SPOKANE, Wash. (RNS) "After suffering a fractured pelvis during an early season bike training, Sister Madonna Buder sat up in the middle of the road and did what she always does: She talked to God.
“Lord, what are you doing this for?” she asked.
“I got this little answer: ‘Well, did you think that maybe I’m preserving you from something worse, even if it be yourself?’” Buder said recounting the moment
Known as “the Iron Nun” for competing in the grueling Ironman competitions, Buder is a member of the noncanonical Sisters for Christian Community and a frequent conversationalist with God.
Last week she was inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame in Chicago, and at almost 84 years old (her birthday is July 24), she holds the world record for the oldest woman to ever finish an Ironman triathlon."
The middle part of today’s Gospel passage contradicts the beginning and
the end In the high Christology of the late first-century church, it
restricts revelation to those who follow Jesus. It excludes. In the first
part of the passage, though, Jesus calls for radical inclusion. Those who
are the least—the powerless children, the ones who don’t count, those with
no standing in the society— Jesus says that God speaks directly to
them; they understand what escapes the educated and the clever. According
to the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, Jesus would have said something just
like that. Jesus’ message regularly overturns the prevailing
authority— the religious and the military and the political— who hold
their power by domination. The final part of today’s passage contains a
proverb commonly known to the people of the time, my yoke is easy and my
burden is light. It fits with the inclusion of the first part. Entrance
into the reign of God is easy. It’s simple enough for children. It doesn’t
require the intercession of the educated or the
powerful. ___________________________________________ Remember what it was
like when you were or five or six? When I was growing up back on the
farm, time had a different quality about it. It comes back to me from time
to time during these days of my retirement when I’m in the garden or on
retreat, a kind of suspension of the need to be efficient and
effective, of the need to care how I look or who’s looking, when time
seems to disappear in the face of a flower or the glow of a rainbow, the
flash of the fireflies… even in the happy chuckle of a clucking
chicken. Reality breaks in on the artificial, shatters it and sends it
packing. These days I know a lot more about biology and cosmology, but the
contemplation of reality can still stir me to awe and wonder, can still
bring me back to the joy that Zechariah celebrates in our first
reading, the dominion of peace and freedom that comes not from an
army but from the meek, the lowly, the ordinary. As Paul’s letter to the
Romans puts it, the Spirit of God dwells in
us. ____________________________________ Not every child has the
experience of God’s peaceful presence. This week we heard a lot about
children seeking asylum here from the terrors of their homeland— the
domestic abuse, gang violence, human trafficking, or extreme poverty in their
home countries. Like the children of Jesus’ time, they are powerless. Yet
they seek freedom and peace. God speaks to them in their hearts of liberty
and hope. _____________________________________ This weekend we celebrate
our Independence. How different for us the sound of exploding
fireworks, the flares in the night, than for the hundreds of thousands of
people around the world whose homes are bombed, whose neighborhoods are
strafed. For us the sound and sight is liberating; for them it is pure
terror. That’s the kind of terror Jesus and his neighbors knew— the terror
of an occupying army and greedy landowners and corrupt leaders. Jesus
walked into the midst of that terror and proclaimed that God’s reign was
within them. That Good News healed their flagging spirits, kindled hope in
them, empowered them to stand straight and walk tall, to follow Jesus’ Way
in freedom and holiness. _____________________________________ We do not
suffer the terrors of so many around our globe, but we will not be truly free
until everyone is free— until everyone has the luxury of a retreat, a walk
in a peaceful garden, instead of flight to a refugee camp; until everyone
has the joy of celebrating their independence, instead of fearing domination
and war; until everyone has the resources to provide plentiful, healthy
food for themselves and their family and their neighbors, instead of
begging for a bowl of rice to share among too many sick and starving
children. Martin Luther King said it well in his Letter from a Birmingham
Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught
in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of
destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” In the
midst of the trouble and tyranny of his time, God gave Jesus an insight that
drove his life: the kin-dom of God is within you. Fr. Diarmuid O’Murchu
writes that the Greek translation hides what Jesus meant by the reign of
God. In his native Aramaic it was the “companionship of
empowerment”— the truth that we live in relationship and thrive in
relationship, that relationship empowers each and every one of us. That
meaning is embedded in the Trinity metaphor of our Roman Catholic
tradition. That is, God exists in relationship, lives in
relationship, acts in relationship, heals through relationship. And that
relationship includes us. The new cosmology gives us scientific and expanded
vision into the interrelatedness of creation, the ancient insight that all
is connected—all is in relationship. So: God IS, God is BEING, God is
within everything. It’s the burning bush message of I AM WHO AM. Nothing
is outside of God. God is within us and within everything we can see or
imagine. God is, by the way, even more than that, and we can’t even
imagine what that is. What we have to imagine is how we can spread the Good
News— that the kin-dom of God is within us— so that everyone can hear it
and live in it. For us here at Holy Spirit, we individually spend time and
energy on the Family Promise rotating homeless shelter, Assumption
Outreach Center, Claver House, Pax Christi, anti-racism, the
protests against war and executions and drones and GMOs… and as a
community we devote ourselves to the environment. Like Jesus, we are sent to
tell the Good News: the kin-dom is within us. Glory be to God!
