possessed. lunatics. paralytics.

~ julie vieira ~ Leave a comment

Monday after Epiphany
Lectionary: 212

1 John 3:22–4:6
Psalm 2:7bc-8, 10-12a
Matthew 4:12-17,23-25

Possessed. Lunatics. Paralytics.

These three words caught me as I prayed with today’s readings.

Like many of us, I am very sensitive to the use of language and how words can hurt, especially when they are used to dismiss the experience of others.

Matthew was intentional about using these words for he wanted to show that it was the people who were treated as outcasts – demonized, ridiculed, diseased, crazy, and just plain unworthy – that were among the people who not only heard but could take to heart the person and message of Jesus.

It is among the possessed, lunatics and paralytics that Jesus drew close. In Matthew’s account, Jesus doesn’t interview them ahead of time to assess their worthiness or to judge their supposed deviance. He knows what it’s like to be disregarded and pushed out just because of who he is. Jesus makes no moral judgements about the people as a condition of loving them. He just draws close in love and heals them. Jesus pays no heed to the accusations of others about them. Who knows? There could have been legitimate transgressions or concerns and there could also have been trumped up charges, fake news or plain old fear because these people were different from what was considered “normal”. Jesus did not judge. Before him were people whom he would not separate himself from.

Possessed. Lunatics. Paralytics.

Life was rough for them. The minority population always struggles in the majority. It’s hard enough to be different for whatever reason, it’s even harder living in a world that deals harshly with anything and anyone who doesn’t fit. We Christians and religious do our best to follow Jesus in embracing everyone, including those who are different. But sometimes our language and actions bely our own fear of those who are different. They may be subtle microaggressions or fully intentional acts that discriminate and hurt.

What I love about this passage is that Jesus indiscriminately lets the people come to him.

They brought to him all who were sick with various diseases and racked with pain, those who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytics, and he cured them. (Matthew 4:24)

He cured them. He cured them all. And many became his dear friends and followers.

It must have felt nice for persons who had suffered marginalization to find a place where they felt at home, loved, and on a mission they cared about. Maybe they were still using their crutches or had occasional meltdowns or had to struggle to cope with their demons. But they were there. Side by side with Jesus.

It takes me back to our first reading where each of us is address as Beloved. Perhaps this should always be where we begin any encounter with the other. Not the things we fear about them – possessed, lunatics, paralytics – but who they most truly are. Beloved.

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image : “Maa ootab” (The earth is waiting) by Herald Eelma, Estonia 1964

do not give into the weaponization of division

~ julie vieira ~ Leave a comment

Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
Lectionary: 493

Titus 3:1-7
Psalm 23:1-6
Luke 17:11-19

I can’t say that I am particularly enamored of first reading today. The first verse reminding the people “to be under the control of magistrates and authorities, to be obedient” struck a raw nerve with me particularly in light of how much we as a country have wrestled with what kind of leader we want and how we expect our government to serve “we the people”.

The author of the letter to Titus has a thing for keeping the peace in terms of the law and the household. The author, who wrote in the Apostle Paul’s name, insists that everyone play their part and dutifully fulfill their roles and responsibilities. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a problem when those roles and responsibilities are shaped by an ideology that grants some people their full human dignity while simultaneously denying it for others.

Though a member of the Christian community, the author of the letter to Titus sometimes reflects more the society around him, than the life of following Jesus the Christ. This particular section of his letter comes on the heels of his exhortations to “older women” that they be

reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited. (Titus 2:3-5)

“Duties for older and younger men are stated, but their duties are not connected to the household: their behavior to their wives and children is not mentioned.” (Joanna Dewey, “Titus” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 604) Similarly, while slaves are exhorted to obey their masters, there is no mention of the responsibilities of the masters in how to treat people who are enslaved. (Titus 2:9-10)

On the one hand, I can’t blame the author of Titus for reaffirming the status quo. Nobody wants mayhem. Nobody wants mass chaos. (The author doesn’t yet see how the status quo is also responsible for dehumanizing women and enslaved persons.)

