There was a reminder that the Novena of Grace, a nine-day preached event in March which is a tradition in Jesuit parishes, will have racial justice as its theme. If the novena is live-streamed, I plan to attend as a good (hopefully fruitful) Lenten exercise.

But what else can I do for Lent?

One Lenten wake-up call for those who often sit in segregated pews is to read “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King’s stirring admonition to “moderate” whites and to Christian church leaders who often disappointed him.

Written in 1963 while King languished in jail for civil disobedience, the letter still holds relevance and challenge for our church today.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote King.
As the church, how do we stand for justice?

(Effie Caldarola writes for the Catholic News Service.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

To fall in love! We use the expression to cover many things. You can fall in love with a baby, a sports team, a city, a job or another person. However, we reserve the prime analogate for this expression for one thing, emotional infatuation, that intoxicating feeling we first get when we meet someone who we sense as a soulmate.

Iris Murdoch once wrote that the world can change in fifteen seconds because that’s how quickly you can fall in love with someone. She’s right, and falling in love emotionally can literally paralyze us with a grip so strong that even death seems preferable to losing the one with whom we have fallen in love. Countless heartaches, broken hearts, depressions, clinical breakdowns, suicides, murders and murder-suicides testify to this. Emotional infatuation can be a deadly addiction, the most powerful cocaine on the planet. Where does it come from? Heaven or hell? And, what’s its meaning?

Ultimately, God and nature are its author and that tells us that it is a good thing. We are built for this to happen to us. Moreover, it is a healthy thing, if properly understood, both in its intoxicating power and in its innate failure to be a sustaining power in love.

What happens when we fall in love so powerfully with someone? Are we really in love with that person or are we more in love with being in love and the feelings this brings us? As well, are we really in love with that person or are we in love with an image of him or her we have created for ourselves, one that projects a certain godliness on to that other?

Let me risk some answers. Imagine a man falling deeply in love with a woman. Initially, the feelings can be overpowering and literally paralyze him emotionally. However, inside of all this, a certain question begs to be asked: with whom or with what is he really in love? His feelings? The archetype of femininity the woman is carrying? His image of her? She herself?

In reality, he is in love with all of these: his feelings, his image of her, she herself and the divine feminine she is carrying. All of that is of one piece inside of his experience. As well, all of this can be healthy at this stage of love.

God invented emotional infatuation, just as God invented honeymoons. We are not meant to be drawn to each other by cold analytics alone. But, this kind of falling in love is an initiatory stage in love (albeit a delightful one) that needs to be understood exactly for what it is, an initiatory stage, nothing more, one that invites us into something deeper. Emotional infatuation is not yet a mature stage in love.

Unless one dies in its grip, as did Romeo and Juliet, it will one day lose its hold on us and leave us disillusioned. When Iris Murdoch said that we can fall in love in fifteen seconds, she might also have added that, sadly, we can also fall out of love in fifteen seconds. Emotional infatuation can be that ephemeral, both in its birth and in its dying.

So falling in love (in this emotional way) comes fraught with certain dangers. First, there is the adolescent proclivity to identify this with deep love itself. Consequently, when the powerful emotional and psychosexual feelings let go, the person easily concludes that he or she is no longer in love and moves on. Next, more subtly, there is this danger. When we are in this initial gripping stage of love, our image of the other carries with it a certain godliness. What’s meant by that?

St. Augustine coined this timeless dictum: You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Hence, nothing in life can ever really be enough for us. We are always restless, always yearning for something more. However, in this initial phase of love, when we have fallen into the grip of emotional infatuation, for a time the other is enough for us. That’s why Romeo and Juliet could die happy. At this stage of love, they were enough for each other.

However, the hard truth is that infatuation does not last. The other person, no matter how wonderful he or she might actually be, is not God and can never be enough (and we are unfair to him or her when we unconsciously expect them to be enough). For a while, they are able to carry that godliness for us, but that illusion of godliness will eventually break and we will realize that this is just a person, one person, wonderful perhaps, but finite, limited and not divine. That realization (which is ultimately meant to be the ground for mature love) can, if not understood, jeopardize or sour a relationship.

