IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
There’s a huge difference between being bright and being wise, between brilliance and wisdom. We can be highly intelligent, but not very wise. Ideally, of course, we should strive to be both, but that isn’t always the case, particularly today.

We’re living in a culture that rewards brilliance above wisdom and within which we pride ourselves first of all in being brighter than each other. Who has the highest degree? Who went to the most elite university? Who’s the most entrepreneurial? Who’s the most popular? Who’s the cleverest scientist, researcher, writer, journalist, television personality, or wit at the office or family table? Who’s the most brilliant? We never ask: Who’s the wisest? Today intelligence is valued far above wisdom and that’s not always good. We’re a highly informed and intelligent people, but our compassion is not nearly on par with our brilliance. We’re bright, but not wise.

What’s the difference between intelligence and wisdom? Wisdom is intelligence that’s colored by understanding (which, parsed to its root, means infused with empathy). In end, what makes for wisdom is intelligence informed by empathy, intelligence that’s grasps with sympathy the complexity of others and the world, and this has implications.

Learning, to be truly helpful, must be matched by an equal growth in empathy. When this isn’t happening, then growth in intelligence is invariably be one-sided and, while perhaps providing something for the community, will always lack the kind of understanding that can help bind the community together and help us better understand ourselves and our world. When intelligence is not informed by empathy, what it produces will generally not contribute to the common good. Without a concomitant empathy, intelligence invariably becomes arrogant and condescending. True learning, on the other hand, is humble, self-effacing and empathic. When we develop ourselves intellectually, without sufficient empathy, our talents invariably become causes for envy rather than gifts for community.

Ironically, at the end of the day, intelligence not sufficiently informed by empathy will not be very bright, but instead will be an arrested intelligence wherein its fault will not be in what it has learned (for learning itself is good) but in where its learning stopped. It will suffer from a hazard aptly named by Alexander Pope, where “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” where we have read one book too many but one book too few!

One might object here and make a plea for science and scientific objectivity. Isn’t empirical science the product of a pure intellectual pursuit which refuses to be colored by anything outside itself? Isn’t the ideal of all learning to be purely objective, to not have a bias of any sort? Where does empathy play a role in pure research? Doesn’t an eye turned towards empathy fudge pure objectivity?

Pure objectivity doesn’t exist, in science or anywhere else. Science today accepts that it can never be purely objective. All measurement has its own agenda, its own angle, and cannot help but interfere (however infinitesimally perhaps) with what it measures. Everyone and everything, including science, has a bias (euphemistically, a pre-ontology). Thus, since all learning necessarily begins with an angle, a bias, pre-ontology, the question is not: How can I be purely objective?” But rather: What serves us best as an angle from which to learn? The answer is empathy. Empathy turns intelligence into wisdom and wisdom turns learning into something that more properly serves community.

However empathy is not to be confused with sentimentality or naiveté, as is sometimes the case.
Sentimentality and naiveté see a fault within intellectuality itself, seeing learning itself as the problem. But learning is never the problem. One-sided learning is the problem, namely, learning that isn’t sufficiently informed by empathy, which seeks knowledge without understanding.

