Christ in the mist

A group of four elderly women residents in my dad’s nursing home frequently gather outside of their rooms during the day to talk to one another. I often stop to chat on my way to my dad’s room. They ask me how the weather feels outside, admire an item of clothing or jewelry that I happen to wear that day and always thank me for taking the time to visit with them.

On one particular day, their conversation seemed unusually serious. As I passed the group, Josephine put her hand on my sleeve.

“Would you mind answering a question for us?” she asked.

 “I’ll try,” I answered and braced myself to call for a staff member if the question turned into a medical issue.

“We can’t remember if we ate lunch. We’re all trying to remember if we ate in our rooms or if we went to the dining room but none of us can recall eating. Can you tell us if we ate lunch or not?” Their bewilderment was earnest. I summoned the strength not to smile in amusement.

“Well, let’s figure this out,” I said seriously. “Are you hungry?” I asked them.

The four women looked at one another while considering the question with deep contemplation.

“No, I’m not,” Josephine finally responded. “Are you?” she asked the others. They all shook their heads and replied that they did not feel hungry.

“Well then, I guess you ate,” I said.

A look of enormous relief passed over the faces of the four women.

“Well that’s a relief,” Josephine said. “Thank you for answering our question,” and with that, Josephine turned her walker around to return to her room, satisfied that she and her friends ate lunch. “I hope it was good,” she added as she continued her stroll down to the hall.

            Whether dementia is the result of old arteries or the outcome of a stroke or displays itself as aphasia or Alzheimer’s Disease, the plague of memory loss can torment its victims as much as any illness. People who suffer forgetfulness can appear as ships lost in a deep fog adrift on an ocean of vagueness, anger and depression. I cared for my grandmother in her elder years. When she could no longer describe the agitation brought on by her stroke and subsequent aphasia, she would simply exclaim, “Good night.” My mother suffered the same effects of a stroke that morphed into Alzheimer’s Disease. “I want to split my head wide open to let the light in,” she would tell me in her attempt to describe the darkness that engulfed her. Rainy days, winter, fog – any day without sunshine would quadruple the ‘dark’ effect of forgetfulness. I meet these people on the wards of the nursing home every day.

            One day, I passed a resident in the hall. She appeared not to recognize me even though I passed by her for months on a daily basis. The woman could only utter a high pitched squeal followed by a bleat laugh in a lower octave. The pattern occurred around the clock unless the woman slept. On this particular day as I passed her in the hall, I stopped and touched her cheek. Her countenance never changed and her continued to utter her sounds. But as she did so, she took my hand from her cheek and placed it on her lips. She kissed my hand. Christ, hidden in the mystery of madness.

I’ve learned from these wisdom figures and teachers. Within their haze of amnesia lies their person, whole and intact, remembering. They will take every kindness shown them to the heavenly Jerusalem, where I will encounter them again someday in their fullness. “I remember you,” they will tell me. “You saw me when others did not.” Christ lies hidden within the mist. Seek him and he will show himself.

My dad’s nursing home produces a monthly newsletter of pictures and highlights of the many programs, liturgies, outstanding staff and beautiful residents who participate as a community of faith and fellowship in this house of elders. I found this prayer on its back page. Somehow the prayer seems all the more real because of the anonymity of its author.

The Alzheimer's Prayer         Author Unknown

Lord, give my visitors tolerance when I am confused.

Help them to forgive my irrational behavior.

Give them grace to walk with me

into the mist of memory that my world has become.

Please let them take my hand and stay awhile,

even when I seem unaware of their presence

 Help them to know how their love, their strength and care will drift slowly

into the days to come and just when I need it the most.

Let them know that when I do not recognize them that I will...I will.

Keep their hearts free from sorrow for me,

for my sorrow, when it comes, only lasts a moment

and then it is gone.

And finally Lord,

please let them know and believe how very much their visits mean,

how through this relentless mystery, I can still feel their love.

Amen.