God invented falling in love! In it, we get a little foretaste of heaven, though, as experience tells us that is not without its dangers.

(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

Although the weather may still be damp and chilly, as we move past Candlemas the lengthening of the days reminds us that we are moving ever closer to spring and to the season of Lent. Most Catholics are aware of the familiar progression of “seasons” of the church as the wheel of the liturgical year turns, but the history of this season may provide us with some food for meditation on ways to observe Lent more fruitfully today.

The word Lent in English is a shortened form of the Old English word lencten, meaning “spring season” and may possibly refer to the lengthening of days during this time. In the languages derived from Greek or Latin, however, the name of the season is derived from the word meaning “fortieth” and gives a hint to the ancient nature of the observance.

St. Irenaeus, writing toward the end of the second century, talked about the Lenten fast, saying it originated in the “time of our forefathers”– an expression for the days of the apostles – but varied in length and character from one or two days to a full 40 days before Easter. Often this fast was associated with the catechumens who were preparing for Baptism at Easter. By the time of the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., Lent had become more regularized to a 40-day period meant to reflect the time that Jesus spent fasting in the desert before beginning his public ministry. In the fourth century, several church fathers such as St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote of Lent as a forty-day period dedicated to fasting and prayer. Finally, in 461 A.D. Pope St. Leo preached that the whole church was to observe this “Apostolic institution of the 40 days” with fasting and prayer.

Initially the fasting of Lent lasted for the entire 40-day period and included giving up all meat, dairy, eggs and milk, and also eating only one meal a day in the evening. Over the centuries, this was modified to allow eating fish and dairy products, and an additional small meal was allowed for those who engaged in manual labor.

Further modifications were made as time went on until in 1966 Pope Paul VI reduced the obligatory fast days of Lent to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and days of abstinence to Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. Bishop’s Conferences were given the ability to replace the fast with other forms of penitence such as charity or piety, with the understanding that this was aimed particularly at parts of the world where poverty is widespread and food scarcity is already a problem. This was made part of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which made fasting obligatory for those aged 18 to 59 and made abstinence obligatory for those over the age of 14. If the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19) or the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) falls on Friday, the rule of abstinence does not apply.

However, fasting is only one of the three traditional “Pillars of Lent.” The other two pillars are focused more on positive acts. The second pillar is prayer, and includes extra acts of prayer, worship or study. Stations of the Cross and the rosary are just a couple of examples of extra acts of prayer. Lent may be an opportunity for someone to begin to pray one of more of the hours from the Liturgy of Hours each day. There are several free smartphone apps which make this very easy to do. Many parishes offer special Lenten study programs as well.

The third pillar is almsgiving, or charity. This does not simply refer to giving money, although donating to charity is certainly a good thing. It also refers to performing other acts of charity, such as volunteering at a local soup kitchen or helping an elderly neighbor. Sharing time and talent with those in need are also acts of charity.

It might be good to look back into our church’s history to find ways to enrich our Lenten observance, beginning with a period of preparation before Ash Wednesday. Most of us in this area are very familiar with Mardi Gras, a season of merrymaking beginning with the Epiphany and lasting until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. This season is also known as Carnival, which literally translates as “farewell to meat.”

Less well known now is the observance of Shrovetide, which begins 17 days before Ash Wednesday on what the traditional church calendar called Septuagesima Sunday. People used this time to begin preparing themselves for the austerities of Lent and deciding on the penitential practices they would choose. Going to Confession was always a part of this observance and gives the period its name: to be absolved of sin was to be “shriven,” hence Shrovetide.

In many English-speaking countries, such as England and Canada, the day before Ash Wednesday is known as Shrove Tuesday. A traditional meal served on the day is pancakes! These were eaten to use up the butter, eggs and sugar which would not be used during the Lenten season. Those who want to do something more austere in the way of fasting might try a Black Fast, which echoes the early Christian practice of fasting all day until supper is eaten after sunset. They may also be interested in the Daniel fast, based on Daniel 10:3. In this fast one abstains from meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, sweets and wine or any other alcoholic beverages.

Whatever extra penitential practices one chooses, Lent is a time meant to help us grow in self-discipline and spirituality so that we can come to the Easter celebration more closely conformed to Christ.

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