I teach graduate students who are mainly preparing for ministry within their churches and so, for them, graduate learning is, by definition, meant to be more than just scoring high marks, graduating with honor, being informed and educated, or even just satisfying their own intellectual curiosities and questions. By their very vocation, they are striving for wisdom more than for mere intelligence. But even they, like most everyone else in our culture, struggle to not be one-sided in their learning, to have their studies bring them as much compassion as knowledge. We all struggle with this. It’s hard to resist a temptation that’s as endemic in our culture as certain bacteria are in our waters, that is, the temptation to be clever and bright, more informed than everyone else, no matter if we aren’t very compassionate persons afterwards.
And so this column is a plea, not a criticism: To all of us, whether we’re doing formal studies; whether we’re trying to learn the newest information technology; whether we’re trying to keep ourselves informed socially and politically; whether we’re writing articles, books, or blogs; whether we’re taking training for a job; or whether we’re just mustering material for an argument at our family table or workplace, remember: It’s not good merely to be smart, we must also be compassionate.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Guest Column
By Melvin Arrington
Dear incoming Freshmen,
A popular 1960s TV series told viewers, “You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.” These words could well apply to you as you head off to college in a few weeks. Get ready; your horizons are about to expand exponentially and you’ll soon discover that the world is much bigger than you think.
A large number of your class will be leaving home and parental supervision for the first time. From now on, you’ll make your own decisions. Unfortunately, many choose to stop attending religious services during their college years. The latest surveys show that almost one in four Americans claims no religious affiliation; these are the so-called “nones.” College freshmen, don’t become one of these statistics.
The rise of the nones can be blamed, at least partially, on relativism, which now holds sway in our modern secular, materialistic culture. Truth has come to mean whatever you want it to mean, and the determination of right and wrong is largely a matter of personal opinion. When there’s “your truth” and “my truth,” then we have no truth. But you’ve been taught the difference between right and wrong. Remember what our Lord proclaimed in John’s Gospel: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
No matter what some of your professors and fellow students may tell you, faith and science are not enemies. The notion that there is a war going on between science and religion is nothing more than a modern myth. God is truth, and the Catholic Church encourages the pursuit of truth, wherever it may be found.
After all, it was the Catholic Church that fostered and developed the scientific method and founded the university system. Consider these important figures from the history of science: the 13th century English philosopher and Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, one of the earliest proponents of empiricism and experimental science; the 16th century astronomer and Catholic cleric, Nicolaus Copernicus, famous for overthrowing the age-old geocentric theory of Ptolemy by proving that the earth orbits the sun; and the 19th century Augustinian friar, Gregor Mendel, known as the father of modern genetics. And let’s not forget Father Georges Lemaitre, the twentieth-century mathematician and astronomer who formulated the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe! Bam! Don’t let them tell you the Church is anti-science. Remember, the Catholic Church formed the basis for Western civilization and was, in large measure, responsible for its development over the centuries.
College campuses used to be citadels of learning, somewhat isolated from the problems of the outside world. However, in recent decades the “real world” has invaded our campuses resulting in drug abuse epidemics, sexual assaults, hate speech and racially motivated violence and a host of other evils. For a variety of socio-political, cultural and economic reasons college campuses are no longer safe zones. Choose wisely when making new friends. You’re going to need a strong support group. Here’s my recommendation: check out some of the Catholic Campus Ministry activities at your school.
You will hear a lot of talk of political correctness and left/right politics, but don’t let yourself be distracted by these discussions. Left and right are false categories when it comes to questions of faith. If we truly love those in need, we’ll figure out the best methods for serving them and not worry about whether others label us liberal or conservative.
You already know the importance of acquiring knowledge, but the real goal is to attain wisdom. As you think through the tough issue of the day, you will develop what the academic world calls critical thinking skills, but don’t forget about the role of faith in your life. If your mind is going to soar upward, it’s going to need both wings – reason and faith – in order to arrive at the truth. A bird can’t fly with just one wing.
Ecclesiastes tells us there’s nothing new under the sun. It’s all been thought, said and done before, but it may be new to you. If you haven’t already begun to explore the big questions, now that you are in college you should begin to do so in earnest. I’m referring to questions such as: Who am I? Where do I come from and where am I going? Does human life have a meaning and purpose? Why am I here? How am I supposed to live? What happens when I die? What ultimately matters? And the big one that always comes up as a challenge to Christians – Why does an omnipotent and benevolent God allow bad things to happen to good people?
Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once acknowledged that it’s not easy for Catholics to explain why God permits evil and suffering, but at the same time he boldly asserted that it’s impossible for an atheist to explain the existence of goodness and love in our world. You simply can’t have love without God, because God is love.
Your college experience should turn out to be some of the best years of your lives. It’s a time to discover things you didn’t know about yourself and the world we live in today. It’s an opportunity to transition to independent living and meet people from different backgrounds. You will form life-long friendships over the next four years or so, and you may even meet your future spouse. Establish a proper balance between studies and social activities, be safe, and stay focused on what’s really important in life. Always remember your family loves you and, more importantly, God loves you.
P.S. And be sure to go to Mass.

(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages for the University of Mississippi and a member of Oxford St. John Parish.)

Reflections on Life
By Berta Mexidor
“ For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8: 2)
Faith in God and permanent prayer are the palliative with which thousands of undocumented immigrants maintain for years a life outside immigration law. “But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid.” (Galatians 2:17)
When a person decides to become an illegal immigrant, most of the time he or she has weighed the great dilemma and consequences of its actions. Many immigrants come to the United States with the certainty of finding laws much more humane and reasonable than those of his country of origin. “And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.” (Romans 5:20) In a joint statement, the bishops of Mississippi stressed that the role of the church at this time is “to provide comfort, material assistance and strength to separated children, parents and families and to those traumatized.”
In the raids conducted, people arrested, were found in their places of employment. Many did not have legal documents to work or remain in the United States. Some people were quickly released to continue with their lives, yet others were released with electronic bracelets, while waiting for a court appearance. Some of those detained will choose to return to their home countries voluntarily. Others, depending on their legal situation, will be deported or prosecuted criminally, while their relatives can only hold on to the divine and man’s laws.
In the bishops joint statement, they point out “to say that immigration reform is a contentious and complex topic would be an understatement.” Millions of people want to come to the United States for the humanization of their laws, contributing to a healthier life for every citizen, economic and personally. Many must wait for years. Thousands are waiting around the world, trusting the system, others resign themselves to stay in their countries and cast away the dream of living in America, the” promised land,” the “American dream.”
There are others who, in a situation of abuse, poverty and despair, cannot wait or do not have the financial means or education and decide to cross the border by risking their lives and that of their children. The vast majority subject their children to a situation of hopeful illegality when they bring them across the border. Others are procreated here in the States and are in fact American citizens. Their parents raising them with the hope of a better life and a possible immigration solution for their family members.
Generally, this illegality is not planned, therefore, there is no contingency plan present. There is no talk of hidden pain before children, some of whom grow up without knowing all the legal implications of the complex situation of their parents and relatives are going through.
Unfortunately, some immigrants take advantage of the laws and commit deceptive acts. These negatively affect American society and all immigrants.
The expectations of undocumented immigrants are to work and to live in a much healthier society than they left behind. None want to be captured, but each of them knows that capture is a possibility of the situation in which they find themselves. No person is fully prepared to face the authorities and much less to see their children suffer throughout the process.
The vast majority of immigrants are simple, fervent Christians, good parents and family people who aspire for a better life for their descendants. Some voices try to vilify the immigrant or consider them a victim. Immigrants are neither one nor the other. They are just people. When they break the law, it is only as a last resource for family improvement. With much humility, many are aware of the transgression, but the human misfortune in which they live drives them into an act of courage with civil or criminal consequences.
Many immigrants are Catholics much like you. The church is the center of understanding, spiritual help and the place to share experiences with people in the same situation or with those who share the same faith. They ask God for forgiveness for their sins and mercy as a reward under the received promise of “ But go ye and learn what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice: for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13).

(Berta Mexidor is Mississippi Catholic contributor, manages content for Mississippi Católico. Native of Cuba, in the U.S. for 18 years and hold a master’s degree in political sciences.)

IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH

By Father Aaron Williams
Since being ordained last year, one thing I have noticed is the consistent negative reaction people will give to the use of incense at Mass. I think it is safe to say most people have no opinion, but those that do make sure you know it! This past month I have been living north of Chicago at the Liturgical Institute in order to spend time totally devoted to research and writing my master’s thesis. During this time away from the parish, I decided on Sundays to go and concelebrate the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom at a local Byzantine Catholic Church.
Most people in Mississippi have never experienced a non-Roman Catholic liturgical rite, but one feature of the Eastern rites is their consistent use of incense. It is used in every liturgy — and in large amounts. I’d leave the church every Sunday and my vestments would smell of incense well into the rest of the week.
Incense has been part of the worship of God from the earliest time there was a prescribed and formal way to worship God. In the book of Exodus, God not only commands Moses to use incense in worship, but He even goes on at length as how this incense is to be made (Exodus 30:34-38). Incense is one of the only elements from Old Testament worship which remained entirely unchanged in Catholic worship all through the centuries. It is spoken of in the psalms, “Let my prayer arise like incense, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice!” (Psalm 141:2).
Traditionally, incense has been understood in two ways. Firstly, it is a literal sacrifice. Incense is precious and usually a bit expensive. And, once you burn it the incense is gone. We totally give it over to God as a complete offering to Him. It may seem small, but we can think about all the small things we do for loved ones that may to others seem useless: buying fresh flowers or sending greeting cards. We do this in the liturgy through incense, real wax candles and freshly cut flowers. These are small offerings of our heart.
But, incense is also such an effective sign. It fills the space — evoking the image of the dark cloud which filled the Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem at its dedication. “When the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10-11). And, as mentioned in the psalm above, it gives a visualization to us of our prayers rising up to heaven — which is moving to consider especially in high points like the Offertory of the Mass when we should already be pouring forth all the prayers we want to bring to the Mass or at the commendation of a funeral Mass when the community pours out prayers for the deceased.
Incense is always part of the solemn liturgy. Before the reform of the liturgy in 1969 it was required in all high Masses — which was any Mass in which texts of the Mass were sung. The rubrics of the current Missal are very clear that incense is still a part of the solemn liturgy, though it expounds upon that by saying that it can be used gradually and need not be used in a sort of all-or-nothing manner from Mass to Mass. So, how should it be used today?
For most parishes in our area, incense comes out one day a year: Easter and only at the Easter vigil. Some parishes might use it for the really big feast days. But, thinking about all that incense means and how many centuries it has been used in the worship of God, surely we can find a way to use it on more than one occasion a year?
In other places, including many of the parishes I visited in New Orleans while in seminary, incense is used at one Mass every Sunday—the main Mass with the choir. I find this a good practice since, on one hand it ensures that this sacred sign is richly used in a parish, while also giving people an idea of what to expect from week to week.
You start to get used to the idea of the 10:30 a.m. Mass, for example, being the Mass with all the singing and incense. For the people that doesn’t work for, they always know the other Masses are ‘safe’.
One great benefit to regularly using incense is the interest this attracts among the altar servers. A lot of parishes find it difficult to get a large number of regular altar servers. I am of the mind that one reason this is an issue is because we don’t give servers much to do over than carrying things around. We all know kids—especially young boys—love the opportunity for a fire. Training kids how to use and prepare the incense (and maybe how to use a fire extinguisher as well) gives them a sense of responsibility and importance, while also adding a beautiful element from our Catholic tradition to your parish’s worship.

(Father Aaron Williams is the parochial vicar at Greenville St. Joseph Parish and serves as the liaison to seminarians for the Office of Vocations.)

Kneading faith
By Fran Lavelle
I have never been drawn into a papal document to the degree Pope Francis’ exhortation to young people, Christus Vivit, has captured my attention and my heart. As we prepare to return to our classrooms, religious education programs, RCIA meetings, adult faith formation opportunities, campus ministries and youth programs it is important that we ask some serious questions about how we are being challenged in our call. The Church does not do succession planning very well and, therefore, we have folks putting time in in ministry roles well beyond their vigor. Before you accuse me of being indifferent and an ageist, hear me out.

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and she remarked that we can serve many, many years in ministry or we can serve one year in ministry several times over. Ministry is organic and as we grow and change so too our ministry must be able to grow and change. Bishop Kopacz often reminds us that we never step into the same river twice. We can step in at the exact same spot, but the water is always new, the sediment and rocks have shifted, even the temperature of the water is different. I like that image, especially for formational ministry. The room may be the same as last year, the textbook, schedule and lesson plans too, but you are different, your students are different.

When we become complacent, we tend to pull the template out from “last year” and proceed like nothing has changed. When we allow this to happen, our eyes are closed to the present reality. Our ears cannot hear the voices of those we are called to serve. We lose our mojo. Because really, deep down inside, we all know that we never step into the same river twice. A glance back, especially for those of us who have been at it for a while, can reveal how very much things have changed. I’m not suggesting that Church elders give up their call to ministry; rather, we need to check to see if our energy, passion and openness to change is still there in our current role. Pope Francis would argue that young people need mentors of all ages who are capable of accompaniment, intentional listening and are relational. If that time has passed for us, there are still many ways we can serve in ministry. It is about our time aligning with God’s time.When we are open to knowing when that dynamic of time is off kilter doors will open to new opportunities.

In paragraph 191 of Christus Vivit, Pope Francis states, “The world has never benefitted, nor will it ever benefit, from a rupture between generations. That is the siren song of a future without roots and origins. It is the lie that would have you believe that only what is new is good and beautiful. When intergenerational relationships exist, a collective memory is present in communities, as each generation takes up the teachings of its predecessors and in turn bequeaths a legacy to its successors. In this way, they provide frames of reference for firmly establishing a new society. As the old saying goes: ‘If the young had knowledge and the old strength, there would be nothing they could not accomplish.’”

We need the wisdom of our elders as much as we need energy of young people. We need to be able to hear new ideas as much as we need the solid foundation of the kerygma.

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 20 year anniversary with the Diocese of Jackson. It gave me the opportunity to look back as I look forward to year twenty-one. Twenty years of ministry. No two years have been the same. No two days have been alike. I recognize that even in walking with the same student for four or five years, each year was different. Hopefully, we both grew in wisdom, understanding and love. It’s been five years since I left campus ministry to take on my current role in formational ministries for the diocese. I had to let go of one thing I knew I loved to be able to embrace something new.

Following God’s call to ministry for the diocese has had many challenges; but it is also filled with much joy. The day will come that I need to turn this ministry over to someone else. We talk about intentional disciples. What we need to talk about is authentic disciples who exercise intentional ministry. This includes succession planning. The torch gets passed. Someone else picks up where we left off. Another generation of leadership takes the helm. All of it done intentionally.

As we begin another academic year, I pray for great success in your ministry. Please know I am an email or phone call away if you ever need anything.

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

IN EXILE

By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
What does it mean to “be born again, to “be born from above?” If you’re an Evangelical or Baptist, you’ve probably already answered that for yourself. However, if you’re a Roman Catholic or a mainline Protestant then the phrase probably isn’t a normal part of your spiritual vocabulary and, indeed, might connote for you a biblical fundamentalism which confuses you.
What does it mean to “be born again?” The expression appears in John’s Gospel in a conversation Jesus has with a man named, Nicodemus. Jesus tells him that he “must be born again from above.” Nicodemus takes this literally and protests that it’s impossible for a grown man to re-enter his mother’s womb to be born a second time. So, Jesus recasts the phrase metaphorically, telling Nicodemus that one’s second birth, unlike the first, is not from the flesh, but “from water and the Spirit.” Well … that doesn’t clarify things much for Nicodemus, or for us. What does it mean to be born again from above?
Perhaps there are as many answers to that as there are people in the world. Spiritual birth, unlike physical birth, doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. I have Evangelical friends who share that for them this refers to a particularly powerful affective moment within their lives when, like Mary Magdala in the Garden with Jesus on Easter Sunday, they had a deep personal encounter with Jesus that indelibly affirmed his intimate love for them. In that moment, in their words, “they met Jesus Christ” and “were born again,” even though from their very childhood they had always known about Jesus Christ and been Christians.
Most Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants do not identify “knowing Jesus Christ” with one such personal affective experience. But then they’re left wondering what Jesus meant exactly when he challenges us “to be born again, from above.”
A priest that I know shares this story regarding his understanding of this. His mother, widowed sometime before his ordination, lived in the same parish where he had been assigned to minister. It was a mixed blessing, nice to see her every day in church but she, widowed and alone, began to lean pretty heavily upon him in terms of wanting his time and he, the dutiful son, now had to spend all his free time with his mother, taking her out for meals, taking her for drives and being her one vital contact with the world outside the narrow confines of the seniors’ home within which she lived. During their time together she reminisced a lot and not infrequently complained about being alone and lonely. But one day, on a drive with her, after a period of silence, she said something that surprised him and caught his deeper attention: “I’ve given up on fear!” she said. “I’m no longer afraid of anything. I’ve spent my whole life living in fear. But now, I’ve given up on it because I’ve nothing to lose! I’ve already lost everything, my husband, my youthful body, my health, my place in the world and much of my pride and dignity. Now I’m free! I’m no longer afraid!”
Her son, who had only been half-listening to her for a long time, now began to listen. He began to spend longer hours with her, recognizing that she had something important to teach him. After a couple of more years, she died. But, by then, she had been able to impart to her son some things that helped him understand his life more deeply. “My mother gave me birth twice; once from below, and once from above,” he says. He now understands something that Nicodemus couldn’t quite grasp.
We all, no doubt, have our own stories.
And what do the biblical scholars teach about this? The Synoptic Gospels, scholars say, tell us that we can only enter the kingdom of God if we become like little children, meaning that we must, in our very way of living, acknowledge our dependence upon God and others. We are not self-sufficient and that means truly recognizing and living out our human dependence upon the gratuitous providence of God. To do that, is to be born from above.
John’s Gospel adds something to this. Raymond E. Brown, commenting on John’s Gospel, puts it this way: To be born again from above means we must, at some point in our lives, come to understand that our life comes from beyond this world, from a place and source beyond out mother’s womb and that deeper life and deeper meaning lie there. And so, we must have two births, one that gives us biological life (births us into this world) and another that gives us eschatological life (births us into the world of faith, soul, love and spirit). And sometimes, as was the case with my friend, it can be your own birthmother who does the major midwifing in that second birth.
Nicodemus couldn’t quite get past his instinctual empiricism. In the end, he didn’t get it. Do we?

