"I praise you for I am wonderfully made" was the response we sang for the Psalm last Sunday. A friend of mine who is a cantor remarked that she found it a bit funny to be singing those words from Psalm 139. We are taught to be so humble, and here it seems as if we are bragging about ourselves! We are wonders though, and we should be aware of and grateful for that fact! Psalm 139 is a well known favorite. This section of it states:

You formed me in my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother's womb.
I praise you, so wonderfully you made me;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you knew;
my bones were not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
fashioned as in the depths of the earth.
-Psalm 139:13-15

Psalm 139 has been set to music in such well-known hymns as "You Are Near" by Dan Schutte and "O God, You Search Me" by Bernadette Farrell. While both songs emphasize the fact that God created us and knew us in the womb, Farrell picks up this specific line, "For the wonder of who I am, I praise you." I have always loved that line in her song and wonder how often we do stop and thank God for the wonder of who we are. Do we really look at ourselves and marvel at the creation we are? Do we marvel at our role as co-creators with God in choosing the person we become, realizing what an awesome gift and responsibility that is? In many translations of the Bible, this line is translated as "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." There is another song that I have always loved by a Christian singer Rich Mullins that picks up this theme. In his song, "We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are," he sings:

We are frail; we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Forged in the fires of human passion,
choking on the fumes of selfish rage.
And with these our hells and our heavens so few inches apart,
we must be awfully small and not as strong as we think we are.

This is one of the things that amazes me about human creation; we seem to be so incredibly strong and so very frail at the same time. We have an unending ability to hurt one another. There is a great vulnerability in being human, and it seems the more human we become, the more vulnerable we are. And yet we have this incredible strength to endure. The song always reminds me that that strength to endure comes from God; that in realizing our dependence on God, we find our strength and our freedom. It is when we try to shoulder the world on our own that we run into trouble. It also reminds me of our need for one another. The irony of life is that we depend on the very people to whom we become the most vulnerable and who have the greatest power to hurt us.

For me, it all comes back to this incredible gift of human life we are given, and how we choose to use it. Are we living the lives that allow us to actualize our full potential as human beings? Are we enabling others to do the same? In moral theology the basic criterion for judging issues is whether or not a certain action or course of action leads to human flourishing. Do our lives enable others to flourish? Are we ourselves flourishing, and if not, is there something we can do to change that fact? We praise God for the wonder of who we are by living our lives in a way that allows us to be the creation God intended us to be! We are only given one life, are we truly appreciating it? There is a great line that I have been reflecting upon lately and will leave you with:

"I gave my life to become the person I am today.
Was it worth it?"
- One, Richard Bach

As someone who spends a good hour and a half to two hours on the road going to and from work, I was intrigued to hear that the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People had published a document entitled, "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road." The document made headlines for giving the "Driver's Ten Commandments":

I. You shall not kill.
II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
VII. Support the families of accident victims.
VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
X. Feel responsible towards others.

While there have been some amusing jokes made in the media about the Church speaking out on this issue, I actually think there is much wisdom in these guidelines. I will be the first to confess that I am an impatient driver, and I have a tendency to speed. While these "commandments" are a good reminder to all of us that when we take to the roads we have a responsibility for our own lives and the lives of those around us, the document actually goes far beyond simply stating these basic rules of the road.

While the document acknowledges the benefits of increased mobility in our world, it also uses our role as drivers as a metaphor for our approach to life. Are we aggressive, self-centered, and domineering as drivers? Do we manifest an attitude that respects the life, needs, and rights of others? What is it about driving that can bring out the worst aspects of ourselves? Being responsible drivers is not simply about "being nice," but can be a matter of life and death:

During the 20th century approximately 35 million people lost their lives in road accidents, whilst around one and a half billion were injured. In 2000 alone, deaths amounted to 1,260,000, and it is also noteworthy that around 90% of accidents were due to human error.

We literally hold one another's lives in our hands when we drive; and the tragedy of an accident is not only for the victims and the families of the victims, but for the driver who never intended anyone harm, but must now live with the consequences of the accident.

While the section on driving got the most (only?) press, it is important to note that that section is only one of four in the document. The remaining sections are on the liberation of prostitutes, the care for street children, and care for the homeless. The document speaks of the slavery of prostitution as human trafficking and exploitation. It recognizes that not just women, but also men and children are victims of this form of exploitation. The document notes that many prostitutes experienced violence and sexual abuse as children and that prostitution is often the effect of an unjust society where people are looking for a means to support themselves and their families or a way out of an impoverished country. The document states that:

The victims of prostitution are human beings, who in many cases cry out for help, to be freed from slavery, because selling one's own body on the street is usually not what they would voluntarily choose to do. Of course, each person has a different story to tell, but a common thread of violence, abuse, mistrust and low self-esteem, as well as fear and lack of opportunities, runs through them. They all bear deep wounds that need healing, whilst they seek relationships, love, security, affection, self-assertion and a better future for themselves and their families.

The "deeply rooted problems" of the "customers" are also acknowledged. A call is issued for churches to offer solidarity and compassion, engaging in an active involvement to bring about the end of this form of exploitation and to foster opportunities for the rehabilitation of its victims, both prostitutes and customers.

The section on street children, defined as "those with no ties to their families, which means that they have made the street their place of abode," notes that there are around 100 million children living on the streets, and the numbers are increasing. Added to this number are those who have a home and a bed they return to at night, but who spend most of their waking hours on the streets. The document notes the primary causes for this phenomenon as:

Increasing family breakdown; tensions between parents; aggressive, violent and sometimes perverse behaviour towards children; emigration, which entails uprooting from everyday life and consequent disorientation; conditions of poverty and hardship that destroy dignity and deprive people of the wherewithal to survive; the spread of drug addiction and alcoholism; and prostitution and the sex industry, which continue to take an extraordinary toll of victims, often driven by terrible violence to the most brutal kind of slavery. Other factors are wars and social disorder that upset normal life, including for minors, and the spread, primarily in Europe, of a "culture characterised by pleasure and transgression" -- which should not be underestimated -- in environments marked by a lack of reference values, in which young people in general suffer from loneliness and an ever deeper sense of the emptiness of existence.

Again we, the Church, are called upon to address these very serious issues in our society and our world.

The final section is on the homeless in general. It calls on us as Church "to accompany and serve these people whatever their moral or personal situation might be." Furthermore, we are called to recognize that:

People who live on the street are looked on with wariness and suspicion, and being homeless is the start of gradually losing one's rights. It is more difficult to obtain welfare, almost impossible to find work, and no longer possible to obtain identity papers. These poor people become a nameless and voiceless crowd, unable to defend themselves and find the necessary resources for a better future. The Word of God censures any form of irritation or indifference towards poor people (poverty fatigue), reminding us that the Lord will judge our lives by assessing how and how much we have loved the poor (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). According to Saint Augustine, we are requested to help any poor person so as not to run the risk of denying someone who might be Christ himself.

We are reminded that the homeless are in need, not only of food and shelter, but also of "kindness, respect, and human warmth." There is so much in this document to think about, pray about, and act upon! I am struck by how unfortunate it is that most of the time we hear very little about the wisdom that the Church offers in the documents it publishes and that when the media does pick up a story like this because of its "curiousity" element, it leaves out the most important parts. (Note: If you would like to read the document yourself, you can access it by clicking here!)