--
Holy Spirit Catholic Community at 3535 Executive Parkway (Unity of
Toledo) Saturdays at 4:30 p.m. Sundays at 9 a.m. Sundays at 5:30
p.m. www.holyspirittoledo.org
Our Sister ARCWP Priest, Rvda.Olga Lucia Alvarez Benjumea presides at a marriage and baptism culminating in an open Eucharistic celebration in an ecumenical gathering of the church in Colombia.
Rvda. Olga Lucia is saying here that the church is inclusive and the Sacraments are open to all. Families and friends of the couple were overjoyed to witness the marriage of Ana and Ramiro and the baptism of Samuel Esteban, the baby. At the end Rvda. Alvarez calls the church a joyful “pluraversity”-beyond being universal the church is made up of a plurality of diverse groups.
We are thankful to share this beautiful occasion via Olga Lucia’s blog-below.
CLICK and go to Olga Lucia’s Blog. You can also hit translate if you want more of a translation but the beautiful pictures are self explanatory and worth a thousand words.
We are thankful to Rvda. Olga Lucia for sharing this with us.
Uy! Que palabra tan rara y extraña a la vista y los oídos de mucha gente; “eclesiología”, eso no se escucha sino en los seminarios y se lee en los tratados de teología. Pero, ¿qué quiere decir? ¿Por qué es importante que la conozcamos?
Dicen, que es una parte de la teología, que nos ayuda a no borrar el desarrollo histórico de la Iglesia. Aclaremos un poco para no enredarnos. Esa palabra salió del griego ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), si la pasamos al latín, tenemos ecclesia. Así ya se nos va pareciendo a una palabra más conocida: IGLESIA! Que quiere decir reunión de gente, asamblea. ¿Quiénes formamos la Iglesia? Todos los bautizados, mujeres y hombres. ¿Dónde nació la Iglesia? ¿No sabes? Te lo voy a contar. En casas de familia. En las casa de Febe, (Romanos 16:1-2), En casa de la pareja Priscila, Aquila;(Hechos 18), Junia, (Romanos 16:7) Lidia, (Romanos 16:14)…
The readings for today are among the most comforting and hopeful of our Sunday readings. They speak hope of peace in time of war( Zechariah 9: 9-10). They speak of a God of compassion who lifts up the falling (Psalm 145).They speak life while experiencing inner death( Romans 8:9,11-13). And they speak of Christ sharing the secrets of God’s ways with the simple,humble and young among us. They speak of rest for the weary and the overburdened laborer, and of Christ’s assistance in following God’s laws. They speak of rest for our very souls.(Matthew: 11:25-30). Each reading was for a very different audience in time and place, yet each speaks to us today.
The disciples of the prophet Zechariah living in a time of war and oppression under Greek domination in the 3rd or fourth Century BC (9:9) speaks of a time when peace will be proclaimed to the nations, when the Messianic Prince of Peace will come, not as an arrogant political ruler but as a just liberator, meek and riding on a donkey. The writers of the Gospels used this prophecy to describe Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. How we still long for peace in our troubled world especially in the Near and Middle East as the very places where Jesus walked and taught are besieged by war that seems unending. And yet, the hope is clear. Perhaps we haven’t learned yet that war begets war, violence begets violence,terrorism begets more terrorism, and swords are best when beaten into plowshares. We haven’t learned how to follow the Prince of Peace when it means anti nuclear activism and courageous actions for peace like those of Sr.Megan Rice and the Plowshares Now three. We haven’t learned to be brave enough not to fight. The peace to be proclaimed is up to us.