Les Miserables – put on love

Les Miserables – put on love

The genius of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misèrable captured the imagination of the people in his time and certainly in our own. A didactic work on behalf of the oppressed poor of France, this mythological magnum opus gives us a window into human nature. Hugo called it ‘ a religious work’ and wrote for 17 years to pen what he believed to be an avenue into the heart of an accessible God most visibly incarnated in the person of Monseigneur Bienvenue, the bishop of Digne.

I suspect that Hugo intentionally named his hero 'bienvenue,' which means 'welcome.' I grew up in a French household and attended a school taught by French religious sisters. I used the word 'bienvenue’ as a daily response to the phrase ‘merci beau coups,’ and continue to use ‘bienvenue’ rather than the more contemporary ‘de rien.’ I prefer the word ‘welcome.’ I find that word wholly embodied in the person of Hugo’s priest. Monseigneur Bienvenue’s characteristics personify Christian hospitality: he quite literally puts on Christ and wears love as his cloak. Every one of Monseigneur Bienvenue’s words and deeds employ St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians (3:12-21):  heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, forgiveness, peace, wisdom and thanksgiving. All these qualities emerge in the bishop of Digne as a result of his baptism. He wears Christ.

Monseigneur Bienvenue gives over his presbyteral mansion of many rooms for use as a hospital and lives instead in simple and more humble quarters. He leaves his doors unlocked. He plants and lovingly tends a flower garden, believing that "the beautiful is as useful as the useful -- perhaps more so." When Jean Valjean appears at the rectory, Monseigneur Bienvenue offers ultimate Christian hospitality in the familial fellowship of food, a bed, a warm fire and conversation. The priest addresses Valjean, a convict of 19 years as 'monsieur'. That respectful title feels like the sun on Valjean's heart.  "Every time he said the word monsieur, with his gently solemn and heartily hospitable voice, the man's countenance lighted up. ‘Monsieur’ to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea. Ignominy thirsts for respect." Spot on, Victor.

When Valjean steals the bishop's silver, this impoverished mercenary finds mercy rather than condemnation from his victim, the bishop. A wary Valjean, whose prior experience of humanity afforded him no hope of such gracious compassion, finds dumbfounding clemency in the priest's purchase of Valjean's soul for God. In just one night, the bishop of Digne changes the person of Jean Valjean's for all eternity and alters the future of Fantine, Cosette and Marius. Bienvenue puts on love and changes the course of people forever without ever knowing the outcome of his actions.

Many people experienced the stage version of Les Misèrable and many more will see the new and well directed film version that contains soul-searing performances and wonderful artistic design. Perhaps more than a few people will now delve into Victor Hugo's book, which provides the glorious language for the lines and musical lyrics of the stage and film version.

Les Misèrable is a timeless classic that resonated with the people in Hugo's time and continues to proffer innumerable parrallels to our own post-modern culture. Hugo's description of Jean Valjean suggests a plausible representation of people whom we meet all too often in the daily news.

“And then, human society had done him nothing but injury; never had he seen anything of her, but this wrathful face which she calls justice and which she shows to those whom she strikes down. No man had ever touched him but to bruise him. All his contact with men had been by blows. Never, since his infancy, since his mother, since his sister, never had he been greeted with a friendly word or a kind regard. Through suffering on suffering he came little by little to the conviction, that life was a war; and that in that war he was the vanquished. He had no weapon but his hate. He resolved to sharpen it in the galleys and to take with him when he went out.”

We know far too well the horrific outcomes of hatred, of bullying, of loneliness and the misery issued by words and deeds that wound, crucify and bleed life from human hearts searching for kindness, friendship, sensitivity. We hear frequently of terrible violence that inevitably leads us to the story behind the story of the perpetrators who often times have searched for tenderness in the world and found callous thoughtlessness in its stead. So many hearts long to be loved, held and shown a small kindness. Sadly, that longing can often be found among people within their own families. What should be the richest soil of family that welcomes and nurtures the seeds of love, mercy and justice often times mutates into a topsoil of hardheartedness, bitterness and irreconcilable differences that prevents the seeds of holiness - wholeness - from taking root within the fertile loam of affection. Rather than putting on love, some prefer to put on an armor of wrath, coldness and irreverence.