Water is the source of life. This concept struck me profoundly as I flew to the west coast for the first time in my life this past weekend. I sat with my nose pretty much glued to the window for the last hour of the trip as we flew over Utah, Nevada, and California. What I saw was miles and miles and miles of completely uninhabited land in an overpopulated world and in a country that is currently debating the problem of immigration. So why is this land unpopulated? Granted, some of it is preserved as national parks, but mostly it is unpopulated because there is no water. What I saw from the plane was beautiful, but it mostly was rock and dirt with very little evidence of vegetation. I saw shades of russet and white and black, but no green, no trees that I could make out. Interestingly enough, during my morning commute this week I listened to a series on NPR about the struggle over water in the west, primarily focusing on the conflicting needs of rural and urban areas, especially the massive amounts of water used in Las Vegas. The main source of water for the region is the Colorado River, with its reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. What I learned in listening to that series is that there is also water in that area in deep underground aquifers. Where that water springs up to the surface, life blooms in the desert. Little pocket communities develop around these sources of water.

Water is the source of life. We use it in baptism to symbolize our new life in Christ. We use it at funerals symbolize our being born into eternal life. We go through the desert of lent for forty days, only to renew our baptismal vows and be sprinkled with the water of life for the next fifty days. We use water to bless ourselves and our lives. Deserts also play a role in our spiritual life. We experience desert times, times where we wander as the Israelites did, unable to recognize God working in our lives. We experience the parched desert times when we thirst for God as did the psalmists:

Like a deer yearns for living streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. (Ps. 42:2)

At the same time, the desert is a place we voluntarily go, as did Jesus, to pray. In the early church there was a strong tradition of desert fathers and mothers who went out into the desert to live, to pray, and to be with God. The desert is a place where we can be alone with God, and in that solitude, come to recognize our thirst for God, our absolute dependence on God, and come to know more intimately the One who is the source of our life. Jesus offers us "a spring of water welling up to eternal life," (Jn. 4:14) so that we will no longer thirst. Water is sacramental. The next time we get a drink of water or wash our hands or dip our hands into the baptismal water fonts as we enter a church, the next time we turn a faucet and water comes pouring out, let us be thankful that we have water, that we have life, and most of all that we have a relationship with the one who is the source of all life.

On Sunday several of the area churches sponsored an ecumenical program in which Dr. Calvin DeWitt, a professor at the UW-Madison Nelson Institute of Environmental Science, spoke on "Science and Religion: Partners in Environmental Understanding and Action." DeWitt has been instrumental in getting top scientists and religious leaders together to discuss how leaders from both areas can work together to protect the environment. DeWitt said that at one of these meetings, it was actually the top evolutionary biologist who suggested that they use the term "the creation" instead of "the environment." The reason was twofold, first to offer an olive branch, so to speak, to the religious community, but also because "the creation" includes humankind, not separating humans out from the environment in which we live. DeWitt explained that changing the terminology does away with the false dichotomy that raises the question of which we should value more, humans or the environment. You cannot choose between humans and the creation because humans are part of the creation.

Another important point that DeWitt made was about the translation of Genesis 2:15:

"The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it."

The Hebrew word that is translated "cultivate" in this passage (from the New American Bible) actually means "serve." It is the same word that is used in the conclusion of the book of Joshua, in which Joshua says to the people:

"Decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15

The same word that is used to refer to our relationship with God is used to refer to our relationship to the world God has created. We are to serve both. We are stewards of the earth. DeWitt also spoke of the Endangered Species Act as today's Noah's Ark, saving the very animals that God created. When Genesis 1:28 speaks of humankind having "dominion" over the creatures of the world, it must be read in the context of what dominion means in a religious context. As DeWitt points out, our model for what it means to have dominion is Jesus Christ, who has dominion over us and all creation. We are to care for the creation as Christ's stewards, taking the same care as Christ takes with us. We have been given a divine mandate and responsibility; I would hate to think of standing face to face with a God who asks, "What have you done to my creation?"

The US Bishops have declared "A Million Prayers Initiative" for the week of May 20-26, asking Catholics this week for two things regarding the immigration situation in this country: prayer and action. As the Congress debates immigration reform, the Bishops ask us to take the time to pray the Justice Prayer:

Come, O Holy Spirit!
Come, open us to the wonder, beauty, and dignity of the
diversity found in each culture,
in each face, and in each experience we
have of the other among us.
Come, fill us with generosity as we are
challenged to let go and allow others to share with us
the goods and beauty of earth.
Come, heal the divisions
that keep us from seeing the face of
Christ in all men, women, and children.
Come, free us to stand with and for those
who must leave their own lands in order to find work, security, and welcome in a new land, one that has enough to share.
Come, bring us
understanding, inspiration, wisdom, and
the courage needed to embrace change
and stay on the journey.
Come, O Holy Spirit,
show us the way.

In addition to praying this prayer, the bishops have asked us to take action by contacting our senators and representatives. Ask them to support immigration reform that does the following:

• To make family a priority in immigration law
• To insist the worker programs contain protection for U.S. and migrant workers
• To allow for an earned legalization program for the undocumented in the country
• To restore due process protections
• To respond to the economic, political, and social root causes of migration.

The Senate recently introduced S. 1348, the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act of 2007, but the Bishops have serious concerns with the bill and would like to see the following improvements made to the bill:

Title IV – Temporary Worker Program
Legislation: S. 1348 fails to provide a path to citizenship for
temporary workers and their families. It also limits to two years the time temporary workers can bring their family members with them to the United States. A worker is eligible for up to 6 years. It also requires that a worker return home for a year after working for two years (two working, one at home, etc.), which could lead to visa overstays and an increase in the undocumented population.

Title V --- Family Reunification
Legislation: Title V of S. 1348 eliminates several categories of family immigration (1,2b, 3, and 4) and reduces the number of green cards available to parents of U.S. citizens to 40,000 a year. It clears up backlogs in the family preference system for anyone who applied prior to May 2005, but penalizes those who filed after that date. It replaces the family preference system with a “point” system skewed to highly educated and highly skilled workers.

Title VI --- Legalization Program
Legislation: Title VI of S. 1348 would provide a “Z” visa for undocumented persons and allow them to apply for permanent residency within 8 years. Unfortunately, it would not allow immediate family members to join the eligible worker until a green card application is approved, a minimum of eight years. It also requires the visa holder to return to his/her country of origin to apply for a green card.

For more information on the Bishops' position, see their website, Justice for Immigrants. For a fast and easy way to take action, visit Catholic Relief Services' Action Center.

This Sunday we will celebrate the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, traditionally referred to as "Ascension Thursday," as Acts tells us that Jesus appeared to the disciples during the forty days after Easter before ascending into heaven. The feast has been moved to Sunday to enable more people to take part in the celebration (in other words, even though it was a holy day of opportunity, as my professor liked to call them, very few people were actually attending mass when it was on Thursday). The result of this move, however, is that we do not hear the readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

I was struck by the fact that the first reading for the Seventh Sunday of Easter tells of the stoning of Stephen, because one of the headline videos on CNN today is a video of a 17 yr. old girl being stoned to death. (To see the video, click here, but be aware that the content is graphic.) Watching the video gave a whole new level of awareness to my reading the story of Stephen and other Christian martyrs who have been stoned, making me wonder how willing I would be to stand up and publically proclaim my faith under such terrifying circumstances. During the Easter season, during which the second reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear the stoning or threat of stoning the early followers of Christ faced. In addition to Stephen's death, a death that Paul watched, Paul himself is stoned in Lystra and left for dead, but he didn't die, so his disciples are able to help him leave the city. Jesus was threatened with being stoned more than once, and of course, he prevents the stoning of a young woman in the Gospel of John. Stoning is horrific both in the suffering of the victim and in the mob mentality it emerges from and engenders.