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Simone Weil once commented that it’s not enough today to be merely a saint; rather “we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment.”
She’s surely right on that second premise; we need saints whose virtues speak to the times.
What kind of saint is needed today? Someone who can show us how we can actually forgive an enemy? Someone who can help us come together across the bitter divide within our communities and churches? Someone who can show us how to reach out to the poor? Someone who can teach us how to actually pray? Someone who can show us how to find “Sabbath” inside the bombardment of ten thousand television channels, a million blogs and a billion tweets? Someone who can show us how to sustain our childhood faith amidst the sophistication, complexity and agnosticism of our adult lives? Someone who, like Jesus, can go into singles’ bars and not sin? Someone who radiates a full-bodied humanity, even as he or she is, by faith, set apart? Someone who’s a mystic, but with a robust sense of humor? Someone who can be both chaste and healthily sexual at the same time?
The list could go on. We’re in pioneer territory. The saints of old didn’t face our issues. They had their own demons to conquer and aren’t rolling over in their graves, shaking their fingers in disgust at us in our struggles and infidelities. They know the struggle, know that ours is new territory with new demons to conquer and new virtues asked for. The saints of old remain, of course, as essential templates of Christian discipleship, living gospels, but they walked in different times.
So what kind of saints do we need today?
We need saints who can honor the goodness of the world, even as they honor God. We need women and men who can show us how to walk with a living faith inside a culture which believes that world here is enough and that the issues of God and the next life are peripheral. We need saints who can walk with a steady, adult faith in the face of the world’s sophistication, its pathological restlessness, its over-stimulated grandiosity, its numbing distractions and its overpowering temptations. We need saints who can empathize with those who have drifted away from the church, even as they themselves, without compromise, hold their own moral and religious ground. We need young saints who can romantically re-enflame the religious imagination of the world, as once did Francis and Clare. And we need old saints, who have walked the gamut and can show us how to meet all the challenges of today and yet retain our childhood faith.
As well, we need what Sarah Coakley calls “erotic saints,” women and men who can bring chastity and eros together in a way that speaks of the importance of both. We need saints who can model for us the goodness of sexuality, who can delight in its human joys and honor its God-given place within the spiritual journey, even as they never denigrate it by setting it against spirituality or cheapen it by making it simply another form of recreation.
Then too we need saints today who can, with compassion, help us to see our blind complicity with systems of all kinds which victimize the vulnerable in order to safeguard our own comfort, security and historical privilege. We need saints who can speak prophetically for the poor, for the environment, for women, for refugees, for those with inadequate access to medical care and education and for all who are stigmatized because of race, color or creed. We need saints, lonely prophets, who can stand as unanimity-minus one, who can wage peace and who can point our eyes to a reality beyond our own shortsightedness.
And these saints need not be formally canonized; their lives need simply be lamps for our eyes and leaven for our lives. I don’t know who your present-day saints are, but I find have found mine among a very wide range of persons, old, young, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, liberal, conservative, religious, lay, clerical, secular, faith-filled and agnostic. Full disclosure, the names I mention here are not persons whose lives I know in any detail. Mostly, I know what they’ve written, but their writings are a lamp which lights my path.
Among those of my own generation, I’m indebted to are Raymond E. Brown, Charles Taylor, Daniel Berrigan, Jean Vanier, Mary Jo Leddy, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Keating, Jim Wallis, Richard Rohr, Elizabeth Johnson, Parker Palmer, Barbara Brown Taylor, Wendy Wright, Gerhard Lohfink, Kathleen Dowling Singh, Jim Forest, John Shea, James Hillman, Thomas Moore and Marilynne Robinson.
Among the younger voices whose lives and writings speak as well to a generation younger than mine, I would mention Shane Claiborne, Rachel Held Evans, James Martin, Kerry Weber, Trevor Herriot, Macy Halford, Robert Barron, Bryan Stevenson, Robert Ellsberg, Bieke Vandekerckhove and Annie Riggs.
Maybe these aren’t your saints, fair enough. So lean on those who help light your path.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

ON ORDINARY TIMES
By Lucia A. Silecchia

Late July brings one of my favorite celebrations in the Church year: the July 26 Memorial of Saints Ann and Joachim, the parents of Mary, the Mother of God.

I had some early biases toward this feast. I grew up in a New York parish named for St. Ann. My parents gave me that moniker for my middle name when I was baptized and I took it again when I was confirmed. My family always celebrated our patron saints’ feast days and I was competitively (but uncharitably) pleased that I had two celebrations rather than one because I was the only one of my siblings to be baptized with a middle name.

However, what I liked the most about this celebration was the thought that Christ – God Himself – had grandparents. I remember my own grandparents with much love and joy. These elders of my family were my roots, my heritage and a cherished center of my early life.

Most pictures I see of St. Ann (and the oft-neglected St. Joachim) show her, or them, in their role as parents to Mary. They are often depicted teaching Mary to read, celebrating her presentation or witnessing her wedding. Occasionally, they are added to portraits of the Holy Family, gazing with love and awe from the corner of a painting of their daughter and her family.

Yet, I also like to think of them as the grandparents of God. I wonder whether, in that extraordinary role, they experienced any ordinary times.

When Mary and Joseph were planning to marry, did her parents eagerly anticipate becoming grandparents, as do so many parents-of-the-bride? When Mary told them of the Annunciation, how much did they understand? Was their joy about their grandson mixed with fear? Did they worry, as parents do, when their pregnant daughter traveled to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the “hill country of Judea” or accompany Joseph to Bethlehem while carrying their grandson in her womb? Did they visit their infant grandson at His birth or His presentation and give their daughter, a new mother, advice on caring for Him? Did they ever watch Him play as a toddler and hear His first words or see His first steps? Did they ever make a special food He liked as a treat or tuck Him into bed at night? In those “hidden” years of Christ’s youth, did they watch Him grow in strength and knowledge? Did they ever have the chance to tell Him childhood stories of His mother’s life as a young girl? Did they speak of Him to their friends and pray for Him when they worshipped at the temple?

Were they still living when their daughter feared for her lost 12-year old and rejoiced when He was found? Was their grandson their final thought and last joy when, after their holy lives, they closed their eyes on this world? I will never know. But I do know the importance of grandparents. As parents to our parents, they shape the lives of those who most shape our own. They are so often the link to a distant time, a foreign land and a different life. They are the elders who guard the heritage of a family and who, so often, hold it together in difficult times. When Pope Francis visited Philadelphia in 2015, he said, “Grandparents are a family’s memory. They are the ones who gave us the faith, they passed the faith on to us.”

I am so grateful for the inheritance of faith and memories I received from my own grandparents. I am also so grateful that in the extraordinary way in which Christ dwelt among us, he had the gift of grandparents – one of the greatest blessings of ordinary times.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor Law 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.)

FROM THE HERMITAGE
By Sister alies therese
Many of you will be going on retreat, vacation or an adventure this summer and might wonder how to overcome being overwhelmed . . . especially if your normal routine includes a lot of silence. Or it might be the other way around . . . what to do with too much silence?
Have you ever considered artistically representing your Lectio Divina, spiritual reading or even your prayer?
Take some reflection time and pull out a sketchbook, maybe some markers and a good permanent micro-fine pen. Or maybe you’d prefer watercolors or pencils . . . whatever works for you. Even the pasting of pictures or words from magazines; gluing and taping that ‘psalm’ or reading into a new format. The very fact that you have deepened your focus, away from yourself and away from external noise, supports the silence within and the joy that follows.
As a doodler/artist I find that this discipline frees my heart. I love color. I love to explore lines this way and that way, much like the life we live, both in the known and unknown. For many, many years, I have done at least one page every day as a part of my first morning prayer. Over the years this has taken the form of different sizes, colors, places, styles of handwriting and printing . . . even becoming a lefty after breaking my shoulder! I ask myself one quick question while reflecting: what might this look like? . . . and then I proceed to be surprised. Sometimes the page is my all-time favorite. Other times it seems like random scribbles and not very appealing artistically (a bit like life). Other times I discover the wealth of simplicity in the art and I am full of a secret laughter.
You probably know this: there is the silence of solitude and that it is an ancient tradition. One can be silent, not just not speaking, but actually filled with silence, in a crowded room, among many folks bustling about, in the car going here or there . . . in the presence of great natural beauty. No, not always external silence, but the discipline of inner silence carved out over years of practice so that when one is in unfamiliar or challenging situation, silence, the resting place, can be entered into. Laughter often emerges and we won’t miss God’s voice.
Most people do not live in solitude. Some people try to convince themselves they are living such a life when they are really living an ego-filled life that distorts both silence and solitude. A silence or solitude turned in upon itself is closed. God is about openness!
“Despite their dullness and apathy,” the Carthusians tell us, “The children of the promise paid heed to Moses and set out for the desert of Sinai. For 40 years, obedience kept them marching through the desert toward a promise land whose blessings remained elusive.” As will yours, I suspect. If we avoid the grumbling and offer that moment of suffering, so that our hearts might be transformed. What might that look like?
When you meet your ‘false self’ as you journey, or find disgust and resentments, well, these are wonderful to add to your book of sketches . . . as if they were snapshots of a moment where everything is crushed and not full of peace or harmony. Though our hearts are challenged to shout and scream, to weep and moan. We have the opportunity to enter ever more deeply and explore the truth of waiting. Waiting for God to be our silence, for God to be our solitude? No! We enter into God’s silence and God’s solitude, so that we might be nourished and set free. It is not about us. This is always the great and blest discovery . . . it really is all about God.
Also, from the Carthusian Miscellany, The Wound of Love, we find this: “True solitude . . . must trace its way back to its source. It is not obedience to an external law, nor a flight from others, nor a world closed in upon itself, but an encounter with the living God. Solitude is a gratuitous gift, destined to be received in all humility; it is not our own creation, nor that of anyone else. It does not consist in doing anything, nor in trying to become somebody: it is sharing in the solitude of God.”
Don’t forget that notebook when you go visit granny or find yourself alone on a mountain. Explore the riches of your inner artist and allow yourself the pleasure of discovery. Remember you never have to show anyone, nor speak of the adventure. What God is inviting you into is a wonderful feast of relationship, color and design, that lights up your deepening heart where God, the best artist of all, dwells!

(Sister alies therese is a vowed Catholic solitary who lives an eremitical life. Her days are formed around prayer, art and writing. She lives and writes in Mississippi.)