IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Henri Nouwen once suggested that if you want to understand the tragedy of the Second World War, you can read a hundred history books about it and watch a thousand hours of video documentaries on it, or you can read the Diary of Anne Frank. In that single memoir of young girl imprisoned and later executed by the Nazis you will see, first-hand, the tragedy of war and what war does to the human soul.

The same might be said about the refugee crisis now taking place everywhere on borders around the world. According to statistics from the United Nations, there are now over eighty million refugees, displaced, homeless, nationless, frightened, and often hungry people on our borders around the world. Two-thirds of these are women and children, and the vast majority are not there by choice, seeking a better economic opportunity in another country. The vast majority of them have been driven from their homes and their countries by war, violence, famine, hunger, ethnic and religious cleansing, and by fear for their lives.

For many of us, this is a faceless, abstract problem. We have a generic sympathy for their plight but not one deep enough to keep us awake at night, unsettle our conscience, or make us willing to sacrifice some of our own comfort and security to do something for them or to pressure our governments into action. Indeed, too often we are over-protective of our borders and the settled, comfortable lives we live inside our nations. This is our country! Our home! We worked hard for the things we have. It is unfair to us to have to deal with these people! They should go back to their countries and leave us alone!

We need a wake-up call. A recent book, a novel, by Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt, gives us a fictionalized account of a young Mexican woman who because of violence and fear of death had to leave her life behind and flee with her young son in an attempt to reach the borders of the United States as an undocumented immigrant. Full disclosure, the book has been heavily criticized by many because it doesn’t always measure up to the exact facts. Conversely, it has also been highly praised by many others. Be that as it may, the bottom-line is that this is a powerful story and a wake-up call, one meant to wake us up to the real tragedy of those who for reasons of poverty, violence, famine, fear and hopelessness are forced to flee their countries in search of a better life (or any life at all!) elsewhere. Whatever the book’s imperfections, it helps shatter the abstractness we can lean on to protect ourselves against having to look at the issue of refugees today.

Admittedly, the issue isn’t simple. There are extremely complex issues involved in protecting our borders and in having millions of people freely enter our countries. However, as men and women who share a common humanity and a common planet with these refugees, can we remain callous to their plight?

Moreover, as Christians, do we accept the fundamental, non-negotiable principle within Christian social doctrine that tells us that the world belongs to everyone equally and we may not adhere to any nationalistic belief that says, explicitly or implicitly, that our country is ours and we have no obligation to share it with others. To espouse this is unchristian and goes against the clear teaching of Jesus.

We might all, I submit, contemplate a certain parable of Jesus (Luke 16:19-31) where he tells the story of a rich man who ignored a poor man sitting at his doorstep and refused to share his food with him. The poor man dies and finds himself in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also dies and finds himself tormented by thirst in Hades. He begs Abraham to send the poor man, whom he had ignored during this lifetime, to bring him some water to quench his thirst, but it turns out this is not possible. Jesus tells us that there is an “unbridgeable gap” between the two of them. We have always simplistically assumed that this unbridgeable gap is the gap between heaven and hell, but that is not exactly the point the parable is making. The unbridgeable gap is the gap that already exists now between the rich and poor, and the lesson is that we had best try to bridge that gap now, in this life.

Notice that Jesus does not say that the rich man is a bad man, or that he didn’t earn his riches honestly, or that he wasn’t an upright citizen, or that he wasn’t going to church, or that he was unfaithful to his wife, or that he was a bad father to his children. It only says that he had one fault, a mortal one – inside his richness he did not respond to a hungry man sitting on the borders of house.