On the other hand, the author of Titus knows better. He’s the same guy who eloquently calls people to “be peaceable, considerate, exercising all graciousness toward everyone.” And it is Titus who recognizes that we know how to be this way because of the mercy, “kindness and generous love of God”. (3:4-5)

In the new Christian communities, not only women and enslaved persons but lepers, strangers and other “normal candidates” for discrimination are given their full dignity and respect, at least as much as could be expressed at that time and place in history. Christians saw in Jesus the mercy, kindness and generous love of God extended to everyone. They also saw in Jesus one who did not discriminate based on gender, religion, age, politics, or cultural or social norms.

Reading between the lines, we see in the author of Titus a person still very much struggling to work out how everything fits together how to integrate his newfound life in Jesus and his teachings in a world that looked at values, roles and responsibilities, leadership, governance, and human dignity from a very different framework. Further, as a Christian leader, the author of Titus likely felt under pressure to conform to “the control of magistrates and authorities” so as not to cause waves for the newly-established Christian community.

His struggle was real.

And our struggle today is real too.

We live in a nation that is divided, vehemently divided. And some of our “magistrates and authorities” – as well as anyone with a fancy enough soap box – are weaponizing that divide and turning kin against one another.

We’ve got to sidestep this weaponization and not give into making enemies of our own kin, even in the name of the gospel. What do we choose to say, to do about the politics of our time from our rootedness in the mercy, kindness and generous love of God? How do we align ourselves with those who are discriminated against today (which may likely be ourselves) and at the same time reach out peaceably to our kin who would believe differently? How do we know when to angrily overturn the tables or turn the other cheek?

This is a time for deep discernment, my friends, personally and together as a community of faith.

There is work to be done.

As Jesus says to the Samaritan who was made clean from leprosy in today’s Gospel (Luke 17:19)

“Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”

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image : adapted from Santiago Gaughan / The Cougar

giving away everything in our lunch box

yellow tin lunch box illustrated as a school bus
~ julie vieira ~ Leave a comment

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | IHM Jubilee Eucharistic Celebration | July 27, 2024
Lectionary: 110

2 Kings 4:42-44
Psalm 145:10-11,15-16,17-18
Ephesians 4:1-6
John 6:1-15

Sisters, Brothers and Siblings, Hermanas y Hermanos: ¡Feliz Jubileo! Happy Jubilee!

Twenty-five years ago when I entered the IHM congregation as a novice, we stood in this chapel – at this altar – in the presence of the IHM president and community and expressed our desire to commit ourselves to God within the IHM mission. The then-president Virginia Pfau presented each of us a copy of the IHM Constitutions which are our rule of life. It sets out how we will live the liberating mission of God with one another on behalf of the church and world.

As Ginny handed us the Constitutions, she said a word or two. And then she said, “Take and enflesh the Constitutions”.

Enflesh the constitutions?? We were all taken aback. Those were strong words. Not just “read this” or “be inspired by this”, but enflesh the Constitutions. Make real with your very bodies the Constitutions. Make them alive and concrete in your life.

After receiving the Constitutions, we moved into the Eucharistic Rite and were invited, like every Eucharist, to take and become the Body and Blood of Jesus the Christ.

Eat. Drink. Enflesh. Do this in memory of me. Comer. Beber. Encarnar. Hacer esto en memoria de mi.

Today’s readings proclaim this central message of our vocation as Christians. In the gospel, John tells the story of Jesus’ of the multiplication of loaves and fish. It is an awesome event.

But John tells us this story not so much to dazzle us with Jesus’ miraculous feats, but to symbolize what Eucharist means: Jesus the Christ not only sustains us with God’s own life but satisfies us abundantly and overflowingly.

We know the story well. A throng of people follow Jesus, wanting to see more strange and marvel-filled wonders. Jesus, on the other hand, just wanted a quiet, mountain-side retreat with his disciples. But now he’s got a crowd of thousands, and those thousands are hungry. The rest, as they say, is history. One blessing and a few loaves and fish later, and everyone has more than enough to eat with leftovers to boot.

While the miracle is, well, miraculous, there is perhaps an even more important thing that happens in this story. Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment when Jesus realizes that the people are hungry and asks if there is any food. John writes: “Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, [responds] to Jesus, [saying] ‘There is a [child] here who has five barley loaves and two fish …’” (John 6:9)

Imagine the scene. Thousands upon thousands of people tired, hungry, and perhaps even getting a little disruptive — as any hangry person would know! Among them was a child with his lunch box: five loaves and two fish. John tells us that the loaves were made of barley, hinting that the child was from a poor family for barley bread is the ordinary food of the poor. We know no other details; however, we can imagine that this food likely was the last of what this boy’s family had, with no idea where the next meal might come from.