War is a horrific way to live the way of death, but we can also live it within our daily lives and within ourselves. There are so many ways to choose death over life, every single day. Last Sunday was a day of rejoicing in our church for two reasons, one was that the congregation prayed for me and laid hands on me as I faced an exploratory procedure with a possibility of another cancer according to my symptoms. I felt their strong faith and love and their healing touch and surrounded by their prayers and so many other prayers,my worries fell away and I felt I would be okay. ( On Tuesday I learned that the culprit was not a tumor but a big jagged kidney stone doing its damage,and it was removed. I was never so happy to learn about a kidney stone in all of my days! I felt that my mortal body was brought again to life (Romans 8:11 and that the Spirit interceded for me when I didn’t even know how to pray(Romans 8:26)). Pearl Cudjoe, our wonderful sister hugged me after church and said to me”Pastor Judy, You will be fine this time”, and indeed I was. Oh, the faith of this people.
The other reason for joy last Sunday was that one of our teenagers joined a gang almost two years ago and his beautiful potential was eclipsed by guns, drugs and violence tragically affecting not only himself but his whole family. The family and our church walked a fine line of loving him and pulling him back without accepting his life threatening choices. I cannot enumerate the number of Sundays when we prayed for him. I cannot tell you how many tears his Grandmother, the family matriarch, shed. But last Sunday the door opened and he walked into our midst. He sat in the front row and when we prayed I held him in my arms and heard his prayers. We sang together “Here I am, Lord, Is it I Lord, I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me…” Our Elder who knew well the road the boy had chosen spoke lovingly and strongly to him. His family members shed tears of joy and smiled through the tears. As a congregation we rejoiced with him-as he was filled with life once again. In our older teen class we asked him “what made you return?”. He said, “I needed peace with God”. “Have you found it?” “”I have”. He knew deeply “The One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you….(and) will also bring (you) to life (Romans 8: 11)”. We know this is an ongoing process, but it has begun.
“Come unto me,all you who are weary and burdened ,and I will give you rest” (Matt 11: 28.) Oh, the weariness of those who loved this young man and worked to hold on to him lest he slip away forever. We have had several killings by gunshot to mourn already this year. This time the rest Jesus promised came in the form of a young man starting to turn his life around in our very midst. You could literally hear us breathe out and let the anxiety for his life rest in Jesus’ arms. Our people have many burdens. They work very hard and make barely minimum wage. Many perform exhausting physical labor. They are physically tired and hardly dare to hope that things will get better. They carry a range of illnesses and constant pain. They struggle with just getting by in a land of plenty where other people seem to have everything and they do not know if they can pay both the rent and the electric bill. And yet, they trust and know the rest that Jesus promises here. They know the rest for their souls that comes in relationship with a compassionate and loving God who lifts up the falling and doesn’t add extra burdens to discipleship. They seek to follow Jesus and know the yoke is light because it is Jesus the Christ who works alongside them, carrying the burden, on the other side of the yoke. They, like the rural peasants Jesus spoke with on the mountain and the plain, in the hills and in the streets of the city, are the chosen ones who know that the ‘true religion’ Jesus represents is the law of love, in relationship with the God who is Love and the love of a faith community. At the end of the Mass, Pearl spoke up and asked that we make our last hymn “I’ve got the Joy, Joy,Joy ,Joy down in my heart” because of God’s promises and the return of our young man. And so we did!
Thanks be to God. Amen. Pastor Judy Lee, ARCWP CO_Pastor The Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community Fort Myers, Florida
PITTSBURGH -- "When Pope Francis declared last week that organized crime figures are "excommunicated" from the Catholic Church, he wasn't making a formal legal declaration against any individuals by name...When instead of adoring the Lord, one substitutes the adoration of money, one opens the path to sin, personal interests and exploitation," Pope Francis said in a homily at an outdoor Mass to the estimated crowd of about 250,000 near the town of Sibari. "When one does not adore the Lord God, one becomes an adorer of evil, like those who live lives of crime and violence. Your land, which is so beautiful, knows the signs and consequences of this sin. This is what the 'Ndrangheta is: the adoration of evil and contempt for the common good."He added: "Those who follow the path of evil, like the mafiosi do, are not in communion with God; they are excommunicated!"Past popes have also spoken out against organized crime, but Francis is the first to use the word "excommunicated," according to Vatican watchers. He has previously prayed with victims of mob violence and formally beatified a priest killed in 1993 by the Mafia..."
Bridget Mary's Response: It is time for Pope Francis to lift the excommunication of Roman Catholic Women Priests. We are faithful followers of Christ who dedicate our lives to service of God's people. We do not belong in the same category as the Mafia. Women priests lead inclusive, egalitarian Catholic communities in 10 countries where all are invited to receive sacraments in the spirit of Jesus' example in the Gospels. Bridget Mary Meehan, www.arcwp.org
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests gather for ordination of four women in Jan. 2014
Today Martha Aida Soto visited our ARCWP Sisters, Judy Lee and Judy Beaumont from Ft. Myers, Katy Zatsick from Sun City and Bridget Mary Meehan from Sarasota! Martha presented Bridget Mary with a beautiful hand woven stole of Mary Mother of Jesus! See stunning stole below. It is a work of art, loving blessing and affirmation from her Sisters in a co-op of artists in Colombia. Muchas Gracias, Hermanas y Hermana Martha Aida Soto!
left to right: ARCWP Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan and Priest Martha Aida Soto.
ARCWP priests Judy Lee and Judy
Beaumont drove Martha's family from Ft. Myers to Sarasota. Katy Zatsick, ARCWP joined
us for a meal at Der Dutchman in Sarasota. What a joy to be together and celebrate justice rising up for women in South America and around the globe in the Roman Catholic Church!
..."It requires a quality of spiritual
focus, largely unknown to mainline religions, and therefore, a resource we must
also co-create at this time. Barbara Marx Hubbard expresses it well in these
words:
“Conscious Evolution is a new
worldview that is now emerging rapidly and garnering worldwide interest and
support. It acknowledges that humankind has attained unprecedented powers to
affect, control and change the evolution of life on Earth. . . Conscious Evolution
is at the core a spiritually motivated endeavor. Its precepts reside at the
heart of every great faith, affirming that humans have the potential of being
co- creators with Spirit, with the deeper patterns of nature and universal
design.”
Humankind is now in the process of
shifting our normal state of awareness from an individual/ego point of view to
a global/spiritual point of view, and our basic choice is to cooperate with
that process and help it along. We must let go of all the patriarchal domination,
still so endemic to our politics and religions. Empowered by the wisdom of the
great mystics, we must learn to submit to where the Great Spirit leads, and
make the many adjustments evolution is asking of us at this time. From here on
we are called to be a participatory and discerning species, not a dominating
and controlling one.
As we shift away from the old,
self-destructive patterns of competing for energy and towards a higher
spiritual potential, we evolve collectively towards a culture that is oriented
to co-creative growth and less focused on outer technologies, as a means for
survival. By being in harmony with the universal flow, we begin to “vibrate” at
a frequency that brings us into unifying alignment with the Source and also
with one another. In that way we move towards the new freedom, the deepest
aspiration of all the great religions, and central truth of the great mystical
traditions known to humankind."
Some
recommended reading:
Hubbard,
Barbara Marx. 1998. Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social
Potential.
The
Women's Ordination
Conference (WOC) is deeply saddened by yesterday's announcement that human
rights lawyer and founder of the Mormon organization Ordain Women, Kate Kelly,
was excommunicated by her church.
WOC
stands in solidarity with Kate, the members of Ordain Women, and all those who
bravely challenge sexism in religion. This excommunication affects us all.
Kate
followed her conscience and heart when she started Ordain Women, building a
groundswell of feminist voices within the Mormon Church. She created a safe
space for Mormons to speak freely about gender inequality in their religion and
to challenge the sexist traditions that exclude women from ordination simply
because of their biology.