(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

On Aug. 9, 2022, we celebrate the feast day of Edith Stein (St. Sister Benedicta of the Cross, OCD), German (born, 1891, in Breslau in what is now Poland) intellectual, scholar, typhoid-nurse hospital worker and Jewess-cum-Catholic Christian (1922) and Carmelite (1933), who at 52 was taken to the Nazi chambers and murdered (1942). I like what Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, points out:

“The fact is Edith Stein is not important because she was martyred for anything. Edith Stein is not a light to take into the 21st century because she was killed by Nazis for whatever reason. Edith Stein is a pathway through darkness because of the courage it takes to critique your own.” (emphasis mine, A Passion for Life, Orbis, 1996)

She might be best known in Carmelite circles, unlike some of her more famous Sisters, Teresa of Avila, or Therese. That she was caught up with Bonhoeffer or Kolbe and others also annihilated for religious reasons during the Nazi regime, points to the highlights (1942) of the brutal reality of authoritarian politics. Though she had been smuggled to the Netherlands, she and her sister Rosa were found out and eventually reached Auschwitz where their earthly lives ended abruptly.

In the day (and maybe today as well?), a sister professing Carmelite life took a ‘title’ pointing her in a special direction within her prayer vocation … in this case ‘of the Cross’ was chosen and the fact that she was born on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, she had been on this path her whole life. She saw her life as one united with the suffering of God, the anguish of the innocent, and the prayer of the powerless. The Cross for her became the Christian marker where the greatest love had been shown, even to those who ravaged the world, who lived out of greed or insensitivity, who barreled through country after country demanding obedience and submission.

Mostly the Cross was the symbol of success, despite its narrow appearance, of the empathy theory she’d studied reminding people that to walk in another’s shoes across barriers (class, culture, ethnicity and…) is to accept a call to build together the beauty of peace. We ‘cross over,’ out of our zones into a graced place serving one another. The beauty of God, reflected in the common good, is torn asunder when the innocent are ravaged when lies become common currency for truth, and when hope seems impossible as attacking armies (of whatever kind) seek to dominate. Aren’t we just a bit too cozy with violence? Just look at Oklahoma, executing 25 men one a month (on Thursdays) for two years beginning this month. That the Cross reaches up and stretches out is a reminder that God is not just the God of ‘me’ but the God of ‘we’; when will we nourish one another and cease scrambling in darkness … perhaps they’ll come for me, for us?

In her book The Wisdom of the Cross, she remarks that through a process of death, all will come to life in Him if we are willing to give our lives.

She says, “This faith in the Crucified – united with devoted love – is for us the doorway to life and the beginning of the glory to come. The Cross is our only boast … But the cross is not the end: it is lifted high and shows us the way to heaven.” (ICS, Washington, 1996)

She had no illusion about what that meant for her, her sister Rosa and so many more; it meant death. Equally, she understood that through her tool of conversion (the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, 1921) she saw ‘the truth.’ Her mother was brought to tears at her conversion. ‘I’ve nothing to say against him (Jesus),’ she told Edith, ‘just that he claimed to be God.’

Before her conversion, during her years as a professor, she was very outspoken about women’s roles and wrote in the Ethos of Women’s Professions, for example: “One could say that every normal healthy woman can hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be practiced by a woman.” (ICS) Not long after she would become unemployable because she was both woman and Jew. No place in academia for her. Does that sound familiar? How is the truth rejected? What can/not be taught? How do we ignore history?

Next month we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross on Sept. 14, and maybe our study of St. Benedicta might open to us deeper wisdom and help us put the suffering, especially targeted violence, at His Cross.
“As for what concerns our relations with our fellowman, the anguish in our neighbor’s soul must break all precepts. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself because God is love.” (ICS)

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

Reflections on Life
By Melvin Arrington

We know we all have a purpose in life. We are here to know, love and serve God. If we come to know Him, we will love Him. And if we love Him, we will want to serve Him. St. Rose of Lima learned these truths at a young age and took them to heart. I, on the other hand, was nearing retirement age when I discovered them and began putting them into practice.