Where can we expect to discover and learn kindness, mercy, justice and compassion? Some fortunate individuals learn these virtues throughtheir lived experience within a loving household comprised of people who show mutual affection, humor and wholehearted support and fidelity. They put on love, live love and teach love from that knowledge. We learn what we live. However, far too many people know the deep poverty of deprevation in matters of affection, dignity, common courtesy, and social awareness, love of God and love of neighbor. Look around you and pay attention to the people you encounter; the lack of joy is palpatable in so many. People literally starve for kindness. What evil events throughout history may have been altered through love’s embrace?

Everyone possesses the key to change someone's destiny, just as Monseigneur Bienvenue changed Valjean. Hugo tells us that everyone's soul "contains a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the next, which can be develeoped by good, kindles, it up, and made resplendently radiant, and which evil can never entirely extinguish."

Through just one act of kindness, we could change a life. It’s that simple. Put on love. The action might be something as simple as giving up one's place in grocery line or offering someone priority in traffic with a smile and a wave. We all can be Monseigneur Bienvenue, making the world a little better with unpretentious acts of kindness, beginning with the people in our own families. We may even get a tiny glimpse of the ripple effects of our compassion in our lifetime. And we may not. But we trust that our actions, made holy by the grace of God will extend to create a kindlier world. France needed many revolutions to gain a just society. Hugo's story contains the potential to be far more than just good theater. Here is the voice of God telling us how to live.

Would that all people would know tender words spill from the heart of the human family of community to bolster one another through the life’s inevitable hardships and unexpected blows. Whether traditional or contemporary, “The family is, in a sense, a school for human enrichment. The family is the place where different generations come together and to help one another to grow in wisdom and harmonize the rights of individuals with other demands of social life; as such it constitutes the basis of society.” Gaudiem et Spes (Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word - Joy and Hope), 52.

“Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another,” Valjean tells Cosette and Marius before he dies. He can only say this because someone loved him into life. Someone put on love and changed his course. May we all become Monseigneur Bienvenue in the year ahead.

Happy New Year.

How can this be?

How can this be?

My brother Marc died in 1977. Exhausted from working several jobs and simultaneously earning an undergraduate degree in business, Marc fell asleep at the wheel while returning home from his work in a Newport jazz club as a guitarist. A state trooper witnessed the entire event. He watched my brother’s head drift down onto his chest and the car fall off a bridge, plunging to the lower causeway below. The officer reported that the impact heaved Marc’s body out of the car door in a way that caused him to break his neck. Marc’s autopsy report showed no traces of alcohol. Marc died at age 23 of a broken neck. My family died of a broken heart the Sunday that followed Thanksgiving in 1977. In the days and weeks following his death, my mother kept repeating in a dazed stupor,”How can this be? How can this be?”

Marc left behind a wife and three year old daughter in addition to my parents, siblings and a wide circle of family and friends. In the weeks, months and years that followed, we slowly awakened from the numbing grief that violent death causes to resume a life that changed forever due to a circumstance out of our control. Our identities and roles changed. My brother’s wife became a widow and a single parent. Marc’s daughter became a fatherless child. My parents added another son to their unfathomable losses; their first son died soon after birth. I became a 25 year old sister with two deceased brothers and one surviving brother who lived out West. My heart numbed with anesthetic protection for years; I went into survival mode. The deadening effect released in 1984, the year that I married my husband.

In the weeks, months and years following my brother’s death, I became a hands-on aunt to Marc’s young daughter. My little niece accompanied me in the classrooms where I taught, the theater where I directed shows, the churches where I worked as a pastoral musician. She came with me and my friends to bistros and museums, beaches and campgrounds and helped me select my engagement ring when my husband proposed. My niece prepared me for parenting my own children years before their birth.