As
an organization that works for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic
Church, we understand our sisters' pain and longing for dignity, equality and
justice in their faith community. We know from experience that the inappropriate
use of excommunication as a means to punish those who challenge sexism cannot
and will not stop the call for women's equality in our religious
institutions.
Only
when our religious leaders stop clinging to a culture of male
privilege and dialogue with women as equal partners, will they begin to model
Jesus' gospel message of justice. Communication, not excommunication, is long
overdue.
In
closing, Kate, know your Catholic sisters are standing in solidarity beside
you. We are confident that despite this attempt to silence you, the movement
you started is unstoppable and on the right side of history. You are in our
constant prayers. And in words of the Carolyn McDade song we sang together at
our joint Equal in Faith gathering,
"it may be rocky and it may be rough, but sister, carry
on."
Bishops: left to right bottom row, Olivia Doko, Bridget Mary Meehan, Regina Nicolosi, Joan Houk top row, Nancy Meyer, Christine Mayr Lumetzberger, Andrea Johnson, Maria Bouclin
I think this quote sums up the playfulness of the God of Surprises. Is this your experience? It is mine! "Religion degenerates into religiousity when God is absolutized...when fixed structures cannot adapt to changing circumstances. Excessive order paradoxically drifts towards chaos. which unexpectedly creates the conditions for the creative emergence of new patterns of order. The livingness of God disrupts and disfigures every stablizing structure, thereby keeping the playful whole in movement. Just when we think we have certainty of God, divinity will slip out from our evolutionary feet, and like the speed of light elude our grasp to become for us the power of the future." Sister Illia Delio in The Unbearable Wholeness of Being
Erika Woods, Judy Hayes, Millie Brady, Bridget Mary Meehan, Lauren Basile, Mary Weber
Members of Gaia Book Club meet for dinner and discussion of Bridget Mary Meehan's Praying with Celtic Holy Women. Members are Millie Brady, Erika Woods, Judy Hayes, Lauren Basile, Peggy Alderman and Mary Weber.
"As a girl, Nancy Louise Meyer knew she was called to priestly ministry. Growing up in 1960s Ohio, her first thought was to become a Franciscan sister, which she did, serving as a secondary school teacher and associate vocation director for the Cincinnati archdiocese. But the call to priesthood stayed with her, and in 2010, she was ordained as a Roman Catholic Womanpriest."
"Sunday, Meyer became the first Roman Catholic Womenpriests bishop from the state of Indiana, where she has lived for 25 years and now pastors a home church community.
"The importance is never being the first," she said in an interview before her ordination. "I think the importance is living out my vocation with God's grace. It is a privilege to respond to my region's call to me by selecting me as bishop."
Meyer, who will serve as bishop of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests' Midwest region, is succeeding Bishop Regina Nicolosi, who is retiring.
Organizers said about 150 attended Sunday's ordination, which took place at Calvary United Methodist Church in Brownsburg with seven female bishops presiding, including Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, one of the Danube Seven, the first seven women ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement in 2002.Mayr-Lumetzberger, the self-proclaimed grandmother of the movement, traveled to Brownsburg from Austria for the ordination and said she was proud of how far they had come in the 12 years since her ordination. Yet she also said she hoped women priests would one day gain more acceptance, especially from other Catholic women, who she said have a tendency to cut down women who take a stand within the church.
"They should accept that calls are different," she said. "In every life are different calls, and every woman and every man has different calls. Say thank you for every call you have. This is what I wish for the other women. I wish they would support us and go hand-in-hand with us. That would be nice..."
[Dawn Cherie Araujo is a staff writer for Global Sisters Report, a project of National Catholic Reporter. Her email address is daraujo@ncronline.org.]
Thank you, Rev. Chava for this beautiful reflection on the children in the Body of Christ. We join you in prayer for them and their desperate families. And we pray for our Nation that they may be welcomed and cared for here as God’s own children and that our part in their countries’ struggles will turn from exploitation to caring support.
Oscar Romero Inclusive Catholic Church Bulletin for Sunday, June 22, 2014 Feast of Corpus Christi Dear friends, Central America is bleeding children. As many as 60,000 children have entered the United States across our southern border in 2014, and there must be more on the way. They come fleeing violence, sometimes running from gangs that told them, “join or die.” They come believing that the United States will take care of them. How desperate do you have to be to let your child go on such a dangerous journey? In all the immigration debate in this country, I have heard much about whether people ought to be allowed to stay, but little about why they come here in the first place. – and almost nothing about United States policies that help to create and maintain the poverty and violence in their home countries. The first time I visited El Salvador in 2005 there were many surprises. The first was the realization as we got off the plane, that we could have walked there. It would have taken an awful long time, but it we could have. And millions have walked that journey, heading north instead of south. The second was the ubiquitous presence of the United States in this Central American country. You cannot walk down a street in El Salvador without being aware of the existence of the most powerful country in the world. I began to understand what it means to be part of an empire as I looked at the familiar corporate logos on streets in El Salvador. One day we climbed a steep dirt path to visit a community clinging to life on the side of a mountain. All the houses were made of sticks and found materials, some without roofs, with curtains for doors. And there among some of the poorest people in the world, stuck to a wall I saw an advertisement for a Disney movie. Our presence is in the air they breathe. I visited a little town that had experienced earth tremors which they believed to have been caused by some deep drilling being done by a North American company in the hills nearby. Those tremors knocked down about half the town. Another time, we heard about the companies mining for gold, using chemicals to leach gold from the earth, destroying the very land. And I heard about the gangs that were forming. Then, as now, El Salvador was losing hundreds of people daily to the trek to the north – and the ones that came back were usually criminals, jailed in the US and then deported – returning to El Salvador to form gangs, using knowledge they’d gained in prison. And not only El Salvador, but Guatemala and Honduras, the countries from which those children are fleeing, now. On my second visit to El Salvador, my friend Ruth Orantes took me on a tour of the Baptist High School in Santa Ana. As we stood together looking at a map of El Salvador, she asked me, “So what do people in the United States say about El Salvador?” It hurt to have to tell her the truth. “They don’t,” I said. “I’m not sure most people even know it exists.” We need to know that those countries exist, and that they are full of people, people who need the same things that you and I do – food and shelter, education and health care, the opportunity to grow and live and learn. They are not there for us to exploit. Their countries are not America’s trash can, where we throw what we do not need or want. But that is how we treat them. I do not know the solution to the current crisis. But I know that a country that bleeds its children is a country screaming in pain. We have got to realize that we are part of what is causing that pain. Jesuit Jon Sobrino once wrote from El Salvador of the “scandalous profligacy of the North.” Perhaps there is also the scandalous ignorant blindness of the North. Let us be the country these children believe us to be, when they risk their lives to come here. Love to all Chava Oscar Romero Church An Inclusive Community of Liberation, Justice and Joy Worshiping in the Catholic Tradition Mass: Sundays, 11 am St Joseph’s House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620
Bishop Regina Nicolosi, presiding bishop at ordination of Nancy Meyer of Midwestern Region/RCWP USA
left to right front row: Bishops of RCWP: Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, Joan Hou,k, Great Waters, middle row, Regina Nicolosi, Midwest, Nancy Meyer, newly ordained Marie Bouclin, Canada back row, Andrea Johnson, East, Olivia Doko, West, Christin Mayr-Lumetzberger, Europe East
Bridget Mary Meehan lays hands on Nancy Meyer
Final Blessing of Ordination Liturgy
Joan Houk/Final blessing
RCWP Priests and Bishops
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP and Mary Weber, ARCWP
Joan Houk and Bridget Mary Meehan after Ordination of Nancy Meyer
Bishop Andrea Johnson hugs Nancy Meyer at Sign of Peace
Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan lays hands on Nancy Meyer
In a joyful celebration Nancy Meyer became Indiana's first female bishop on June 22, 2014.
BROWNSBURG – Brownsburg's Nancy Louise Meyer said she was first called to the Roman Catholic priesthood as a young girl growing up in Dayton, Ohio. But because the church does not recognize the ordination of women, she believed her call would forever go unanswered. "As we did in those days, we always went to Mass daily," she said. "It was sixth grade when ... I had the total sense of God calling me to the priestly ministry, which wasn't even an option for a Catholic girl in the 1950s..."