St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) was born into a well-to-do family in Peru’s capital city during Spanish America’s Colonial era. Early on, she showed an inclination to the austere life, fasting often and praying constantly. As a young lady she was considered to be very beautiful. But she was so fearful of the pitfall of vanity that, before going out into the street, she would soak her hands in lime and intentionally disfigure her face by rubbing pepper on her cheeks to mar her complexion. At one point she began wearing a self-fashioned crown of thorns because of a deep desire to imitate Christ.

Why perform these excessive mortifications? Perhaps it was an attempt to take the words of our Lord a little too literally when He proclaimed, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out” and “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” (Matthew 5:29-30) In any case, the object was to enhance her spiritual rather than physical beauty. These extreme forms of penance seem strange to us, like the actions of someone who is out of touch with reality. But we can also view them as a protest against the materialism and evils of those times, an era plagued by violent acts of cruelty and the savage lust for gold.

When the family fell on hard times, Rose began working in their home vegetable garden by day and doing needlework, including making exquisite lace and embroidered silks, at night. Many friends encouraged her to marry in order to escape poverty, and her great beauty would have easily made this possible. But instead, at age 20, she joined the Third Order of St. Dominic after seeing a black and white butterfly come to rest on her shoulder, taking that as a sign God wanted her to wear the black and white habit. As a member of the Third Order, Rose was allowed to wear the habit and continue living and working at home.

She greatly admired and hoped to imitate St. Catherine of Siena and chose the great Italian saint as her patron. Like St. Catherine, Rose received visions from God and experienced mystical ecstasy. This aroused the suspicions of church authorities, including the Inquisition. But after theologians conducted an examination, they concluded that her holiness was genuine.

Hoping to live a life of solitude, Rose managed to construct a hut as a little hermitage on the grounds of the family home. There she lived as a recluse, spending much time in prayer.

St. Rose reportedly protected the city of Lima from disaster three times. When Dutch pirates invaded the city in 1615, the fearless young woman stood guarding the tabernacle in the Church of Santo Domingo as the raiding party entered the church. When they saw her there, they returned to the ships and canceled their plans to plunder the city. In two other instances her prayers saved Lima, once from attack during an indigenous uprising and, on another occasion, from damage by an earthquake.

In reading about this saint, I found out that she’s considered the founder of social services and social work in Peru. The term “social services” refers to promoting the welfare of others by providing assistance such as medical care and housing for the benefit of those in need in the community, and that’s exactly what Rose did. During the latter portion of her life, in true Dominican fashion, she added an active component to the contemplative life by roaming the city in search of homeless children, the sick, the elderly and the dying and taking them to some rooms reserved in her parents’ house, where she fed and bathed them and saw to their needs. In fact, that’s the sort of thing we should all be doing in some form or other – serving the less fortunate – either directly or indirectly through prayer and financial support.
At age 31 Rose fell sick and died. She was so highly regarded by the citizens of Lima that during the funeral procession the city’s leaders took turns carrying her coffin. St. Rose of Lima is the patron saint of Latin America (feast day, Aug. 23). Canonized in 1671, she was the first person born in the New World to be raised to the altars.

One lesson we can learn from this saintly life is that faith must be put into action. As mentioned earlier, I came to this realization rather late. As a young man, I spent most of my time selfishly caring for my own needs, with relatively little concern for the common good. Later, after I had a family of my own, I just didn’t seem to have enough free time to pull away from obligations at home to become involved in community service. Only in mid life did I come to understand that I needed to make time for volunteer work. There are opportunities for involvement in every community. In retirement I’ve found mine. These activities are good for the soul. They have changed the direction of my life, and clearly for the better.

In the final analysis, we’re here to serve others, not ourselves. As Pope Francis says, “It is not enough to say we are Christians. We must live the faith, not only with our words, but with our actions.” St. Rose of Lima would wholeheartedly agree.

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus at University of Mississippi and member of St. John Oxford.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
After his first arrest, the peace activist Daniel Berrigan went into hiding. After four months, he was captured, but during those months underground, although a threat to no one, he was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. There’s an irony here that did not go unnoticed. Someone put up a poster of him with this caption: Wanted – Notorious consecrator of bread and wine. Disturber of wars and felonious paper burner! The fugitive has been known to carry the New Testament and should be approached with extreme caution. Disarmed and dangerous.

Disarmed and dangerous! Corny as that may sound, it expresses the real threat to injustice, violence and war. Disarmament is dangerous. Someone who is genuinely unarmed is ultimately the one who poses the greatest danger to disorder, immorality and violence. Violence can withstand violence, but it can be brought down by non-violence. Here are some examples.

In our own generation, we have the example of Christian de Cherge, one of the seven Cistercian monks who were kidnapped and later killed by Islamist extremists in Algeria in 1996. His journey, and that of the other monks who died with him, is chronicled in a number of books (including some of his own letters and diaries) and in the awarding-winning film, “Of Gods and Men.” Living within a small community of nine monks in a remote Muslim village in Northern Algeria, Christian and his community were much loved by that Muslim community and, being French citizens and enjoying the protection of that citizenship, their presence constituted a certain protection for the villagers against Islamic terrorists. Alas, the situation was not to last.

On Christmas Eve, 1995, they received a first visit from the terrorists with the clear warning that they had best leave before they would become its victims. Both the French and the Algerian governments offered them armed protection. Christian, acting alone at first, against the majority voice in his own community, categorically refused armed protection. Instead, his prayer became this: In face of this violence, disarm us, Lord. His response to the threat was complete disarmament. Eventually, his entire community joined him in that stance.

Six months later they were kidnapped and killed, but the triumph was theirs. Their witness of fidelity was the singular most powerful gift they could have given to the poor and vulnerable villagers whom they sought to protect, and their moral witness to the world will nurture generations to come, long after this particular genre of terrorism has had its day. Christian de Cherge and his community were disarmed and dangerous. There are innumerable similar examples of other persons who were disarmed and dangerous. Rosa Parks, disarmed and seemingly powerless against the racist laws at the time, was one of the pivotal figures in ending racial segregation in the United States, as was Martin Luther King. The list of dangerous unarmed persons is endless: Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, Oscar Romero, Franz Jagerstatter, Dorothy Stang, Daniel Berrigan, Elizabeth McAlister, Michael Rodrigo, Stan Rother and Jim Wallis, among others. Not least, of course, Jesus.

Jesus was disarmed and so dangerous that the authorities of his time found it necessary to kill him. His complete non-violence constituted the ultimate threat to their established order. Notice how both the civil and religious authorities at the time did not so much fear an armed murderer as they feared an unarmed Jesus … Release for us, Barabbas! We prefer to deal with an armed murderer than with an unarmed man professing non-violence and telling people to turn the other cheek! Give them credit for being astute. Unconsciously, they recognized the real threat, someone who is unarmed, non-violent and turning the other cheek.

However, “turning the other cheek” must be properly understood. It is not a passive, submissive thing. The opposite. In giving this counsel, Jesus specifies that it be the right cheek. Why this seemingly odd specification? Because he is referring to a culturally-sanctioned practice at the time where a superior could ritually slap an inferior on the cheek with the intention not so much of inflicting physical pain as to let the other person know his or her place – I am your superior, know your place! The slap was administered with the back of the right hand, facing the other person, and thus would land on the other person’s right cheek. Now, in that posture, its true violence would remain mostly hidden because it would look clean, aesthetic, and as something culturally accepted.

However, if one were to turn the other cheek, the left one, the violence would be exposed. How? First, because now the slap would land awkwardly and look violent; second, the person receiving it would be sending a clear signal. The change in posture would not only expose the violence but it would also be saying, you can still slap me, but not as a superior to an inferior; the old order is over.

Disarmed and dangerous. To carry no weapon except moral integrity is the ultimate threat to all that is not right.

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