Married with young children of her own, Marc’s daughter remains close to me and to our family. The week that my mother died, she bundled up her infant daughter and came to spend the week with us to be on hand to help care for my mother in the days before she died. My brother’s death offered me an opportunity to find richness within the rubble: my niece continues to be a beautiful blessing to me and to my family. New roles present new opportunities to grow and change in ways we cannot imagine.

In the wake of Newtown events as the town buries its dead, I wonder at the millions of people who suffer unspeakable anguish every day as a result of early death. “How can this be?” is a mantra repeated all too frequently. I cannot speak to the experience of the loss of a child. Although I am a parent, I would never insult someone who suffers the death of their child by saying, “I know how you feel.” I do not and cannot fathom the depth of that grief.

I witnessed first-hand what life after a child’s death looks like through my own parents. We spoke of the loss of both of their sons often. At age 92, Dad tells me that the wounds still feel fresh when he watches the events of Newtown unfold. He prays for them daily. “They need God’s help now. They’ll need faith every day of their lives to survive this,” he tells me. When I speak with other parents who know this life-altering loss of a child, they reveal similar emotions. One friend who lost a daughter spoke candidly. “It still feels like a nightmare. You say to yourself, ‘How can this be? I’m supposed to go first.’ But you wake up from the nightmare and realize that you do go on, want to go on, will go on. And there is life on the other side of the nightmare. Life is never the same but you do go on.” Healing can occur with prayer, time, a community of care and a lot of patience.

Sometimes I think we really don’t see scriptural people in terms of their humanity. Consider Mary, mother of Jesus. In Luke’s gospel, Mary steps into a role completely unprepared for what she will face throughout in her lifetime. (Lk 1:26-38) She accepts God’s invitation to become the mother of the Christ. “How can this be?” she asks and receives an unexpected and preposterous answer. She will be the mother of God but only if she accepts God’s invitation. What are some of the life changing events she will encounter because of her response? Here’s a quick survey of just a few hurdles that we know about:

Mary’s betrothed husband’s disbelief and anguish at the preposterous news of her pregnancy.

Stoning by law if her betrothed husband exposes her to the public.

Traveling far from her home and away from the help of family and friends during the last month of her pregnancy.

Birthing her infant son in a stable cave among animals and using rags to keep him clean and warm.

Depending on shepherds to affirm and acknowledge that this child’s birth was no ordinary matter.

Immigrating to a foreign country to escape a terrorist, a tyrannical ruler seeking to kill her child.

Hearing a warning from an old prophet in a temple who tells her that her heart will be pierced as she presents her infant son for circumcision.

Widowed as a young woman.

Witnessing her only son’s disastrous trial and death as a criminal at the age of 33.

Could Mary be prepared for all the roles that played out in her lifetime? With those words, “Let it be done unto me according to your word,” Mary stepped into her role as a wife, a mother, an immigrant, a young widow, a motherless child and a woman who knows heartbreak in the same way the people in Newtown know heartbreak, the same way my parents experienced heartbreak, the same way that anyone who knows the gnaw and ache of grief knows heartbreak. “How can this be?” must have sounded in her heart many times.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that what it feels like to sing songs of hope and resurrection in the face of crushing agony. I served as the pastoral musician when my brother died. I watched his coffin come down the aisle as I led sung prayer. I watched as hundreds of people, so many of them young and searching for answers to the questions that inevitably surface when young people die. Why? How can this be? Where is God? And I can tell you from first-hand experience that I have never felt the presence of God more than in that hour when I had to give everything I had inside me to minister at my brother’s funeral that terrible day. Christ isn’t absent during these difficulties; he’s with us in the middle of the mess. I believed it then and I still believe it with my whole heart. The magnificent gift of God’s grace is that it’s always with us, especially in the moments when we cry out, “How can this be?”

Fr, Robert Weiss, the pastor at Saint Rose parish in Newtown, CT buried many children this week. He faced hundreds of people agonizing over the question, “How can this be?” In an interview, he offered these words.

"Where else but the church could we bring this unspeakable act? Where else but the altar could we find some resolution? People bring their wounded and shattered selves here for healing, mending and transcendence."

I pray that this Christmas, wherever life may find you, that you bring your wounds, your joys, your anxieties, your grief and despair, your hopes and dreams, your fears and doubts to the God who loved us enough to become one of us. Like Mary, I hope that no matter what life inevitably presents, you trust that faith will sustain you and carry you to the next part of your journey. I pray that this Christmas, when you may ask, “How can this be?” in whatever confronts you in life that you grow in your relationship with the Christ that came as child born in poverty and lived, died and rose again to show us all the way to be fully human.

Merry Christmas.

Holy Innocents

Holy Innocents

*On Sunday, Jan. 5 1991, a friend’s daughter got on a school bus with her New Bedford High School basketball team for a game in Falmouth. On their way, a sniper’s bullet shot from the woods of the mid-Cape Highway hit fourteen-year-old Robyn Dabrowski in the chest and killed her. Her mother as Jo-Ann was on the bus. She died. Robyn's mother, Jo-Ann, was on the bus. Another 14 year old girl suffered grazing by the same bullet that killed Robyn. The snipers turned out to be young boys taking pot shots at mid-Cape highway traffic.

*On April 15, 1993 a 42-year-old man shot and killed an elementary school nurse yesterday in Acushnet, MA. Carole A. Day, 51, was shot in the back by David Taber of Acushnet after he took her, the principal and the school librarian hostage. Carole died at the school.

*On March 13, 1996, a 43 year old man walked into Dunblane Primary School Dunblane, Scotland. Equipped with four handguns, he shot and killed sixteen children and one teacher, after which he took his own life.

On the heels of this heinous act and similar events in the 20th century history of the United Kingdom, public debate centered on gun control and subsequent laws to protect the public from more horrific incidents. The media pelted Parliament for change. Public petitions, vigils and demonstrations by the people of the UK called for a ban on private ownership of handguns and prompted official inquiry into a resolution for the common good. As a result, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 became law, effectively making private ownership of handguns illegal in the United Kingdom.

After the heinous crime at Sandy Hook School that occurred on Friday, December 14, 2012, the people of the United States watched their president react to the horrific incident ‘not as a president, but as a parent.’ While I completely understand and very much appreciate the depth of the President Obama’s emotional response, that just isn’t enough. Not anymore. Enough is enough. We need our leader to lead.

The president needs to send a new bill to Congress to repeal private ownership of handguns. The Second Amendment was written in colonial times; there were good reasons to bear arms when no law enforcement existed in this country. Things have changed; we need to change too. A magnum opus of power seems to be playing government’s orchestra. Lawmakers reluctantly reply to questions on gun control. The Hill appears to not comprehend that we cannot control violence without removing the weapons that cause the violence. And this only addresses part of an enormous cultural problem and spiritual void in our country.  But let’s face it: we have to begin somewhere. Gun control would be a good place to begin.

As I usually do when I need to think, I turn to my books for answers. I came upon a passage in Gaudium et Spes in a section called ‘The Arms Race’ that hit the nail on the proverbial head:

“As long as extravagant sums of money are poured into the development of new weapons, it is impossible to devote adequate aid in tackling the misery which prevails at the present day in the world. Instead of eradicating international conflict once and for all, the contagion is spreading to other parts of the world. New approaches, based on reformed attitudes, will have to be made in order to remove this stumbling block, to free the earth from its pressing anxieties, and give back the world a genuine peace.” GS 81

Spot on, Vatican II. Prophetic writing 50 years ago. The contagion has invaded us. The septicity is no longer ‘out there’ in some distant place that cannot reach us. The poison of violence continues to seep its toxic waste into every corner and pocket of the earth. I don’t care how many gated communities we build: the venom lies much deeper and infects the Town of Perfect, USA. We live with the anxiety, the fear that Sandy Hook can be anywhere, at any time to anyone. Who will be next? A hospital full of sick patients? A parish church on a Sunday morning? A business in the middle of town? How will we reform our lives so that Sandy Hook will never occur again? Gun violence isn’t the only killer out there. Negativity, self-absorption, indulgence –  we know where we need work. This is bigger than gun control, although that is a necessary beginning. John the Baptist was right: we need to change who we are as a people.

On Friday, we saw the poison of that contagion strike at the most defenseless people among us – innocent children, holy innocents whose lives only just began. The adults who died no doubt died in the attempt to save children. But innocence died too as children who lived watched their holy innocent friends lose to a gunman’s war with God knows what on his poor sick mind. And innocent dies every day that we stay silent, do nothing and care about nothing beyond what makes us ‘happy.’ As the old folk song goes, “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”

In response to the cruel act of violence that occurred in Dunblane, Scotland, John L. Bell and Graham Maule composed There is a Place that can be found on the collection The Last Journey and published by GIA Publications. Click the link to go directly to the site: http://www.giamusic.com/product_search.cfm?criteria=there+is+a+place&search_button.x=0&search_button.y=0&search_button=submit

The music and words from this poignant piece may offer some consolation in the wake of Friday’s tragedy. The entire collection of music and a beautiful book of accompanying prayers deserve notice by those who minister to communities of faith. I post the lyrics of There is a Place here as a prayer of consolation that Christ can be found weeping with the rest of us as we pray and remember the people in Sandy Hook this weekend.

There is a Place

Words by John L. Bell and Graham Maule

Tune: Dunblane Primary (JLB)

There is a place prepared for little children,

those we once lived for, those we deeply mourn,

those who from play, from learning and from laughter

cruelly were torn.

There is a place where hands which held ours tightly

now are released beyond all hurt and fear,

healed by that love which also feels our sorrow

tear after tear.

There is a place where all the lost potential

yields its full promise, finds its true intent;

silenced no more, young voices echo freely

as they were meant.

There is a place where God will hear our question,

suffer our anger, share our speechless grief,

gently repair the innocent of loving

and of belief.

Jesus, who bids us be like little children,

shields those our arms are yearning to embrace.

God will ensure that all are reunited:

there is a place.

Finding Advent

Finding Advent

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I stopped for a moment to watch shoppers duck past a weary Salvation Army bell ringer who stood near the ‘holiday’ wreaths. I really felt for the bell ringer, who looked cold, bone weary and dead tired from hours of standing on his feet, waiting for tidbits of change from the very occasional person who threw some pocket change into the red Salvation Army canister. The bell ringer’s clothes looked pretty tattered. His disheveled appearance suggested that he might well be served by the piddling amount of cash accrued from his bell-ringing sentry. I deposited the cash that I found in my wallet and offered to buy him a cup of coffee for his length of stay.

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Thanks so much for the offer and for your donation. Someone who needs medicine or food or new clothes or a warm blanket will really appreciate your gift. I hope you have a merry Christmas.” It was difficult not to cry.

 “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” played when I reached for a container of detergent. Something made me look to my right. A very old woman was reaching for a box that was just out of her reach. She was wiping her eyes with a well-used tissue from inside threadbare coat that looked older than this aged woman.  

“Would you like me get that for you?” I asked.

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said, and her many wrinkles became deeper when she smiled at me.

“My husband used to shop with me and since he died, I’m quite lost without him.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, suddenly aware that I was in the presence of someone who clearly needed a bit of comfort. “When did your husband die?” I asked as I handed her the box of detergent.

“He was very sick for many years but we plugged along until he just couldn’t fight anymore, poor thing. He died last month. I miss him every day. ”

My throat constricted. I really wanted to cry but braved more conversation.

“Do you have a family?” I inquired.

“We had a son but he passed away some time ago in an accident and his wife remarried. I have a grandson but he lives with his mother and step father in another part of the country. I really don’t hear from them. They were here for my husband’s funeral last month. I expect I’ll hear from them on Christmas but I’ll probably be alone for that day. I’m not looking forward to it. But I’ll get through it somehow. There are many other people that are much worse off than I am. But this music (she pointed to the invisible sound system playing Christmas music in the store) really doesn’t help. It just makes me sad.” She laughed as she wiped her eyes.

“Thank you for your help, you’ve been very kind.” The old woman touched my hand in a sign of gratitude before she leaned on her cart to resume what I’m sure is a weekly exercise of sorrow and loneliness.

Perhaps our culture of instant gratification defies the very nature of Advent – God with us in the person of Jesus embodied in every person we encounter – an opportunity to birth the reign of God every moment of every day. We prepare to celebrate the ‘holiday’ with frenzy but too frequently ignore the preparation of our own hearts. We buy right into the sentimental ‘schmaltz’ of consumerism, even coveting a blanket of snow ‘so things will look pretty’ without a thought to what that means for the homeless, the widow, the parents who buried a child, the people who must choose between heat or food, medicine or rent payments, never mind those people who may spend Christmas under a bridge.   

For the Christian, the season of Advent is a quest for the living God within every human person. A smile, a common courtesy, an act of kindness creates a conduit for the person of Jesus to appear right in our midst. I derive great pleasure in the inevitable look of astonished delight on the faces of drivers when I blink my lights and wave a cheery ‘Go ahead’ and offer them the right of way in traffic. It’s an unforeseen surprise and as much of a joy to me as to the prioritized driver. The God of surprises lives in traffic jams, supermarkets, work place interruptions, in meetings, in mills, at gas pumps and shopping malls. How do we birth the Christ in very ordinary, everyday events?

Maybe if people actually witness a counter cultural Christian community living differently than the rest of the world, the word ‘Christmas’ would be on their lips with more regularity than the perfunctory and politically correct “Happy Holidays.” Common courtesies in check-out lines and on the road would be one simple way to achieve change. An unexpected smile and a kind inquiry or greeting may be the best ‘holy’ gift we can give someone this year, rather than the ‘Oh, I can’t wait until this holiday season is over!” A change of heart and attitude may be just the ticket to our own interior joy. Who do we want to be as Christians? Who are we as followers of Jesus?

This space of time of Advent gives us a rich opportunity to reflect on this unbelievable event of God becoming human as one of us. Might it be time for the sentimentality of a seasonal commercial ‘holiday’ to be cast aside and replaced by an encounter with Christ? The root of the word Christmas is Christ; when was the last time we saw that message in a department store? When was the last time you saw that reality embodied in an act of kindness?

I do not begrudge anyone the season of Christmas. I savor it, plunge into it like any other person and enjoy the rich blessings of family, friends and community for a full 12 days of merry making beginning on Christmas Eve. But I do become frustrated when we ignore Advent and bend to holiday commercialism that seems to be thrust upon us earlier each year.

Here lives Advent right here for us. Do we relish what could be a time of renewal in a God who loves us so much that he came to be one of us and show us a new way of being in the world? God is busy being born every day as we make Christ present in every encounter, every relationship and every experience. Open your eyes; he is everywhere and waiting to emerge in every human heart.

Churches fill on Christmas Eve. What about filling them now? Consider a change of heart and find Advent this year. Take the time to listen and reflect on the powerful readings of sacred scripture, the beautiful message and music within Advent hymns, the potent homilies that propel us from our pews and into the manger of a weary and frenzied culture that eagerly awaits a word of peace, of hope, of compassion, of joy. Sounds like a good plan to me.  

Find Advent this year, a season of the heart. Don’t ignore yours.

Advent Events

Brother Mickey O’Neill McGrath at Our Lady of Assumption Parish on December 16

I met Brother Mickey O’Neill McGrath, OBS when he first began his ministry of sacred art in the 1980’s at retreat for Confirmation candidates at Immaculate Conception Church in Easton, MA. I fell in love with his witty and profoundly moving way of depicting the sacred with his use of intense color and bold approach. Among some of my favorite pieces of Mickey’s art are All God's Critters Got A Place in the Choir, Every time I feel the Spirit and I’ll be Singing Up There. But selecting a favorite piece of Brother Mickey’s art becomes a difficult task; each piece offers the viewer subjective elements that stir something inside and just make you smile and pray, all at the same time. His magnanimous personality, wit and deep sense of the sacred draws everyone who encounters Brother Mickey into a moment of grace. I love this guy.

I saw Mickey again several years ago at the 2010 NPM national convention in Detroit, where he and Alan Hommerding presented St. Cecilia’s Orchestra, an innovative and really fun presentation which won the silver medal prize for children’s books on spirituality by the Moonbeam Children’s Book Publisher awards. One of the most creative events I’ve ever attended – ever.

Brother Mickey creates art for many of today's leading Catholic publishers including America Magazine, USCCB, and World Library Publications. Featured in St. Anthony Messenger, USA Today, and Catholic newspapers around the country, this renowned and very humble artist and retreat master will be at Our Lady of Assumption Parish in New Bedford, MA on December 16 at 6:00 PM for a few hours of Advent reflection and renewal through his pioneering sacred art.

Take some time of out of your busy schedule and seize a moment of Advent time at OLOA to be with Brother Mickey. Thanks to Our Lady of Assumption Parish for hosting this event! If you want to a preview of Brother Mickey O’Neill McGrath’s art, go to http://www.beestill.org/meettheartist.html and http://www.wlp.jspaluch.com/373.htm

For more information, call friend and colleague Sr. Marianna Sylvester at 508-994-7602.  http://www.sacredhearts-sscc-usa.com/pages/Mass_pgs/assump_parish.htm

The Second Vatican Council, 50 years later

On Tuesday, December 11, 2012, St. Anthony’s Parish in Mattapoisett, MA will host an Advent event for the Year of Faith on the 50^th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. (The flyer is on this page.) 

This prompts three principle questions in this Year of Faith:

1. What happened at the Second Vatican Council?

2. How did the documents that the Council produced impact the church in the modern world from their inception until now?

3. What does the Second Vatican Council mean for Catholic Christians as people of faith in this time and place?

If you’re in the area and want to drop by, I’m sure the parish community of St. Anthony will welcome you. For further details or driving directions, go to http://www.mystanthonys.org/.

We live in a time where Advent resources are at our disposal with the click of a finger. Here’s one for you to consider. Click http://ncronline.org/node/39981 for Marty Haugen’s Advent reflection with music, free for your consideration from National Catholic Reporter.

Planning Lent

If you’re interested in learning how to plan an Evening Prayer, a Tenebrae service, a unique Way of the Cross or Taize Prayer for your parish during Lent, let us know. We can help.

New on our website: Touchstones of Vatican II

The Roncalli Center posts tweets daily. Breaking the touchstones of Vatican II into 120 characters can be a bit challenging but we’re getting the hang of it and tweeting two tweets minimum every day. If you don’t have a Twitter account and want to read the touchstones on the Roncalli website, click on the tab Touchstones of Vatican II for daily consideration. You’d be amazed at how these brief tweets pack a powerful punch and communicated in 120 characters. We post them daily, or you could sign up for Twitter and follow the Roncalli Center every day. 

Signing up is easy and tweeting is fun. There’s a whole world of social media out there waiting for you to explore. Even Benedict XVI has a new Twitter handle (@pontifex, meaning bridge builder) and will begin to tweet regularly on December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. If our German shepherd can tweet, so can you! https://twitter.com/RoncalliCenter