On this Sunday we remember Jesus’ gift of himself . Jesus gave himself in radical love. This meant long exhausting days surrounded and pursued by people in need of teaching and healing, challenging the shortcomings of established religion, and spending short nights with not enough sleep, body broken, blood poured out for all of humanity in the way he lived his life and in his death. Compassion for the poor and outcast especially moved him. He was on fire for them and against injustice. He asked the same of those who would follow him (Matthew 25). He gave it all so we could know and feel to the core of our very beings the meaning of “love one another”. Indeed on this special Sunday we are filled with thanksgiving and love for Jesus the Christ who gave it all.
In the Eucharist, the feast of thanksgiving and Holy Communion, we partake of the Body of Christ in all of its forms. We believe in the mystery of Christ- on the Table in the bread and wine, at the Table and all around the Table. Our readings of the day say that God nourished his people in the wilderness by providing a special substance called manna (Deuteronomy 8). God feeds God’s people on the finest wheat (Psalm 47). The Epistle reading says: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we , though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (I Cor. 10-16-170.) We are nourished by his real presence in the bread and wine and in the people of God. The Sacrament is on the altar, yes, but in every one of us as we are the Body of Christ-we are the Sacrament of Christ’s love in the world. Most especially as we serve the poor and broken we know exhaustion and challenge as Jesus did, and we also see the face of Christ everywhere, being served and serving with us. We know a little of what it meant to be bread for the world as Jesus was (John 6:51-58). We know how this Bread gives us life now and forever and how we can leave no one behind as we share this life giving Bread. Some of these thoughts are from my book Come By Here: Church with the Poor, AmericaStarBooks.com,2010,now available in Spanish as well. The reason I include this citation is that the stories of the lives of those served and serving with us as we ministered to the homeless and poor outside in the streets and inside in our church house illuminate the essence of the body of Christ broken, yet whole. Here is the Corpus Christi reflection of another street minister, Rev. James Patrick Hall an Episcopal priest serving the homeless in Tulsa, Oklahoma: ” Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, and I would dearly love to join a Procession in the streets, attend a High Mass, with clouds of incense and deep throated choirs intoning “Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen”….but… Today is also the day we have our Church on the street here in Tulsa, Thursday Night Light, and as much as I love the ancient worship of our Church, I love being with my street Church even more. So, as I thought about this, I realized there will be no conflict; Christ is most truly Present in the people gathered tonight. I will see as Colossians 1:27 says, a great mystery; Christ Present in His people gathered. In this great Communion of the Street, I can bow before Christ and confess Ave Verum Corpus Christi (Hail True Body of Christ) ! Colossians 1:27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ‘Humbly I adore Thee, Verity unseen, Who Thy glory hiddest ’neath these shadows mean; Lo, to Thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed…’” Precious Body, Precious Blood, Precious Jesus, we, your people love you and remember. Grant us the strength to follow you and to be nourished by your love as we bring the Bread of Life to the world. Amen Pastor Judy Lee, ARCWP Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community Fort Myers, Florida
Originally posted on Evangelizadoras de los apóstoles:
The readings for today are among the most comforting and hopeful of our Sunday readings.
The readings for today are among the most comforting and hopeful of our Sunday readings.
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In the Eucharist, the feast of thanksgiving and Holy Communion, we partake of the Body of Christ in all of its forms. We believe in the mystery of Christ- on the Table in the bread and wine, at the Table and all around the Table. Our readings of the day say that God nourished his people in the wilderness by providing a special substance called manna (Deuteronomy 8). God feeds God’s people on the finest wheat (Psalm 47). The Epistle reading says: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we , though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (I Cor. 10-16-170.) We are nourished by his real presence in the bread and wine and in the people of God. The Sacrament is on the altar, yes, but in every one of us as we are the Body of Christ-we are the Sacrament of Christ’s love in the world. Most especially as we serve the poor and broken we know exhaustion and challenge as Jesus did, and we also see the face of Christ everywhere, being served and serving with us. We know a little of what it meant to be bread for the world as Jesus was (John 6:51-58). We know how this Bread gives us life now and forever and how we can leave no one behind as we share this life giving Bread.
