Solemnity of the Mother of God

And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

Luke 2:19

Reflecting in Her Heart

The first day of this New Year finds me in a new way of life; a way of life totally unanticipated at the beginning of 2015. I am no longer a Redemptoristine nun. I no longer live in a monastery pursuing the daily round of prayer, work and recreation. I can no longer depend on the work of others to keep life spinning. It is hard, at times, to know who I am now. (A previous post offers some background to this profound change.)

To append this change to the list of events to which I often refer as "my checkered past" makes me shake my head in disbelief. Italian-American Brooklyn boomer, daughter and sister, college girl, wife, mother, divorcee, single mom to three sons, teacher, graduate student, librarian, parish and community volunteer, contemplative nun, grandmother, and at the age of 70 a lay person once again. It really makes me wonder.

Running over the list in my mind I most often tend to dwell on how much I messed up; all the times and places in which I failed; all the people I let down and did not love well; and all the times I imagine being a disappointment to God. I see all the broken places.

But I have been urged to turn away from notions of brokenness and rather to ponder the continuity of spirit (with an upper case 's' as well as lower) which undergirds the meandering events and occupations of my life. 

The presence of God was always there; the guidance of the Spirit; desire for the Holy One; and the "Hound of Heaven" unrelenting in pursuit of a soul often not knowing where it was headed.

Today's Gospel is a simple one concerning the shepherds coming to see Jesus and praise Him and Mary's reaction to it all. Luke says, "Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Another translation offered, "Mary wondered at these things, and pondered them in her heart." I wonder and I ponder. "Wonder" suggests awe at the mysterious ways of God and "ponder" speaks of the effort to plumb all these things for depth of meaning.

I have said that I am currently exploring a new contemplative path, a way of living contemplatively in the world as a lay person. In this context my small but very comfortable apartment may be considered my hermitage. I do relish my time here alone. But I am too much of an extrovert to ever dignify myself with the title of hermit. Rather I have returned to an image from the writings of Maria Celeste Crostarosa, foundress of the Redemptoristine Nuns. One collection of her writings is entitled "Il Giardinetto", or "The Little Garden."

But this is no ordinary garden. She suggests that a more precise meaning is this; that for God the 'giardinetto' is the dear enclosed garden in which God and the soul enjoy each other. My little place can be this enclosed garden. It has all the verdant, cool, shady loveliness and protection of a childhood remembrance; the lush grape arbor seriously cultivated by the old Italian immigrant gentleman who lived next door.  

So as Mary kept, wondered, reflected and pondered in her heart the wondrous things that had taken place in her short life, I do the same but with a longer list unrolled over a whole life time and still unfurling to reveal its mysteries. In daily meditation I struggle to center myself, to enter the precious enclosed garden and ponder the meaning.

A Great Shift

It is necessary to always fly under true colors.  So I share with followers of this blog the message below which was sent to family and friends two months ago.

November, 2015

Dear Friends,​ 

​With a heavy but hopeful heart I am sending word of a change of address both in formal title and place of residence. As of Sunday, November 8, I am no longer a member of the Redemptoristine community now located in Beacon, NY.

 My decision to withdraw from vowed contemplative life has been a long time in coming and was not finally arrived at without a great deal of pain and prayer. Many of you are aware that much has happened in the life of the Redemptoristine Nuns of New York and in my personal life in the last few years. Beginning in 2012 the community was forced to leave its monastery, endured a seemingly endless search for a new home and a period of temporary housing, and finally, by the grace of a last minute generous invitation from the Carmelite community in Beacon, found a new home. During these years my father died, my mother's dementia required her placement in a nursing home, and her younger brother became my responsibility. After his death there were the usual financial matters calling for attention. I report all of this not as reason for my departure from the community but as context for the stress and the process.

 Old difficulties combined with the struggles of changes within the community as well as the new living situation were taking their toll in body, mind and spirit. In the past I had thought I was too old to make such a change. I am now 70 years old. But in August I realized that it was the only healthy direction in which I could go. Because I love my sisters there was excruciating pain in the process of discernment. There is and will continue to be the experience of something dying. But there is also hope for resurrection. 