More importantly, the video made me mindful that people, frequently women, are still suffering this fate today. The 17 yr. old girl in question was a Kurdish girl of the Yezidi faith (a pre-Islamic religion). She was stoned for being involved with a Sunni Muslim Iraqi boy. Yezidi girls are not allowed to date or marry outside of their religion. The stoning was an "honor killing." In retaliation, Sunni Iraqis attacked and killed 23 Yezidi men. And so the cycle of violence continues. Stoning is an issue in terms of such "honor killing" and as a form of execution in many parts of the world. Before we cast the first stone, so to speak, we must look at our own record. In our own Scripture, people were to be stoned for sacrificing their children to the god Molech, for blaspheming the name of the Lord, for being "spiritists" or mediums, for not keeping the Sabbath, for trying to convince another to serve other gods, for being a stubborn or unruly son who will not listen to or obey his father or mother, for having sex with a betrothed girl or being that betrothed girl, even if she is raped (in a city; if it takes place in a field, she is not guilty since she may have yelled for help and not been heard). As a country we also must not be quick to cast the first stone. We might not stone people, but remember that stoning is first and foremost (both now and in the days of the early Christians) a form of execution, a sentence handed down in a court of law after a trial; and as a country, we do execute people. It is difficult to take the moral high ground on issues such as this when our country is listed by organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Roman Catholic Church, next to countries like China, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, in terms of human rights abuses in this regard. I won't continue on this line, as I have written on it previously, but the Church's teaching on this subject is very clear! For more information, see the USCCB website! When we read the stories of Christians being stoned, let us pray for all those who are being executed, both in our own country and around the world, and let us pray for all those who suffer religious persecution.

The news stories this week read something like, "Six Islamist Jihadists. . . " or "Six foreign born Muslims. . . " or "Six Islamic Militants. . . " These were followed by stories of "Muslim community fears backlash. . ." Now the men arrested in the planned attack on Fort Dix are self-proclaimed Muslims and pronounced that their plan was, in their minds, "jihad" in defense of their religion, so one cannot fault the media for proclaiming them as such. I continue to be concerned, however, about how little many people seem to know about Islam, and the contradictory perspectives and at times caricatures people in this country encounter. Obviously the Muslim community in the US has similar concerns, hence their legitimate worry about a backlash.

One of the difficulties Americans face is that like any world religion, Islam is not a cookie-cutter religion. Not only are there different sects of Islam, Islam is practiced differently in different parts of the world. Muslims themselves have very different viewpoints regarding Islam depending on their own upbringing in the religion. On the extreme level, it is the same as Catholics and members of the Ku Klux Klan both calling themselves Christian. Even within mainstream Islam though, there are differences similar to those among "conservative" and "liberal" Christians. How many of us have at one point in time met an ex-Catholic who had a VERY negative experience in the Catholic Church? Asking that person to tell you about Catholicism and a person who has found their life rejuvenated by practicing the Catholic faith is going to yield two very different pictures of what "Catholicism" looks like.

One can quote seemingly violent passages of the Qu'ran. One can also quote excessively violent passages from the Bible

"Slay, therefore, every male child and every woman who has had intercourse with a man. But you may spare and keep for yourselves all girls who had no intercourse with a man." - Numbers 31:17

Oh, but that is the Old Testament, some of you may protest!"

"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." - Lk 14:26

Or again:

"He [Jesus] said to them, "But now one who has a money bag should take it, and likewise a sack, and one who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one." Lk. 22:36

But these passages are taken out of literary and historical context, you may protest. Exactly! But they are there to be misinterpreted by those who might choose to do so. In the Christian world of the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, in colonial times, during the Salem witch trials, etc., passages in the Bible were often used as a divine mandate for violence.

Even before the stories in the media this week, I was struck when two friends were talking about reading the writings of two different Muslim women with two completely different viewpoints about women in Islam. One was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote Infidel, a book that tells her story of experiencing a very oppressive Islamic culture first in Somalia, then in Saudi Arabia, and finally in Holland, where she left the Islamic faith and began speaking out publically on the dangers to women in Islam. The other is Ingrid Mattson, a former Catholic, who is the first woman and the first convert to be the President of the Islamic Society of North America (I have to point out here, that no woman has ever been the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). Her experience is that the religion of Islam is very liberating for women. Both stories are important, because they bring home the very different ways in which the religion of Islam is practiced in the world. Neither woman is "wrong". Islam can't be judged in theory; it can only be judged in practice. The same is true for Christianity.

A friend of mine told me about a fascinating article on Slate.com, "God is in the Dendrites: Can Neurotheology Bridge the Gap Between Science and Religion?" As neuroscientists have started to study various types of religious experience, we end up with the chicken and the egg question - which came first, brains predisposed to religious experience or religious experience that developed certain areas of the brain? Further questions are asked about the meaning of brains that have the mechanics for religious experience, such as were the brains created by God to facilitate such experiences or are such experiences simply physical occurences that create an illusion of a God? The answer to this question is one that cannot be scientifically proven one way or another. It simply comes down to faith and/or opinion.

As for which comes first, the chicken or the egg, I suspect it is like most of our other traits, that there are differences physiologically that make a person more prone to religious/meditative feelings or experiences, and then that part of the brain is developed and enhanced through actual religious/meditative practice. Our intellectual frameworks, belief systems, etc., also affect the experiences we have. The Newburg study (Eugene D’Aquili and Andrew Newburg, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience) shows that Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns, when meditating, initially display similar MRI patterns , but if you read further in the study, there is a point in the meditative experience where those patterns diverge, and they describe their experiences differently. The Franciscan nuns speak of a oneness with God, whereas the Buddhist monks speak of an impersonal void (D’Aquili and Newburg, “Religious and Mystical States,” Zygon 23:178). The scientists tell us that the divergence of areas in the brain that are stimulated in the experience (as shown in the MRI patterns) corresponds to the nuns experiencing a positive feeling and the monks experiencing a neutral feeling, hence my argument that the fact that they come to the experience of meditation with different intellectual frameworks actually affects the experience itself. The physiological activity in their brains is different because they are operating under different belief systems. Does this mean that religious experience is a product of our brains? Yes and no. Yes, in the very physiological way that I just described, but no in that the physiological basis of the experience does not negate the religious nature of the experience.

From a religious perspective (note that I am going beyond what science can prove or disprove at this point), we are embodied spirits. We do not have spiritual experiences that do not involve our bodies. Of course religious experience is physiological! The embodiedness of the experience does not make it any less of God. In Catholic theology there is a principle that God works through secondary causes. It is this principle that allows Catholic theology to see very little conflict between most areas of science and religion. Scientific explanations do not discredit theological explanations. Ultimately they should enhance theological explanations by filling us with a wonder and awe of the God whose creation is so intricate and beautiful, from the expanse of the universe to the tiniest details of every atom. That human brains should be created in such a way as to be able to have an experience that gives them a sense that there is something "more" than our own existence doesn't "prove" the existence of God, but for those of us that do believe, it sure does make sense. That those same brains are able to reflect upon theological concepts and that the different concepts in turn affect the experience one has, says something even greater to me both about free will and the infinitely, incomprehensible mystery that we call God.

This weekend we are celebrating the sacrament of Confirmation in the parish. So many people have a misconception about the sacrament of Confirmation, understanding it to be the moment when the individual "confirms" his/her faith. Confirmation is not about something the individual does; it is about something that God does. In Confirmation, God confirms you. You have been chosen by God to be a disciple, to be a witness, to be a sacrament of God's love in the world. There is also a role for the individual, which is to accept that mission (picture Mission Impossible - "your mission, should you decide to accept it . . .") and to use the gifts that God has given you to live out that mission.

The Jesuit theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar taught that it is in our mission that we receive our identity, our personhood. He taught that God creates each of us with a telos (Greek for end or purpose). It is in and through prayer, through our relationship with God, that we discover the mission or purpose that is "specifically designed for and tailored to each individual" (Theo-Drama III, 249). One only becomes conscious of one's mission through encounter with God. Confirmation can be one such encounter, where we realize we have been specifically called by God to accomplish something of God's plan for the world. It is then through living out that mission that we truly discover who we are, who we have been created to be. Each person's mission is also a participation in the mission of Christ, so that as we live out our mission, we become more holy, more Christlike, and ultimately find our fulfilment as a human person.

So often in this world we tend to search for meaning, looking for that which is going to fulfill us and make us happy. The Christian message is so simple - that our fulfillment is not found in ourselves, but in living lives of love and service. It is in giving of ourselves that we truly find ourselves. We spend our entire lives living out our mission, and in doing so, discovering ever more deeply who we truly are. Doing so takes a life of continual prayer and discernment, for rarely is the path we should take crystal clear (life would be much easier if it were, but probably not nearly as interesting). Most of the time I would guess there is no single right path, but rather many different paths we can take, all of which provide opportunities for living out our life of discipleship and mission. And so I leave you, and our Confirmands, with the words of Psalm 143:

In the morning let me know your love, for I put my trust in you. Make me know the ways I should walk; to you I lift up my soul. Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will, for you, O Lord, are my God. Let your good Spirit guide me in ways that are level and smooth.

Like many others, I was stunned and deeply saddened by the tragedy at Virginia Tech on Monday. My heart goes out to the loved ones of those who died. My heart also goes out to the parents and sister of Seung-Hui Cho. I have not heard a lot about his family, one article simply said his parents were not at home when the reporter knocked on their door, and for this I am grateful. I can't even imagine what it must be like to experience not only the death of your child, but the knowledge that your child did such a horrific thing. With all that the media has reported about this young man, from his own writings to the way he is described by teachers and classmates, it is clearly evident to me that he was seriously mentally ill. He was living in some kind of personal hell, and while many around him saw that, no one knew precisely what to do about it. This fact in no way excuses or lessens the horrific things he did, but it does make me wonder what brings a person to that point, and so I pray for him and his family as well as for all of the others who have suffered in this incident.

The tragic death of 33 people and the nations' focus on the event also makes me reflect on how fortunate I am to live a life in which I am stunned by this event. My presupposition is that when students attend classes at universities, they will be safe. My presupposition is that when I go to the grocery store or stop to fill my car up with gas, I will be safe. Yesterday at least 197 people were killed in attacks across Baghdad. 140 of them were at a market and many of those killed were women and children. I don't know what it is like to live in a world where I could be killed driving home from work or buying my food for the week. I don't know what it is like to live in the inner city in the US and worry about the safety of my children when they play outside or wait for the bus in the morning. I don't know what it is like to live in a refugee camp in Chad or Darfur and fear being raped or killed when I go to get water or firewood to keep my family alive. And so when 32 people are tragically killed at a US University, I am stunned.

Last Sunday we heard of Mary Magdelene discovering the tomb empty, and this Sunday we will hear of the appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples and then to Thomas. Here we have the beginning and the end of chapter 20 of the Gospel of John. What we miss, unless we were able to attend daily mass on Tuesday, is the middle of this chapter, which is the encounter of Mary Magdelene with the risen Lord. A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to hear a talk on this chapter by Sandra Schneiders, and I hear the chapter in an entirely different way now.

This chapter is about coming to belief. The themes of presence and absence, seeing and touching, all play a role in this account of the transition from a belief in Jesus based on his physical presence among the disciples to our belief today in the continued presence of Christ in our midst, but in a new way. As Schneiders laid it out, the story begins with the physical absence of the Jesus and a problem - where is the Lord? Note that the empty tomb does not engender belief, but confusion, concern, fear. The immediate assumption is that the body has been taken. What brings the disciples to faith is the encounter with the risen Lord.

Sandra Schneiders points out the interesting paradox in John's gospel. In the encounter with Mary Magdelene, Jesus tells Mary not to touch him, but in the encounter with Thomas, Jesus commands Thomas to touch him. Schneiders explains the difference by associating Mary, on the one hand, with the transition from the pre-Easter Jesus to the Easter Jesus. Jesus is present now in a new and different way; he is present now in the community of believers. The prohibition against touching him exemplifies that difference. Thomas, on the other hand, represents that transition from the Easter Jesus to the post-Easter Jesus. The disciples believe because they have seen the Lord. Thomas has not seen the Lord, and refuses to believe. He does not accept the testimony and witness of the others, of "the church". When Jesus appears again, he says to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. . . . do not be unbelieving, but believe" (v. 27). To see in John's gospel is to come to faith, which Thomas does in his exclamation, "My Lord and my God!" The new generations of believers will have to come to faith through the testimony and witness of others; by spiritual sight, not physical sight. That spiritual sight will then allow them to encounter the risen Christ.

Tonight we begin the Triduum (Latin for "three day") with our Holy Thursday service, The Mass of the Lord's Supper. The Triduum is one service that begins tonight, includes the Good Friday liturgy, and culminates in the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, the highest, holiest celebration in our Church year. In these three days we enter into the paschal mystery, the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. Tonight we will hear the earliest account of the Last Supper, the reading from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians (written a good 15-30 yrs. before any of the gospel accounts). Paul is writing in response to the disreputable behavior of the Corinthian community at their celebrations of the Lord's Supper. I once heard a priest in a talk on the Eucharist say, "Thank God for the drunks at Corinth!" Those drunks are the reason Paul recounts the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. Paul's insight in this 11th chapter of this letter is that when the Corinthians mistreat their fellow Christians, when they let some in their community go hungry and suffer while they indulge themselves, they do not recognize Christ, and thus eat and drink judgment upon themselves. They do not discern the body. In other words, they do not recognize that they are the body of Christ, and when they do not recognize Christ's presence in one another, they do not recognize Christ in the body.

The gospel we hear from John gives a similar message. In the Gospel of John, there is no account of the sharing of the bread and wine. Instead we hear about the washing of the feet. Jesus washes his disciples feet, a gesture of love, concern, humbleness, service, and tells them that as he has done for them, so they are to do for one another. In this passage is one of the most profound lines in John's gospel for me:

I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. (John 13:15)

If we could live by this one line in the Gospel, we would have understood Jesus' entire life and message; we would have understood what it means to be a Christian. We literally wash one another's feet at the Holy Thursday service. If you have ever had your feet washed, you may know that it is not always a comfortable feeling. You have to be willing to be a bit vulnerable to have your feet washed. You have to recognize another's vulnerability and trust when you wash her feet. In many places 12 are picked to have their feet washed. I have also attended at places where everyone washes someone's feet and has her own feet washed. The theme of Holy Thursday is what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, the continuing sacrament of God's love in the world.

On Good Friday we venerate the cross. We do not worship the object, but rather express our devotion to what the object stands for - the crucifixion of Christ. The cross represents Christ's sacrifice for us and his solidarity with us in our moments of worst suffering. The cross should tell us that we are never alone, even when we feel abandoned by all including God. The cross is the symbol of God's love for us poured out. The cross tells us that God's reaction to our sinfulness is to love us without any conditions. Nothing we could ever do can "separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:39)

Easter, like all of our feast days, begins at sundown Saturday night. At the Easter Vigil, we begin in darkness as the Paschal candle is lit. The light of Christ's resurrection is spread through the entire church, as each of us receives the light and then gives what we have received, the pattern of our Christian lives. We hear the story of salvation history - the way God has worked in our history from the moment of creation. We welcome new members into the Church and renew our own baptismal vows, seeing in the waters of baptism that we have become new creations, we have put on Christ, we are transfigured. We again receive what we are and become what we receive in the Eucharist, and we are sent out into the world to take the Easter light into all the darkest places in our lives and our world.

This week we will hear two different accounts of the passion narrative during Holy Week, the one from the lectionary cycle (this year Luke) on Palm Sunday and the one from the Gospel of John on Good Friday. These readings and the veneration of the cross on Good Friday call to mind for us the meaning of the crucifixion in our salvation. I have often reflected on what we mean when we say that we are saved through Christ's death on the cross, that in this act is the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of humankind. After Pope John Paul II died, I read Crossing the Threshold of Hope, responses John Paul II wrote to interview questions he had been given. One of the passages profoundly impacted the way I thought about the cross and salvation. In the context of a discussion about suffering, Pope John Paul II says:

In a certain sense one could say that confronted with our human freedom, God decided to make himself "impotent." And one could say that God is paying for the great gift bestowed upon a being He created "in his image, after his likeness" (cf. Gn 1:26). Before this gift, He remains consistent, and places Himself before the judgment of man, before an illegitimate tribunal which asks Him provocative questions: "Then you are a king?" (cf. Jn 18:37); "Is it true that all which happens in the world, in the history of Israel, in the history of all nations, depends on you?"

We know Christ's response to this question before Pilate's tribunal: "For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth" (Jn 18:37). But then: "What is truth?" (Jn 18:38), and here ended the judicial proceeding, that tragic proceeding in which man accused God before the tribunal of his own history, and in which the sentence handed down did not conform to the truth. Pilate says: "I find no guilt in him" (Jn 18:38), and a second later he orders: "Take him yourselves and crucify him!" (Jn 19:6). In this way he washes his hands of the issue and returns the responsibility to the violent crowd.

Therefore, the condemnation of God by man is not based on truth, but on arrogance, on an underhanded conspiracy. Isn't this the truth about the history of humanity, the truth about our century? In our time the same condemnation has been repeated in many courts of totalitarian regimes (p. 65, italics in original).

Reflecting on this passage, I thought, everytime we fail to see what is sacred and give reverence and respect to what is sacred, we are guilty of the very sinfulness that led the people of Jesus' time to crucify him. Everytime in our own lives we fail to recognize God in our midst, we crucify Christ. We crucify Christ in our blindness or apathy toward the suffering of the innocent. The cross is not about God substituting punishment of Jesus for punishment of us; it is our false judgment of God - a judgment not based on truth, but on our arrogance and underhanded conspiracy, our attempts to protect the status quo, to maintain our power and control -- in a word, what we call original sin. Pilate asks, "What is truth?" In the passion narrative, Pilate does not recognize truth when it is right in front of him. Peter denies the truth. Judas betrays the truth.

God's reaction to our sinfulness is not wrathful punishment, but rather is to embrace it in a willing acceptance of the cross and to redeem it through an outpouring of love for us. God brings resurrection out of our crucifixions of God. In that is the forgiveness of our sins - that God looks at us, sees us for who we truly are (sees the truth) and all that we have done and failed to do, and loves us unconditionally. God enters into solidarity with us, into union with us, and draws us into the divine embrace of the Trinity. Through our baptism we are always, already forgiven all that we do, because by the Spirit we are united to Christ on the cross and our sinfullness is redeemed and transfigured in the resurrection. In our baptisms, we are plunged into the death and resurrection of Christ. At reconciliation we experience and celebrate that unconditional love and forgiveness that calls us to be and reminds us that we always can be more. At Eucharist we renew and rejoice in our unity with God and one another through receiving and being the Body of Christ; and in accepting the cup, we accept God's mercy and forgivenenss, renewing the covenant, surrendering to God, and joining our "Amen" to God to the Amen of Christ on the cross. As we renew our baptismal vows this Easter, may all of our sinfulness be transformed and transfigured by the love God has poured out for us on the cross.

It always seems odd to me to use the word "anniversary" to refer to a sorrowful event. I am so used to hearing the word to refer to the celebration of marriages or ordinations or birthdays, events that are joyful. This week marks two sorrowful anniversaries of which we should be mindful. The first would be hard to miss with all of the discussion in the media of the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq on March 19th. The second is the 27th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24th. Both should remind us to continually pray for peace.

The Catholic Church was adamantly opposed to the invasion of Iraq four years ago. We cannot, however, turn back the hands of time and undo what has been done. In his statement "Towards a Responsible Transition in Iraq," written over a year ago for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Wenski stated:

Our nation cannot afford a shrill and shallow debate that distorts reality and reduces the options to “cut and run” versus “stay the course.” Instead we need a forthright discussion that begins with an honest assessment of the situation in Iraq and acknowledges both the mistakes that have been made and the signs of hope that have appeared. Most importantly, an honest assessment of our moral responsibilities toward Iraq should commit our nation to a policy of responsible transition.

In January of this year, in the statement "Evaluating Plans for a Responsible Transition in Iraq," Bishop Skyland wrote:

Each course of action, including current policies, ought to be evaluated in light of our nation’s moral responsibility to help Iraqis to live with security and dignity in the aftermath of U.S. military action. Our nation’s military forces should remain in Iraq only as long as their presence actually contributes to a responsible transition. Our nation should seek effective ways to end their deployment at the earliest opportunity consistent with this goal. The Holy See and our bishops’ Conference expressed grave moral concerns about military intervention in Iraq and the unpredictable and uncontrollable negative consequences of invasion and occupation. In light of current realities, the Holy See and our Conference support broader regional and international engagement to increase security, stability and reconstruction in Iraq. . . . At this critical juncture as our nation seeks a new way forward in Iraq, our leaders have a moral obligation to examine where things genuinely stand in pursuing justice and peace in Iraq, to assess what is actually achievable there, and to evaluate the moral and human consequences of alternative courses of action and whether they truly contribute to a responsible transition. At this difficult moment, let us pray for our nation, for the people of Iraq and for all those who bear the responsibility and burden of these difficult choices. We ask God for courage, humility and wisdom as we seek a path to a responsible transition in Iraq.

There is no easy solution to the problem of Iraq. For more information on the bishops concerns and suggestions, see the "Questions and Answers on the War in Iraq," they published in February.

The second sorrowful anniversary is the assassination of Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador. When Romero was selected to be Archbishop, nobody thought his impact would be very great. He was labeled a "conservative" and was predicted to be a person who would maintain the status quo. The two previous years he had spent as bishop of a poor rural district in El Salvador had made an impact on him, however, as he encountered the desperate poverty of his people and the unjust wages and working conditions that were a part of their daily lives (see James Brockman's article in Spirituality Today). Archbishop Romero was further affected by the assassination of a Jesuit priest weeks after he became Archbishop. Over the next three years five more priests and numerous catechists and church leaders were assassinated. Romero went to the Pope John Paul II with seven dossiers documenting the violence that was being perpetrated on his people, he went to Pres. Carter to ask the US to stop funding the El Salvadoran military that was behind the slaughter of his people, but in the end, he was not able to get anyone to listen and even his fellow El Salvadoran bishops turned their backs on him.

Romero was undeterred. He encouraged his people by preaching the Word of God each week, his homilies being broadcast across the nation by the archdiocesan radio station. His homilies would last more than an hour, and he

began to incorporate a report and commentary on the past week's events into his homily on the scripture readings of the mass. "We can not segregate God's word from the historical reality in which it is proclaimed," he said. "That would not be God's word . . . .It is God's word because it enlightens, contrasts with, repudiates, or praises what is going on today in this society." The people themselves, he told them, must learn from his example to apply God's word to their own lives, just as he was trying to apply it to the life of the nation and of their church. (Brockman)

He preached that if they kill all of the priests, each of the people must become God's microphone, must become a prophet. He said, "I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people." Days before he was killed, he said,

You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.