Still, the child brings his five barley loaves and two fish to one of the apostles. Perhaps he tugs on Andrew’s robe and shyly unwraps the food. People nearby laugh and say how cute the child is for thinking foolishly that the lunch box has enough food to make a dent in the crisis at hand. But all the child knows is that food is needed, and that they have something to share.

It would have been understandable for the child to hide the lunch box and have just enough to feed his family. But instead, the child chooses to give it all away and to risk going hungry. All that child knew to do was to answer the call to, in the prophet Elisha’s words, “give to the people to eat”.

I do not believe that this quiet act of faith was lost on Jesus. For Jesus, too, would give everything he had, his own body and blood for the sake of a world hungering for a deeper life of meaning and connection with God.

As I ponder what it means to be jubilarians – women religious in the IHM Community for 25, 60, 70, 75, and 80 years – I can’t help but think of these women who came to the congregation with whatever gifts, desires, energy, and hopes that they had – a loaf of barley bread here, a fish there. None of us have enough in our lunch box to heal the wounds of the world – to ease suffering, to end racism, to protect the queer community, to heal the earth, to liberate the captive. Yet the call is no different to us as it was to that child some 2000 years ago.

Give to the people to eat. Dar a la gente para comer.

We Jubilarians and indeed all of us gathered here in person and online – of whatever age, gender identity, culture, language, relationship status or spiritual persuasion – every one of us is called to give what we have, to empty our lunch boxes, and to trust that in doing so, something good and beautiful for the world will unfold. Indeed, God honors each of our few loaves and fish, and then goes further and provides for us abundantly, even when the odds are stacked against us.

Our God is a God of Providence, a God who guides us and cares for us in “concrete and immediate ways” in “the least things to the great events of the world and its history”. (Catechism of the Catholic Church §303)

As our foremothers the Oblate Sisters of Providence say, “Providentia providebit”. Providence provides. Years ago, I asked Sister Mary Alice Chineworth, OSP, an Oblate Sister of Providence, what exactly this means. She said,

Providence Spirituality is dependence upon God as Provider of all our needs, including our spiritual welfare.… Whatever we have, we know that it is gift of the spirit, and we must use it wisely and share it generously…. [It] enables us, with total trust in God’s Providence, to bring joy, healing and the liberating redemptive life of the suffering Jesus to the victims of poverty, racism and injustice despite contradictions, prejudice and pain.

Each of us is called to give not only our gifts – a loaf of bread here, a fish there – but our very life for the world – just like the child and their lunch box … just like Jesus and his total gift of self.

Therefore, “I urge you,” as Paul says to the Ephesians, “live in a manner worth of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.” (Ephesians 4:1-2)

Remember this: “take and become the body and blood of Jesus the Christ.”

Eat. Drink. Enflesh. Do this in memory of me. Comer. Beber. Encarnar. Hacer esto en memoria de mi..  

.

photo : Dan Iggers on Flickr

beyond the drama

underwater whale
~ julie vieira ~ 1 Comment

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
Lectionary: 226

Jonah 3:1-10
Psalm 51:3-4,12-13,18-19
Luke 11:29-32

Not gonna lie.

I am terribly disappointed that our reading from the book of Jonah today did NOT include mention of the whale – or as Jonah calls him the “big fish”.

Sadly, we are two chapters too late.

We missed all the drama.

  • We missed Jonah fleeing from God and hopping on the first ship out of town (1:3)
  • We missed God one-upping Jonah by “hurling a great wind upon the sea” where Jonah’s boat sailed (1:4)
  • We missed the sailors regretfully picking up Jonah and throwing him into the sea (1:15)
  • We missed the large fish swallowing up Jonah (1:17) and carrying him in his belly for three days and three nights to Nineveh.

And by one measly verse, we missed the large fish vomiting Jonah upon dry land (2:11)

Instead, we get absolutely zero drama in our readings today. Not even a goldfish-sized drama.  Frankly, I think Jonah is a little surprised in this scene too, what with everything that happened to get him to Nineveh. Part of his resistance to going to Nineveh was that it was the capital of the Assyrian empire which was a constant threat to Israel. It was also well known as a violent city.