After a discouraging search for affordable and appropriate housing I was offered an apartment in subsidized senior housing about 10 minutes drive up the road from the original Redemptoristine monastery. Two of my sons live in Kingston about 15 minutes away. Each has a child and I cannot pretend that I am unhappy about having more occasions to see one year old Harrison and two year old Matilda. My oldest son lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two boys. All of my sons have been marvelously supportive and helpful to me. I could not have moved without their help. The Redemptoristines too have been very generous. Our many moves yielded an excess of furniture and I have been blessed in their donations to this new household.

 Please do pray for the community of Redemptoristines in Beacon and for me as I make this huge adjustment and on-going discernment of God's will for me in this time of disorientation. I am trying to discover a new contemplative path.

 With appreciation for you all and trusting in our loving God,

Hildegard

Reflection for Feast of St. Alphonsus

Medicine for All

The scripture readings for this solemnity honoring St. Alphonsus de Liguori are so fitting. From Isaiah; “… He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and release to prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…” And from The Gospel of Matthew; “…He saw the crowds; he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” These embody Alphonsus’ inspiration received during time of retreat in the rural hillside settlements beyond Naples. While one could fairly trip over priests on the streets of Naples no one came to the remote villages to minister to simple souls. This inspiration was to become the guide for Redemptorists, an anthem of service to the poor and most abandoned.

It is beyond me to understand how this inspiration morphed into a Redemptorist reputation some of us still remember,  those parish missions preaching hellfire and brimstone. However that may have come to be, today we can offer praise and thanksgiving to God for the fruits of post-Vatican II renewal in the Redemptorist Congregation and its return to preaching the true message of Alphonsus.

           Alphonsian spirituality had three legs, the crib, the cross and the Eucharist, each one supporting its preeminent platform – God’s supreme love. Each leg is the expression of that love; the crib of the Incarnation, the cross of the ultimate sacrifice and the Eucharist as the love gift that keeps on giving. Alphonsus spoke of God not as Lord or King or Father but rather as friend, brother, mother, spouse, and lover. His God, the God he begs you and I to love and trust as our intimate companion, is a God insanely in love with us. This is the God he called “Iddio Pazzo” the crazy God, the crazy God of love, who is insanely in love with us. He wrote, “Heaven for God is the human heart.”

But here is another thing that is hard to understand. This preacher of God’s love, this theologian who bucked the popular tide of rigorism and Jansenism, who opposed sterile legalism because, according to him such rigor was never the true teaching of the Church; this was a man who was plagued all his very long life of 91 years by a sometimes crippling scrupulosity. He ran through spiritual directors. The successful ones had to forbid him to even think of not celebrating Mass because he questioned his worthiness to do so. In the matter of his inspiration to create a new congregation to serve the most abandoned he went from one person to another with his self-doubt and uncertainty. Maria Celeste’s enthusiasm and sense of right direction for her own foundation and strong encouragement for his seems to have moved him at long last into decisive mode. 

All his life Alphonsus bore the weight of high expectations from both his father’s military bearing and his mother’s thorough piety. He never ceased to be hard on himself. He even made private vows never to waste time and to persevere in his vocation. The antidote for his scrupulosity was meditation on the lover God, Iddio Pazzo, who expressed infinite love in the mystery of the Incarnation, the sacrifice of the Cross and gift of the Eucharist.  Alphonsus allowed himself to bathe in the warm waters of that meditation. And it would seem that part of his treatment was to turn his whole life into an effort to communicate that love to the world. The antidote for his addiction became a gift to be poured out for others; not merely in the form of good deeds but in the effort to guide people into their own acceptance of and growing relationship with the God who is pure love.

I ask myself, “Can I, like Alphonsus, turn what the God of love speaks to me in my own struggles, into gift for others? Can we apply God’s medicine received in our struggles to the healing of others even as we continue to endure personal challenges?

 I can never be perfect.  Alphonsus was never perfect. He was a holy genius who must have been a trial to live with. But he wrote instructions to others to see to it that brothers had their treats and he walked the Stations of the Cross bare foot in the hallway so as not to disturb his sleeping confreres. He worried about them during their missions and welcomed them home. He warned them not to be highflootin’ in their preaching and railed against those who would deprive people of Holy Communion. He took money from diocesan coffers to buy food for the poor during a time of famine. He must have been so proud of his son in the congregation, Fr. Bernard Haring who said, “The heart of moral life is charity to one’s neighbor.”

            Alphonsus de Liguori shared the medicine he found for his soul with all who would listen to his mission preaching, those who would read his 110 books. He shared the medicine which was the infinite love and mercy of God. This Doctor of the Church, dispensed medicine in the hospital which is that Church, the healing, forgiving, merciful hospital spoken of by Pope Francis. In this regard, Alphonsus is a theologian for our times, inspiration and guide for the Year of Mercy.

            Can we pray with Alphonsus:

My God and my all, I will resist you no longer. I will leave all to be all yours. I will no longer live for myself… Your claims on my love are too great. My only desire is to love you now and forever. My love, my hope, my courage, my comfort; give me strength to be faithful to you. .. O love of my soul, I offer myself completely to you to satisfy the desire which you have to be united with me… Give me strength to think of you, to desire you, to seek you, my beloved and only good.

 

Prep Reading for Those Nuturing Children

A Book Review:

The Road to Character
by David Brooks

In the last year I have often posted links to David Brooks' New York Times columns in its Op-Ed pages and gushed on my Facebook Page, "I think I love this man." Such an unlikely romance. Not only am I a contemplative nun but his politics and mine would seem naturally to fall into opposite camps. The obvious reasons for this unlikelihood can be found in the Wikikpedia mini David Brooks bio on Wikipedia. The odd attraction is due to my absolute amazement that his columns concerning discipline, humility, forgiveness, character, human values appear where they do and come from what seems to be a very reflective soul. These essays are sprinkled between more typical political commentary. Judging from comments from readers it would seem that these are not topics very attractive in what often seems to be a consumerist, self-centered, driven, amoral culture. Brooks writes about another value system. And the system to which him points is an ethical, humanist, communitarian and, if I dare say, a spiritual one.

Another factor pointing to our mis-match is that David Brooks is the politically conservative voice on National Public Radio and PBS News Hour. But I have come to respect his brand of Republicanism which is reasoned, open, informed and well-considered.

His recent book "The Road to Character" has been very well-received but is not without criticism. The critics call it preachy and judgmental. They seem uncomfortable with the spirituality that oozes out around the sides of Brooks' columns but generally is not specific stated. Reading the Wikipedia bio indicates that Brooks, evidently raised as a secular Jew, has also been well-exposed to Protestant and Catholic tradition.

 

This is a book for anyone who is nurturing children and young people: parents, grandparents (aunts and uncles too), teachers, scout leaders, Sunday school teachers, education pundits, the designers of Common Core, school board members, and taxpayers who are supporting our public schools. In other words this is a book for those who are concerned about the development of a responsible citizenry.

The book is composed of chapters covering key features of character each illustrated by the biography of a well-known personality.

The Summoned Self (sense of vocation) - Frances Perkins first women Cabinet member Secretary of Labor during the FDR administration

Self-Conquest - Dwight David Eisenhower - General and President

Struggle - Dorothy Day - founder Catholic Worker Movement

Self-Mastery - George C. Marshall - General, Secretary of State

Dignity - A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin - Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement

Love - George Eliot - author

Ordered Love - Augustine of Hippo - Bishop and saint

Self-Examination -  Samuel Johnson - Author and philosopher

The book concludes with chapter length overview of our society's move into the age of the "selfie', the shift from the communal, neighborhood, family centered being one of a group attitude to hat declares boldly, "Me first."

 

This is not the screed of the "Tiger Mother". This book calls back to reality; the reality that life naturally has hardships, disappointments, failures and pain as well as joy, relationship, achievement, fun and success. It reminds that part of nurturing children is to help them deal with the negative experiences. To try to deprive them of negative experiences is both impossible and at a same time a real disservice. The second great point is that we will always be part of a community - family, workplace, organization, church, neighborhood, country and the entire world. Therefore, from the very beginning, part of a child's default mechanism development has to be consideration of the consequences of individual acts on those with whom she shares a home, with whom he goes to school, with whom they create a democracy, with whom they share the planet.

This is assigned reading if you love kids.










https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(journalist)

A Message for All 'Good Church People': The Truth About Racism

Mother Emmanuel A.M.E. Zion Church
Charleston, South Carolina
June, 2015

Say what you will about Facebook, but beyond the joy of connecting so easily with family and friends I have made the most interesting new associations, had my creativity inspired, and been informed by some really good thinking via this means of social networking.

 

Reverend Jarrett Banks,  pastor of  the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Farmville, North Carolina published the following essay on his blog earlier this week. Although he writes with a southern perspective each of his five points issues a very important challenge to churches north of the Mason-Dixon Line and across the spectrum of Christian denominations. With his permission I have posted it here because it is vital that we all consider the elements of racism that still poison our society (not to mention our hearts) as we continue to try to live as followers of Jesus Christ in an increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural nation.

 

I cannot close without adding that while I agree with current efforts to remove the Confederate 'stars and bars' battle flag from public grounds in various states and municipalities, I worry that this may be serving as a proxy argument, a distraction, from the gun issue. With the President of the United States and victims of gun violence I ask, "When we will we wake up to the extreme need for greater gun control in our country?"

 

Charleston Wake-Up Call: Five Thoughts

by Reverend Jarrett Banks

I have heard many people call the massacre in Charleston a wake-up call for our country. I believe it is specifically a wake-up call for predominately white churches in our country. As a pastor of a predominately white church in the South, here are five thoughts that have been awakened in me:

1.    We must wake up to the reality that racism is not only a wound from our country’s past, but it is a deadly virus that still plagues us today. White preachers, including myself, have been often afraid to use the “r-word” from our pulpits for fear of “stirring things up,” as if we might reignite some fire that was put out in the 1960’s, or at least by 2008, when we elected our first black president. We must wake up and boldly preach against racism, in all of its current manifestations that are ablaze today: personal racism; systemic racism; and the subtle racism that is prevalent in the workplace, in the marketplace and even in the church, for Jesus could not have been more clear when he said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.

 2.    We must wake up to the reality that preaching and working against racism is not “being political,” but it is being “Christian.” When voting districts are re-drawn to limit poor black votes or when laws are created that make it more difficult for poor black people to vote, we must stand up and boldly proclaim the message of Jesus who came to announce “good news to the poor.”

 
3.    We must wake up to the reality that hatred in this country is being defended by church folks who are calling it “religious freedom.” In the United States of America, where we believe all people are created equally, religious freedom never means the freedom to discriminate. Slave-owners used the same religious-freedom arguments in the nineteenth century to support slavery. Today, we do not tolerate people who want to own slaves, nor should we tolerate anyone or respect the views if anyone who wants to discriminate.

4.    We must wake up to the reality that “the oppression of Christians” in this nation and the “war on Christmas” that we hear about every December has been manufactured by folks who loathe what makes our country great, that is our cultural, ethnic, religious and racial diversity. We need to also preach from our pulpits that it is this diversity that makes us look most like the portrait of heaven we find in the book of Revelation: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (7:9). We must wake up to boldly voice our opposition to the purveyors of fear who are calling on people to bear even more arms “to take our country back.” Furthermore, we must wake up and tell the folks in our pews to please shut up, when they start reminiscing about going back to the good old days of the 1950’s when we had prayer in school. We need to be able to say: “You know, I have many of black friends, and I have never once heard them talk about wanting to go back to 1950.”

5.    We must wake up to the reality that the most segregated hours in our country occur on Sunday mornings. We must find ways to build bridges to bridge the gaps that we have created that prevent us from worshipping and serving together. To stand against racism, hatred and violence, to stand for social justice and equality for all, and to persuasively speak truth to power, we must do it side by side, hand in hand, as one body, one Church, serving one Lord.

 

Rev. Banks posts to his blog www.jarrettbanks.wordpress.com