He challenged the army to stop the repression, to stop killing their fellow citizens, stating, "No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God." The next day he was killed. On March 24th, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot in the heart while celebrating the mass. In his final homily, moments before he was killed, Archbishop Romero challenged all of us, saying:

One must not love oneself so much, as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and those that fend off danger will lose their lives.

To read more of Archbishop Romero's words, see the collection of his homilies, The Violence of Love.

I have a hard time believing that I feel the need to once again address this topic, and I can't even tell you the sense of hopelessness I feel settle in my soul with that thought. If I, with my comfortable home, safe life, food, water, etc., feel such hopelessness, how must the people of Darfur feel, living with death, rape, torture, and starvation on a daily basis? How is it that after more than four years of saying this cannot continue, the genocide goes on? Despite the Darfur Peace Agreement brokered in May of 2006, the United Nations reports that "violence has increased since late 2005 and has continued unabated into 2007." Estimates of deaths from the conflict itself and from lack of food, water, and health care among the refugees is estimated between 200,000 and 400,000. Over 2.5 million people have been displaced. Villages have been bombed and burned. Wells and livestock are deliberately destroyed. In the words of the United States Bishops, "this new wave of violence points to a collective failure on the part of the international community to stem what can only be described as a catastrophe." The people in the refugee camps cannot survive without water and firewood, and so they must leave the supposedly safe refugee camps to collect these essentials. If the men go for water and firewood, they risk being castrated and killed; if the the women and children to, they risk being gang raped and abducted. The choices these families have to make are not choices any human being should ever have to face. At the same time, because of the increased violence, humanitarian workers are increasingly less able to get supplies to those who need them most, both because of the extreme danger involved, and because they are frequently being denied access to the country by the Sudanese government. The UN report concluded:

The situation is characterized by gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law. War crimes and crimes against humanity continue across the region. . . . While important steps have been taken by the international community, including the African Union and the United Nations, these have been largely resisted and obstructed, and have proven inadequate and ineffective. . . . The Mission further concludes that the Government of the Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes. As such, the solemn obligation of the international community to exercise its responsibility to protect has become evident and urgent.

I am sure that many of you, like me, have worried and prayed over the situation in Darfur. Maybe you have contacted Congress and the President to express your concerns or signed a petition. I know that there is extreme frustration with the feeling of futility this situation engenders. The US has pledged financial support, and President Bush did appoint a special envoy, Ambassador Andrew Natsios, to work on the situation with Sudan. Part of the problem is that the Africa Union troops on the ground do not have a mandate to protect civilians, but only a mandate to monitor the ceasefire. They have neither the numbers (7,000 troops) nor the equipment to do either. Many of the soldiers go months without being paid, they are demoralised, and the African countries involved are starting to talk about pulling their troops out. The Sudanese government is resisting efforts to deploy a combined UN - AU force of 20,000 troops.

The USCCB is calling for the following:

1. Ask the U.S. to pressure both the government and the rebels to respect a ceasefire and to intensify the search for a just and durable peace, while urging both Sudan and Chad to refrain from supporting each other’s rebel movements.
2. Urge the U.S. to use its voice in the UN Security Council to continue and strengthen the mandate of the African Union in Darfur to monitor the ceasefire, protect innocent civilians and assist international humanitarian relief organizations, while urging NATO to provide AMIS with all possible logistical support, until its transition to a more robust, well funded force with a strong mandate.
3. Encourage the U.S. Administration to hold the signatories to the peace agreement accountable and to honor its promise to provide substantial financial and political support to the government of national unity to undertake the reconstruction of the country and its civil society.
4. Urge the UN Security Council to continue its support for the peacekeeping mission that is working with all parties to the national-unity government to implement the peace accord. The United States should provide adequate funding and logistical support so that peace and security might be achieved.

To see how our senators and representatives have voted on various Darfur legislative methods, go to the Darfur Scorecard website. I encourage all of you to continue urging those in Congress and our administration to keep the issue of Darfur as a top priority for our country and for all humankind. I am glad that the Catholic Church has been proactive, not only in lobbying for the international community to step in and do something about Darfur, but also in directly helping those most in need through Catholic Relief Services. CRS provides an easy way for us to contact our government with our concerns as well as a way to support the direct aid that is being given to those living in the midst of this nightmare. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also is part of the executive committee of Save Darfur, a coalition of many different organizations all working together to help the people of Darfur. The one small light in the darkness of this situation for me was reading the list of member organizations in this coalition. The list contains various Islamic, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and Unitarian organizations, as well as different charitable, ethnic, regional, etc., groups who have put aside any and all differences to recognize that our common humanity is greater than any of the differences between us, and to say with one voice that what has happened and continues to happen in Darfur is an affront to that humanity.

Lent is a time when Catholics traditionally do an examination of conscience. This spiritual exercise comes in many forms and formats, but basically it is taking a look at oneself and evaluating to what extent I am being the person I want to be, the person I am called to be. Many examinations of conscience focus on the ten commandments. The Ten Commandments can be broken down into the two great commandments of Jesus, to love God and to love your neighbor. The first three commandments have to do with loving God: “You shall have no other God before Me,” “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain,” and “You shall keep holy the Sabbath.”

The rest of the commandments are ways in which we love our neighbors. They call us us to affirm life (“You shall not kill”), honor families (“You shall honor your mother and father), and honor the covenant of marriage (“You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife”). We hear a lot about the importance of family values today. Ideally the family is the place for one’s primary relationships and the place one receives love and support. The concept of ‘family’ includes a lot of diversity, for example single parent families, intergenerational families, or families that include a diversity of race or religion. To be a family is to be held together by commitment and love. As such we use the term ‘family’ as an analogy for communities that mirror that commitment and love as in ‘our parish family’. Our faith upholds the ideal that families are sacred. As some of you may have heard me say many times, the family is the first and foremost place a child learns about faith. The Church has a role in supporting families and marriages and upholding both as ideals. We also recognize that life is often not ideal, and our family relationships sometimes fall short of what we hoped and dreamed they would be. Thus the Church also has a role in helping people grieve when they experience loss or brokenness in their families through death, divorce, or the other hardships we encounter in life. Please know that those of us who work in parishes consider it part of our ministry to support you and your children during those difficult times, and hope you feel free to seek us out in that capacity.

Other commandments deal with possessions. They entreat us to respect the property of others (“You shall not steal”) and avoid coveting what is not ours (“You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods”). Most of us are probably not going to hold up a bank at any time in the near future, but these commandments do encourage us to look more closely at ways in which we might be less honest about possessions than we should be. Such an examination of conscience might include examining one’s investments to see if the companies in which one invests operate out of sound ethics, including such matters as how they treat their workers. It might mean examining how often we give in to the materialist expectations of our culture – how aware are we of what we need versus what we want? It is also not always goods or possessions that we covet, sometimes it can be someone else’s position or power or even his/her happiness. These commandments encourage us to examine our lives to see if we have made any false idols in our lives, i.e., that which we seek with the ardor with which we should seek God.

The final commandment left entreats us to be honest (“You shall not bear false witness”) and appreciate the dignity of the human person (an obviously recurring theme among our doctrines that is included in all of these commandments). Honesty has to do with our basic integrity and authenticity as human beings. It includes a prohibition against lying, but it also includes a prescription to have a congruity between the person you are on the inside and the person you present to the world, between your beliefs and your actions. The theological foundation for this commandment is the belief that our God “is truth and wills the truth (CCC 2464).” Part of our dignity as human beings is to be the image and likeness of our God who is truth. To be that image and likeness demands that we are always striving toward a deeper integrity and authenticity as a human being.

"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This phrase is one of the options given to be said when we receive ashes on Ash Wednesday. It is not used as often anymore. More frequently one of the other options, such as, "Repent, and believe the Good News!" is used. I used to be rather disturbed by the "dust to dust" phrase; it seemed so morbid. Now I rather like it and wish it was used more often. Thinking about it this past Ash Wednesday, I realized it is not meant to be morbid, so much as to make us reflect on the fact that this life and the things of this life are not ultimate. That does not mean that they are bad, it just means we need to keep things in perspective. All that we encounter in this life is finite and impermanent. We are beings that are created for the infinite, that are created for God. We are enjoined to enjoy this life and to make the most of the time we are given, but also to recognize that nothing in this life can ultimately fulfill us. I have frequently quoted Augustine and will do so again,

"You created us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

Augustine's quote should be our guiding image through Lent.

Lent, for me, is a time of retreat. We hear the call from God on Ash Wednesday in the words from Joel 2:12, "Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart." I always look forward to Lent as a time of spiritual renewal in my life. It is a time for me to reflect on the fact that I too often try to find fulfillment in the things of this world instead of in surrendering to God. In my head I know that it is only in surrendering to God that I find that peace and freedom I so desperately need, but being that I tend to be a control freak, I just forget to let go! That reminds me of a family story we always tell when teaching someone to water ski. When I was young, we were teaching a friend to water ski, and it did not even occur to us to tell her that if she fell, she should let go of the rope. She did fall, held on and was dragged underwater for several feet before she finally let go. We were all in the boat yelling for her to let go, but she was underwater and could not hear us. Sometimes our spiritual lives are like that. We have fallen and are being dragged underwater so that we cannot even breathe, and all we need to do to recover is let go. Sometimes we hang on until the force of being sucked under finally forces us to let go.

In addition to re-learning the need to surrender to God in Lent, to look for that ultimate fulfillment of our lives in God, Lent is a reminder of how short this life can be. That is another reason I like the phrase, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." I tend to take my life, with all of the people and experiences that entails, for granted. I have frequently told others that we should live our lives more as if each day were the last, appreciating the giftedness of each moment. Doing so puts life in perspective so that we mend broken relationships in a timely matter, and we remember to appreciate the people in our lives and tell them how much they mean to us. Of course, it is much easier to tell others to do this than to do it myself! Lent is a time to ask myself, what would I do if today were my last day on earth? What would I say to the people I love? Who would I make a point to talk to? Do the people who are important to me and who have impacted my life know how they have affected me?

I hope that you will find this Lent a time of spiritual renewal, a time to come to a new appreciation of God and the gift of life. The traditional practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving will hopefully help all of us be mindful of what is ultimate in life, what we have been given, and how we appreciate what we have been given. "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I'm going to use this week's blog to expand on a comment on last week's blog. If you didn't read Sara's comment last week, which raised some excellent points, she stated:

Was it Rahner who asserted that all language about God has to be comparative and relational? I just read that section in She Who Is, but I can't remember the exact wording used. I think our divisions by sex, or imaging of God by gender is such a limited (and limiting!) understanding. After all, the Bible says "male AND female, He created them," not "male OR female."

Her comment caused me to pull out She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson, and I found several points in there I wanted to share this week. Karl Rahner does assert that God is first and foremost incomprehensible mystery, and therefore all of our language about God falls short of the reality it is trying to express. God is beyond our cognitive grasp. We can "know" God, but when we do, we "know" God as mystery. The word "God" actually works because it is empty of all content. Unlike other words we use for God, such as "Father" or "Lord", the word God is not metaphorical; it is not a word that is taken from our prior human experience and applied to God. We create images and concepts of God, but those images and concepts can never fully capture God. Rahner also points out, in an article titled, "When God is Far From Us," that at times the images we have been using for God no longer work, and the consequence is the feeling that God is absent. It is not that God is truly absent, it is that God is not fitting our image or idea of what God is supposed to be, and we have to let go of that image in order to reconnect with God. Elizabeth Johnson quotes C.S. Lewis on this point. In his work A Grief Observed, Lewis says:

My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that his shattering is one of the marks of His presence? (p. 52; cited in Johnson, p. 39.)

Lewis' idea of God was shattered by the death of his wife. He had very explicit ideas about the purpose of pain and suffering in our lives, but when his wife died, his previous understanding of God no longer worked. Our images of God change and grow as we go through various experiences of life, and sometimes that growth can be painful.

The idea that our concepts fall short of God is as ancient as the prohibition on images of God in the ten commandments, but has been profoundly restated by theologians over time. St. Augustine simply states, "If you have understood, then what you have understood is not God." In its more expanded form quoted by Johnson, Augustine says:

If you have understood, then this is not God. If you were able to understand, then you understood something else instead of God. If you were able to understand even partially, then you have decieved yourself with your own thoughts. (Sermo 52, c.6, n.16; cited in Johnson, p. 109.)

Thomas Aquinas follows Augustine on this line of thought. Johnson quotes the following passage from Aquinas:

Since our mind is not proportionate to the divine substance, that which is the substance of God remains beyond our intellect and so is unknown to us. Hence the supreme knowledge we have of God is to know that we do not know God, insofar as we know that what God is surpasses all that we can understand of [God]. (De Potentia q.7, a.5; cited in Johnson, p. 45.)

Nonetheless, we do need to be able to talk about God and put our experience of God into human concepts. For this reason, Aquinas develops the doctrine of analogy which says whenever we affirm something of God, we must also negate it, and then negate the negation. In other words, we can say God is good, but God is not good as humans are good, God is good beyond what we can even understand goodness to be because God is the source of all goodness (see Johnson, p. 113). We use our human concepts to talk and think about God, but we also recognize the limits of those concepts.

This point brings us back to the topic of gender and metaphor for God. Speaking of God in language that is masculine or feminine is always using language that is metaphorical. The problem is not using such language; the problem is taking such language literally. Many feminist theologians, including Elizabeth Johnson, would argue for the necessity of using feminine images and pronouns to break through the exclusive hold masculine images and pronouns have held through the years. Read some of the Psalms, for example, and replace "he" and "him" with "she" and "her". Does it make you uncomfortable? Why? That reaction is something to examine within yourself. Has a masculine image of God become an idol in your thinking about God? Many raise the objection that Jesus was male, but Jesus' "maleness" was part of his humanity, as was his height, weight, hair color, etc. Some also protest that Jesus spoke of God as male when he called God "Abba". He did, but we also have to understand the historical context in which he was preaching. He also did use feminine images for speaking about God and God's reign (a mother hen gathering her chicks, a woman searching for a coin), albeit not as frequently. The most prevalent use of feminine language for God is Scripture are the passages about Wisdom/Sophia, for example in Wisdom 7:22-27

For in her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique,
Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain,
Not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly,
Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing,
And pervading all spirits,
though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle.
For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion,
and she penetrates and pervades all things
by reason of her purity.
For she is an aura of the might of God
and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nought that is sullied enters into her.
For she is the refulgence of eternal light,
the spotless mirror of the power of God,
the image of his goodness.
And she, who is one, can do all things,
and renews everything while herself perduring;
And passing into holy souls from age to age,
she produces friends of God and prophets.

In closing, I just want to highlight the an important point Sara made in her comment, that we are made in God's image "male and female" not "male or female". Thanks Sara, for that profound insight!

A friend showed me a CNN video clip the other day about a 12 year old child prodigy artist named Akiane Kramarik. At the age of four Akiane had an experience of God, even more extraordinary given that she was raised in a home where faith was not practiced or discussed. Her mother had been raised atheist, and her father was a former Catholic. (See article in Christianity Today.) In the CNN interview, speaking of when Akiane first started describing the visions, Akiane's mother tells the reporter, "I knew it was real to her, the things she had seen and the places she had visited." Through their daughter's experience of God, Akiane's parents have found/renewed their own faith in God. While Akiane enjoys painting portraits and animals, she also started to paint her visions. Through the visions Akiane felt called to help others, not only through her artwork, but also actively working to relieve suffering in the world. She gives a portion of the proceeds of her artwork to charity and is hoping to start building hospitals in Lithuania (her mother's home country) and will soon begin a tour to raise money to alleviate suffering from AIDS in Africa.

In addition to the paintings themselves, Akiane would pray, reflect, and write poetry about the paintings. Akiane explains that her poetry writes about the suffering and the hardship of humankind; her art shows the hope. About a painting titled, "Divine Knowledge," Akiane writes:

"This painting was particularly hard for me, because I have changed it so many times and ended up using two models and two completely different backgrounds. It took me a few months to paint its full meaning and another five months of prayer to fully understand it. This is the painting about search for divine knowledge.The young sculptor represents our civilization mostly ruled by the male. His youth shows that our civilization is still immature. The sculptor is chiseling a huge heap of coal in order to find the diamond representing divine knowledge. The sculptor ignores the pain, strain, hardship and temptation of everything surrounding him. All he focuses on is on finding this particular diamond, and he knows that if he chisels long enough through the black coal layers, representing human knowledge, he will finally see the diamond of divine knowledge. In the background of a cave"

The poem she writes with the painting states:

“…Only from the deep coal tunnels
White diamonds come.
But only by the light
They are recognized…”

Akiane tells CNN that her vision of heaven is vivid and full of color, more colors than we can even imagine. God she describes as "bold light, pure, really masculine, really strong and big." I write about Akiane both because her story and her work touched me deeply, but also because it gives me an opportunity to talk about visions and images of God. If you or I were to have a vision of God, there is a good chance that God would not look to us as God looks to Akiane. God is imageless, and so when a person has a vision, God works through the person's imagination, which is not to say the vision is "made up". God works through the person's own consciousness and the concepts or experiences the person has at her disposal as well as through the subconscious. Many mystics have visions of God, but rarely do two mystics describe God in the same way. Often times words fall short of describing the experience.

Julian of Norwich had many visions of "showings" of God. In her writing about on of her visions, she states:

"As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says: I am he; that is to say: I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and lovingness of motherhood; I am he, the light and the grace which is all blessed love; I am he, the Trinity; I am he, the unity; I am he, the great supreme goodness of every kind of thing; I am he who makes you to love: I am he who makes you to long; I am he, the endless fulfilling of all true desires."

Our images of God tell us about our relationship to God, and they also tell us a lot about ourselves. When I taught theology, I would ask my students to describe God for me. I would write the characteristics they said on the board: powerful, loving, just, compassionate, strong, etc. Then I would ask, for each trait, whether it was masculine or feminine. The results were never entirely surprising: powerful - masculine, loving - feminine, just - masc., compassionate - fem., strong - masc., etc. Eventually someone would sort of catch on and start replying "both". I would have them look at the board and tell me what this says about God. God is not male or female - God does not have a body. Then I would ask what it says about us. What does it mean to men that we say being loving and compassionate is feminine? What does it mean to women that we say being powerful, strong, and just is masculine? I recently heard that there is a new movement afoot called the "menaissance" (like Renaissance) encouraging men to be more manly and less "in touch with their feelings". Similarly much of the language about complementarity between the sexes has the danger of stereotyping men and women and limiting both groups in terms of what it means to be human. I recently heard a homily (not at St. Monica's) about husbands needing to love their wives, and wives needing to respect their husbands. Not once did the priest say that wives should also love their husbands, and husbands also need to respect their wives.

Many people are uncomfortable with feminist theology and feminine images of God, but as theologian Elizabeth Johnson points out, the symbol of God functions. The way we image God has an impact on the way we understand the human persons created in God's image. What does it say about all of the traits listed above when we exclusively image God as male? Not that it is wrong to image God as male, but it is also not wrong to use female metaphors for God, because all of our language about God is metaphor. Images help us relate to God, but they do not capture God. Johnson also points out that to use one image exclusively for God is actually idolatry.

So what does this have to do with Akiane's paintings? I invite you to hear her story and look at the images she has created, and I hope that they will inspire you as they do me. But I also offer them to you with the caveat to take them as real and true, for Akiane and maybe for you, but not literal. They are beautiful symbols and representations of an extraordinary relationship this little girl has with God that, as she herself points out, will always go beyond what we can capture with the limited means at our disposal in this life.

My reflections this week come from the confluence of three sources: I have been reading Henri Nouwen's book, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom, we read and discussed Elie Wiesel's book, Night, in our book club, and I prepared a talk on C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Nouwen's work is a collection of reflections he wrote as he was recovering from a spiritual/emotional breakdown. Wiesel's book is the account of his time in the Nazi concentration camps. Most of us are probably familiar with Lewis' series, at least from seeing commercials for the movie, if not having read the books themselves.

Nouwen reflects a lot on God's unconditional love for us, and the way in which we need to find that place within ourselves where we connect to that love in order to not look for that fulfillment from other human beings. He recognizes that when other people touch us in that place which is most vulnerable, it can awaken a tremendous need within us, but that if we do not see that need as the need for God, if we try to have that person who touched us so deeply fulfill that need within us, we will inevitably be hurt. He also reflects that once we do find our security in that experience of trusting the most vulnerable part of ourselves to God, we are free to love others without expecting to receive love from them in return. He does maintain that we have a need for human love as well as for God's love and that God intends to bring people into our lives to fulfill that need, but those people may not be the same people to whom we give our love. The only problem I have with Nouwen's reflections is that sometimes it seems that when we trust that most vulnerable piece of ourselves to God, we experience being hurt or let down by God. Regardless if that is not really the case in the grand scheme of things, that is our experience. We don't understand why things turn out the way that they do.

Reading Wiesel's account of the concentration camps, one cannot help but ask with him, "Where was God?" How could God have let such a thing happen? Granted there was tremendous evil at work, and humans were ultimately culpable both for directly perpetrating the evil that took place as well as for being complacent with its occurrence even when they were not directly involved. I also do believe that God was working in those who risked their lives to save others during that time, but that still doesn't answer why God did not intervene in some direct way to stop what was occurring. It raises many theological questions for us about whether and how God intervenes, to which there are very few satisfactory answers.

That brings me to Narnia. In Narnia the children ask if Aslan (the Lion who is the God/Christ figure in the story) is safe. Mr. Beaver responds, "Of course he isn't safe. But he is good." One of the articles I was reading related this statement to Lewis' own experience of God. Lewis' mother died when he was a child. His father was unable to overcome his own grief enough to be any source of comfort and love to his grieving children. The children were sent to boarding schools where the experience was abusive to the extent that Lewis calls that chapter in his autobiography, "Concentration Camp." The author of the article I read reflected that Lewis' own experience of God led him to the conclusion that God is not safe. God does not protect us from bad things happening to us. God is also not tame for Lewis. As the children cannot control Aslan, we cannot control God. We can pray for help; we do pray for help, but we cannot make God do what we want. In the movie Shadowlands, which is about C.S. Lewis losing his wife to cancer, Lewis' character states, "I do not pray because it changes God; I pray because it changes me. I pray because the need flows out of me constantly."

This is the paradox of our faith. Bad things do happen to us. We do not understand. We do not know why God does not intervene to stop these things from happening. We may even feel betrayed and hurt by God, finding it hard to trust God again. But ultimately we also experience God as the only one we can turn to at such times, the one who is there with us, crucified on the cross of suffering. The one who is with us in our cry, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" And in that experience we pray that we can come again to the place where we feel God's unconditional love for us, the place where God, who "is not safe" paradoxically becomes our place of safety, our home.