Jonah had several good reasons for not wanting to go to Nineveh:

  1. if he was not successful in his mission, the Assyrians of Nineveh would likely kill him;
  2. if he was successful, this would be even worse, because the “evil” Nineveh would be spared; and
  3. if Nineveh was spared because of their repentance, this would be a major point of humiliation for Israel who themselves had a hard time repenting.

It’s a surprise then to learn today in our readings that the “violent” Assyrians of Nineveh put up no fight to Jonah’s message. There was not even one ounce of drama to be had. In fact, scripture says:

“when [Jonah] had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, ‘Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,’ the people of Nineveh including the King believed God and repented.

Jonah 3:4-6; emphasis mine

Jonah must have been shocked at this turn of events. Perhaps in his heart he heard the quiet words the Psalmist.

“A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.”

Jonah 51:19

We all deal with a lot of drama in our lives. Family drama. Relationship drama. Community drama. Political drama. Health drama. And of course my favorite ego drama starring myself in all of the roles. My intention is not to minimize these experiences for they signify the intense experiences – good and/or bad – that we have negotiating our place in the world.

I really missed the whale drama today. But sometimes, like today, the drama isn’t even part of the story, but it’s a memory that we hold on to, cherished as a good or bad memory.

Our reading today is a reminder that just beyond the drama – or perhaps even a quiet pause within the drama – is dry land. It may take us 3 days and 3 nights to get there or it may take us a few seconds or years.  

In this Lenten season, we are called to be aware of the dramas of life, and also to sit quietly – be it in our easy chair, the drivers seat, a hospital bed, or the belly of a whale.

To sit quietly and allow God’s mercy and grace to hold us and perhaps even heave us into a new direction.  

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photo : Gabriel Dizzi on Unsplash

leave it all behind

~ julie vieira ~ Leave a comment

Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 487
Romans 13:8-10
Psalm 112:1b-2, 4-5, 9
Luke 14:25-33

Today we meet Jesus, ever the itinerant preacher, on the road again. He’s not traveling alone. His band of close friends and disciples has now become a great crowd of people – people who have been healed by Jesus, fed by Jesus, embraced by Jesus.

I imagine that people were feeling pretty good, perhaps even on fire in their hearts for all that they were experiencing and hearing from Jesus. They were all for trekking out into the desert, across the sea — wherever Jesus was headed.

And then he turns around and faces the crowd and says,

“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.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

…
                        …
                                               …

The silence is palpable. This road trip just got real.

How could Jesus say those things? Hate my those who have taken care of me? Hate my partner, my best friend, my siblings, and children? Hate myself?

I think there may be times in our life where we have wanted to banish everything from our life and focus on God alone. Let it all go, cut ourselves off, and live with single-hearted devotion to God. Many of us have even gone so far as to hate self – especially if we have been taught that we are not good enough, less than, or worthless. We have no problem denying ourselves and carrying our own cross because that’s what we’ve done our whole lives!

But we know Jesus better than this. Jesus is love, not hatred. What does he mean then when he says that to follow him is to hate everyone else?

“Hate” is a strong word and scholars say that it was likely used intentionally by Jesus. His use of the word reflects a Jewish style of argument used to demonstrate the force or passion underlying Jesus message, and that is, the importance of loving God above all else. That doesn’t mean to hate or vilify anyone; rather “hate” in this context is understood more in the sense of “love less”. Now that idea of loving less sounds like a negative.

“I love you, ehh, but I love you less than I love Billie.”

I’d be kinda hurt by that!

But I think when Jesus invites us to love God more, it’s not about a hierarchy of love, it’s not a binary of better or worse. Love is not quantifiable. It’s more like what Margaret Brennan taught me when I entered the community – all of your affections get rearranged. I think that’s true here to. When Jesus calls us to follow him, we need to rearrange our “affections” – our relationships, our priorities, what we give our energy to.

And so yes, let go of everything. Be willing to trek out into the desert, to cross the tumultuous seas, to make adjustments in relationships and rearrange priorities. But love? Don’t give that up.

As Paul writes to the Roman community, “Owe nothing to anyone, except love.”

“Owe nothing to anyone, except love.”

Have no attachments, nothing that binds you – except love.

photo : Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash